UKC

Seems like the Nose has gone Free (rope) Solo by a Japanese man called Keita Kurakami...?

Impressive to say the least. I feel a bit bad that I've never heard of the dude (til now).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqWZKCqB5Gx/

Nice. 

And isn’t he the one that has climbed a bunch of hard and ballsy trad slabs back in Japan. 

Ah, he sort of did it a year ago. But due to different belays, says it doesn’t count. Chappeu for style. 

https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/keita-kurakami-free-climbs-...

Interesting that the Planet Mountain omits the rather significant fact that he soloed it.

Well it's certainly a different approach but is it significant? To me it undoubtedly would be harder to rope-solo something than to lead it, but is that only, or mainly, just because I'm not used to self-belaying? Is there a fundamental difference in the style of the ascent? If so, where does it sit along the scale of respect for the achievement?

While on the subject of difficulty, style and respect, I always thought there was something not quite right about the idea of lauding a big free ascent where every pitch was led by the same person over a similar ascent sharing leads. Seemed to me to be suggesting you need to recruit a belay bunny to jug up behind you simply to be able to do a climb in the best style possible.

In our world it's very easy to get difficulty and worthiness mixed up.

Just musing really. Don't have much of a point to make!

Surely if you follow that reasoning through to it's end conclusion there would be something wrong about lauding any significant single pitch ascent where a belay bunny held your ropes?

At an indivdual level I would say that it is both more difficult and more worthy the lead all of the pitches on a route rather than swinging leads.

IMO it's neither better nor worse for the same climber in a team to lead every pitch. It's just a successful ascent in both cases. If you need to recruit a belayer to accompany you on a route then fair enough, but I don't see why that should be a particularly positive thing over having a partner to properly share the route with. Having said that, I do see the attraction of getting to lead every pitch on big routes, so I'm being slightly hypocritical in a way.

He does hard stuff here as well

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2017/05/keita_kurakami_on_the_walk_of_life_...

That Planet Mountain link is from last year when he freed it conventionally, with a partner, but with a break in the middle due to bad weather which he saw as unfinished business. He's now been back and freed it in one push and also solo.

I guess that for me the achievment is diluted a little when swinging leads  because a you could use a partner with different strengths to mask your own weak points. A solo climber has to be able to complete every move on every pitch.

It's all a bit hypothetical given my very limited abilities but my current penchant is for solo bigwall aid and you certainly need a more dogged/determined approach when you have to do it all for yourself.

In the same spirit of musing on an interesting question, rather than disagreeing with any of your thoughts...

I guess it's a step up in self-reliance, which is possibly one of the attributes to admire in climbing achievements? I think that's part of the reason I value trad ascents because if I'm placing my own gear then I'm, at least notionally, not reliant on somebody else having climbed the route previously. If you can climb a route solo then you've relied entirely on your own physical fitness, skills, knowledge and psyche. I seem to recall Pete Whitaker calling out psyche as one of the things he had to really consider when going solo.

Like every style, I guess there's going to be a lot of room for variation. If going solo takes you twenty times as long and turns into siege tactics then it's probably not as impressive as a good team ascent. On the other hand, if you're super fit and master the rope work well enough to complete a climb solo faster than many teams complete it conventionally then it presumably deserves a lot of respect. That certainly seemed to be the general consensus when Pete Whitaker completed his fast solo ascent.

In any case, I'm not clear whether the guy in this case deliberately chose to go solo as a challenge like Pete or just took it on solo because he couldn't find a suitable partner.

Definitely significant because:

a) It's a first. It's never been done before.

b) It's much harder physically - you have to lead/clean/jug/haul every pitch

c) It's much harder psychologically - no partner for support.

As you suggest, there is a difference between where something sits on the style spectrum and how hard it is. This ascent is not in better style than previous ones. What is amazing is the ability to be physically able to climb the hard pitches free after/during a lot of exhausting work which a rope solo entails. So more impressive? Yes. 

The obvious difference is that with many single pitch routes it's just as easy to ab for the gear then walk round to the top as it is to have someone second the pitch and you both walk off.

On related notes...

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqY57SRBxAn/

What did you do, when you were 15?

Not much, at least I didn't... But Connor freed the nose...

That's almost unbelievable! When was that? 

Keita Kurakami was over here for the BMC International Meet in Cornwall, spring 2017. Quiet guy, very impressive climber.

My guess is during the weekend... considering he's still in school...

Great roof second go, changing corners fourth go. Wow!

But does that make it any more acceptable to employ a belay bunny than it would be on a big wall?

I'm not so sure, isn't it "better style" to find all your motivation internally without the boost to your morale that a supportive partner can deliver?

How is this still not a news item. A 15yo has just FEED the nose, working it on weekends/holidays as he's at school, it's only the 6th* ever ascent of probably the most iconic/well know rock climb in the world.

*I think, though am not sure.

Well, depeding on the criteria 5th*, 6th** or 7th***...

*) Lead all the pitches, so out goes Burke & Rodden

**) Alt leads with everyone leading the crux pitches... In comes Rodden (and to be fair for Nose it should be like that... majority of the climbing bar the 2 cruxes isn't that hard).

***) Burke lead all the other pitches, 'cept the great roof which he side-roped cleanly... it's a traverse after all with fixed protection, so top-rope is kind a a wrong implication... and besides, unclipping can sometimes be even harder than clipping...

I'm not sure it is a question of acceptability. Both are perfectly acceptable. One could argue that it's a bit of a rough deal for the belayer, while on single pitch there's no hardship and they can lead their own routes if they so desire.

In a word, no. The best style is onsight, and if that means swinging leads on a big route, so be it. This is just a different (harder) type of redpoint, but a redpoint nonetheless. One could argue that the faff involved makes it altogether less stylish!

That's an interesting illustration of the different motivations that we all have and how they effect our judgement of "style".  Onsight and solo most definitely trumps onsight with a partner by quite some margin in mmy mind, I can't even imagine how onsight and swinging leads could be considered better.

As for faff, you can faff with or without a partner

Personally I'd sooner hang out and belay a friend hundreds of feet off the floor on a big route than at the base of a single pitch crag

The favour does not need to be returned immediately or at all if the expereince is good.

I think this comes back to the point that more difficult does not necessarily mean better style; the two are representing different things. If pushed, I'm happy to concede that onsight free soloing is better style than onsight lead. It is climbing distilled down to its simplest form. Personally, although I may find leading all the tricky pitches of a route more satisfying than alt leads, I don't regard those routes as having been done in better style than the other ones. 

Well put.

What does seem a bit contrived to me is when both c;limbers free every pitch (though I can see why they might both want to do so). This seems quite common for strong top partnerships these days. I was thinking about this when I saw the Dawn Wall Film the other day (though in that case it became a central and enthralling part of the story!)

I can't imagine going to, say, the Shelter Stone for the day and faffing around abseiling and cleaning every pitch so that we could both lead every pitch - it would feel pretty silly!

Nose free? I never use my nose anyway, not for climbing.