UKC

Monkey wedding, ~8C by Dave Graham

© Dave Graham coll.

Dave Graham   © Dave Graham coll.
Dave Graham
© Dave Graham coll.
Dave Graham has repeated Fred Nicole's increasingly popular Monkey wedding, ~8C, in Rocklands. It was probably the 9th ascent.

In a future classic write up, Dave explains the process:

Last weekend I finished off one of my ultimate-global-nemisis-projects, the legendary Fred Nicole problem Monkey Wedding [8C] which chills in the center of one of Rockland's most popular sectors.

Last season I tried the boulder quite a lot, for at least 12 days, but could never seem to improve my highpoint, or do better than one hang the beast, which is only ten moves long.

This year I returned partially uncertain of whether or not I could even summit this small peak, my confidence dashed by last years failure. Right off the bench I discovered more intelligent beta, resequencing my old crux, and matched my previous links.

Sadly the war continued for another 6 days. I was confused by the conditions, normally cold weather is my jam, but my cursed sweaty fingers never seemed to stop sweating while I sat at basecamp, about two meters from the start of the rig, amidst all types of cold blustery weather, but it was always smarmy and humid somehow.

One day, my window presented itself; super hot and a northerly wind, directly from the dry deserts of Africa, I felt something, potentially like an opportunity. I cruised out to Roadside, booted up, warmed on the moves, made a try, fell at the crux, felt great, rested a moment, pulled on, and from that moment on, it was this surreal mind bending experiance. It felt too chill, almost like all the dreams Ive had of ever sending, yet it was real and terrifying, it was my chance to fall off after the crux...but that never happened.

I ended up on top, a suprised and happy man, liberated, unleashed, humbled, proud, potentially wiser, and feeling ridicoulous. The moral is, even if you don't believe in yourself, even if you describe a boulder as being built against you, the opposite of your style, outside of your entire box, "impossible" for some reason, if you will. Like you should have done it by now if you were gonna ever do it. You are wrong. You can suceed. You can do anything. 

It's like the kitten poster from the Lego Movie...which I forget the exact wording to.

Dave Graham is sponsored by: Five Ten, Friction Labs, Petzl, Trangoworld and Walltopia


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13 Aug, 2016
He has such a bizarre relationship with the English language! A bit like Dawes in that way. This boulder must be polished by now, with the amount of traffic it's seen recently! Well done Dave
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