UKC

Jeff Mercier: D13 Onsight and more

© Andrew Rutherford

Jeff Mercier - French alpinist, mountain guide and member of the Chamonix mountain rescue team (PGHM) - recently visited the UK to sample some of our hardest dry-tooling routes.

During his trip Jeff onsighted Greg Boswell's Powerdab D13 - contender for the hardest route of its kind in the UK and a grade not thought to have been onsighted before - at The Works, Hodge Close and also managed to complete Guardian of the Underworld D13 over a two-day period before returning to France. 

Jeff Mercier onsighting Powerdab D13  © Andrew Rutherford
Jeff Mercier onsighting Powerdab D13
© Andrew Rutherford

Prior to his session at The Works, Jeff took part in the Scottish Tooling Series round at Glasgow Climbing Centre and won the competition. He had also previously managed a very respectable 2nd place in the Red Bull White Cliffs event held on the Isle of Wight in October.

As training for his whistle-stop tour of the UK's drytooling, Jeff was repeating a D13 route named Castor et Pollux at Faverges, Haute-Savoie near to his home up to three times in a day.

photo
Jeff Mercier - happy after onsighting Powerdab D13
© Andrew Rutherford

Watch a video of Jeff training on the route here. 

An upcoming film by Conor McCarthy about drytooling featuring Jeff will be released soon, watch the trailer below.

 

Jeff is sponsored by: Rab


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5 Dec, 2014
Why does he have his shirt off?… it's raining!
5 Dec, 2014
DT is really powerful and your get really hot, I had my t-shirt off the last 4 weekends climbing, you just sweat your balls off.
5 Dec, 2014
Guardian of the Underworld is D12 and D13 btw
5 Dec, 2014
What an awesome photo by Andrew Rutherford. Its easily the most inspiring DT photo I've seen.
7 Dec, 2014
What a beast. Just a note but Jeff won the veterans category of the BTS
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