UKC

Which routes in UK have remained unrepeated for longest and why?

In reply to iceox:

a large number have remained unrepeated because they are shit and do not come with attention-grabbing high grade. My own route on Mary's Tit will almost ceratinly never be repeated for this reason.

In reply to iceox:

The part 'Which' requires knowledge... anyone?

The 'Why' is obvious: All or some of the following...

Unknown/Unrecorded
Fallen down
Banned
Retrobolted
Retro chipped
Recorded but too Obscure
Too hard
Too dangerous
FA Climbed under "1 in a million" conditions/circumstances

jk

In reply to jkarran:

you forgot Jamie B's Mary's Tit....Too easy!

In reply to jkarran:

Ok,which decent and hard routes have remained unrepeated longest?

In reply to iceox:

No idea, I'm a punter boulderer somewhat removed from the uk climbing scene

The answers are going to mostly fall into:
*Too hard - Practiced to death by the super dedicated or simply put up by the super talented
*Too dangerous - Worth risking youur neck for the FA but not a repeat

One or two will come under:
*Unusual phisique or skill required - eg tall, short tiny hands, no sense of pain
*Unpublicised
*Inaccessable
jk

In reply to iceox:

For winter routes, only in good condition once in a blue moon?
Route is naturally dirty, and needs a good scrubbing to make a decent ascent?
Route gets a lot of seepage and only dries out in the height of summer/heatwaves?

In reply to Sean_J: Also, how about there being lots of better routes at that grade, especially the harder routes when there's only a small minority able to climb them? One that springs to mind is Violent New Breed - no disrespect intended to Mr. Gaskins whatsoever, but if you were climbing 9a+ why would you want to work a 6m high boulder problem in a small cave in Yorkshire when there's some of the finest and most impressive lines on the best crags in the world to choose from? Also, i can't see the sponsors being too happy with their finest new talent dedicating themselves to such a route when they should be getting on bigger and more impressive stuff in sunny places and posing for some more impressive photos. In fact, I reckon it'll be a LONG time before VNB even sees someone working it.

In reply to iceox:

On grit, which is amongst the most accessible rock in the uk (i.e. if it hasn't been done before, it must be really hard/body dependent), these two are possibly (probably?) unrepeated. I'm sure there are older routes elsewhere, but they may be a good starting point:
http://www.rockfax.com/databases/r.php?i=6185
http://www.rockfax.com/databases/r.php?i=11058

I imagine that, there are not many accessible and good routes below e5/e6 which have not seen at least one repeat. If you correlate this with the climbing records page at Planet Fear (http://www.planetfear.com/article_detail.asp?a_id=325), it makes sense to expect your answer is going to lie in the range (e5-e7) - excluding esoteric rubbish.

J

In reply to iceox:

I bet there are lots of unrepeated routes on some sections of shall we say the less frequented sea cliffs, places like Carn Gowla...

In reply to HappyTrundler:
Anyone know of any repeats of Slow Handclap at Limekilns? Grade confirmed? (Pub conversation after wall sesh last week.)

In reply to iceox:

I suspect a new route, Night Tripper, I did on Ben Nevis in 1971 has not been repeated. In the new Ben Nevis Guidebook it is graded as 'Scottish VS', this indicates that the route has not been repeated. VS was the hardest grade in Scotland then and it is certainly harder than VS. It is also a good route.

In reply to Sean_J: Plus, being 6m long you can imagine the moves will be seriously hard for the grade. And John G wasn't known for his overgrading.

In reply to Norrie Muir:

Lets have some more routes from up North that have not been repeated.Lets say for min 10 years, longer the better.