UKC

NEWS: Patxi Usobiaga on Bizi Euskaraz - 8c+ onsight: a first

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 Michael Ryan 13 Dec 2007
The Spanish climber Patxi Usobiaga onsighted 8c+ yesterday. A first.

Some readers may remember a time when ascents of the hardest sport climbs took weeks, and in some cases protracted sieges of up to a year before redpoint success was achieved. Remember Mark Leach's 46 day effort to produce Cry Freedom 8b+ at Malham in 1988?

Only three years ago Steve McClure said about 8b+.......

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/



Thanks to A Longleat Boulderer and Dan Carroll for flagging this up.
 JLS 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC:

If we all chipped in £1 do you think we could persuade him to make an onsight attempt at Rhapsody, Flash an E9 and E10. It would serve to tidy-up our iffy grading system for years to come if these grades saw onsight ascents.
 GDes 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC:

Bloody hell. Unbelievable. Was it a full on proper onsight then, or was he getting beta shouted up at all? If so that's just amazing, especially with it being a 1st ascent
 gear boy 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC: so you can swear as long as its in a route name?
OP Michael Ryan 13 Dec 2007
In reply to gear boy:
> (In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC) so you can swear as long as its in a route name?

Yip..... if we allowed swearing on the forums it would be a nightmare.

 MNA123 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC:


Effort!
 UKB Shark 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC:

Quite incredible.

It raises the benchmark for all of us if you measure how many grades your onsighting is below the state of the art.

One point - Cry Freedom may be 8c and Mark Leach contrived a harder solution for the FA IIRC.
 Andy Farnell 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Simon Lee: Mark's sequence was certainly worth 8c (as it was down graded by Jibe who found the easier sequence), and the current thinking at the crag is the new sequence is 8c anyway.

Andy F
 abarro81 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC:
frickin awesome.. inspiring stuff!
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC: Wow! Two big raises of the bar in onsight climbing, in one week. That must be a first!

Stunning effort.
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC:

I still remember Neil Pearson's editorial in OTE when Ellie Chevieux onsighted Massey Fergusson. It started with "Oh my god, someone has onsighted 8b+..."

Oh my god, someone has just onsighted 8c+! What on earth is going on here? Bear in mind that just climbing 8c+ after weeks of effort took one of our best climbers (Dave MacLeod) years of training to acheive. For those of us who sport climb it is probably a lifetime goal. Patxi has just strolled up one, in the same way we might pop up a HVS at Stanage. Bear in mind, that this route is probably three or four grades harder than anything on gritstone, or pembroke, say. Oh. my. god.

In the last two weeks Patxi has just been gob-smackingly awesome. He's climbed absolutely everything, and now this! It totally raises the bar and makes a mockery of whichever fool it was suggested that Chris Sharma might be the world's best sport climber.

Etxauri is not one of your soft-touch spanish crags either. Grades in the Basque region are as stiff as those in the UK, and Etxauri is right on the outskirts of Pamplona, so it's the local crag for some of the strongest and nicest folk you'll ever meet.

Occasionally, you get threads on UKC asking what "waddage" means. This news article should be automatically appended to those threads....
 catt 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC:

Wow. Anyone else get the feeling that 9a onsight might not be that far off...
 Quiddity 13 Dec 2007
In reply to JLS:

>If we all chipped in £1 do you think we could persuade him to make an onsight attempt at Rhapsody, Flash an E9 and E10.

Interesting. Was at the Dave M lecture in London the other day, and someone asked him whether he thought these E9s, 10s and 11s would start to see on sight ascents. His response was yes, absolutely - when you look at the standard of top end sport climbing, and how quickly that is improving. Not so long ago that 8b+ was absolutely cutting edge - now two 9as had fallen within a week - and now this. Exciting stuff.
 Steve McQueen 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC: Just had a look at the photos on Patxi's site, looks an absolutely stunning route
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC: Thats where 16 years of hard training gets you....and a lot of natural talent. Whats he done on grit!
 Morgan Woods 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Steve McQueen:

an very thin too!
 Steve McQueen 13 Dec 2007
In reply to salathe the monkey: The guy's so strong he'd probably pull a grit crag down to rubble.
 Dom Whillans 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Mick Ryan - Editor - UKC: feckin' nora. what a climber!
 GrahamD 13 Dec 2007
In reply to Dom Whillans:

Makes you wonder what they put in the water in that part of the world ! I've tried drinking the San Miguel but that doesn't seem to be it.

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