UKC

James Pearson has made a rare repeat of the highball 8A+ boulder 29 Dots in Valle dell'Orco, Italy.

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Boulder problem my arse.

Nice honest account. Definitely a very different feeling when you get to the top of something bold when you've been in control vs scared shitless!

Amazing that the FA was done ground-up, with, presumably, no knowledge of how hard the top bit was going to be.

The first ascent wasn't a true ground-up, a full ab inspection and at least a bit of toproping was involved.

From a UKC article "This year I stopped again and decided to rappel down. There were some ''safe“ crimps on the upper part of the wall. At the bottom I found some razorblade holds to start. After three goes my fingers were bleeding. After a few days of effort I was finally halfway up the wall, but I didn't find any features to get into the headwall. The 'Drop Zone' was also very close to a steel girder, lying on the ground. Some falls later I decided to check this sequence with a rope. It took me two days to find a safe solution. I put the rope away and started again ground up. A week later I made the first ascent of 29dots with the mental support of Danilo, a local from Noasca. "

Which unclearly implies that the top bit wasn't practiced. 

From the angle of the trees and the spotter, it looks like the camera is off vertical, so it's actually steeper than it looks.

Really appreciate James's honesty on this as someone who has just had a similar experience (albeit at considerable lower grades) but didn't walk away (ambulance of shame for me). Sometimes it is so easy to let desire to get 'the tick' outweigh experience and good judgement.

Also if 14m is a boulder problem, Peak grit needs to have a word with itself!

And so does Frankenjura!

Hope your recovery goes well ebdon! I had two grounders over the years myself and I read James's write up in fascination.

My last grounder was a bolt coming out, a freak accident but it tamed me.

Thanks for pointing that out, I've rewritten that first bit to add some additional detail.

With two poo stops to bring him down to earth..!!  Ha!  Brilliant.

The stories of folk climbing hard after kids always interest me.  So many different aspects to them.  What James and Caro are doing is mind-boggling though and must take a load of mutual support which is great to get a sense of.   

I think I've climbed my hardest since having kids only because the opportunities to climb are so much less.

Lattice need to sort their plans out

Yes, I can picture it now.  Sign up.  Load the app.  Open the app.  White noise plays continuously and you stand a 5% chance of getting a better night's sleep...

Thanks for that. Gosh, even James wouldn't have called that ground-up! I wonder what Bernd means when he says it's the hardest he has done "in that style". Ropeless above a mat?

Brilliant little article and nail biting vid.  Wonder if he has footage of the earlier fall that day. Editing it in would make the vid even more tense.

Fascinating to see the whole risk/reward/injury thing playing out between two partners with very young kids.  Similar theme to thousands of conversations around the world I guess, but with a unique dynamic I guess as they both perform at such a high level in the sport.

And just to be clear, I'm not judging in any way.  

You live to climb another day being wiser. I hope you recover physically and mentally. I have made the same mistake at least once but got away with it… on a rope. My partner gave me a stern talking to. He didn’t need to lay it thick though. I was already somewhat subdued at the belay. When a victory doesn’t feel like one…

Or simply it is just old fashion, but incredibly hard, soloing?

A great climber, and a great writer about climbing. 

Bloody hell. I felt gripped just reading that. 

What a refreshingly honest write-up. It reminded me of Mark Twight's writing on the same subject.

"Every great climber turns back too soon on occasion - or waits too long to retreat, goes past the point of no return and is forced to 'fail upward'....Learn to turn back before losing all ability to influence what will happen to you."

Wise words that I sometimes find too easy to forget.