UKC

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:

Kilian Fischhuber has also done it, not sure what he made of the grade.........

I'd be fascinated to see what the likes of Woods, Robinson, Tyler etc made of this problem as it looks made for their type of crimp strength and dynamism.

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:

Not to diminish the superb effort by Akito (far better than I could do), but let's be frank: it's likely that Bernd's problems, and almost certainly Memento, are grossly over-graded.

In reply to zachary lesch-huie: Is that based on you climbing it? So far none of the four repeats have downgraded it by more than one grade.

In reply to Jon Redshaw:

Of course not. You might glean from my comment--"far better than I could do"--that I didn't climb Memento. But to the point: I don't agree with you that I have to climb Memento to make a statement about it's difficulty. There's a few reasons for this, but it's an old discussion (therefore boring and lenghty) so I hope you'll let me pass on that one (Ben Moon wrote a great article about this very thing in Climbing once; he disagreed with you too).

And, yes, it's true that the repeaters haven't downgraded the problem drastically, but I think the jury is still out on that one. We need some folks with international track records--like Ty, Nalle, Daniel, or Dave G.--to get on it for a more conclusive answer.

In reply to zachary lesch-huie:

Lord knows it's important!

Awesome effort to akito on the bloc!

But as an aside, zachary your argument appears to be based on nothing but heresay and gossip, you haven't climbed the problem, and you are ignoring the opinions of the people who have because they have no "international track records"?So climbing a possible 8c bloc isn't enough for you?Are the opinions of more well known climbers the only ones of value to you?Whatever happened to people being innocent until proven guilty?

In reply to miss_chief09:

congrats!

i think historically the thing that brings the grade into question is actually just that Kornelius Obleitner managed the third ascent of the problem before he had climbed anything harder than 8a+ - he unlocked a sequence to the start that he could do, as compared to the sequence in the video - does this affect the grade? maybe....its hard to accept a grade of this magnitude without intenationally experienced climbers who have a ticklist of comparison problems behind them to compare it to - otherwise its just guys who say 'well its harder than the last thing i did'

i for one do not dispute the effort of ticking momento but only question the grade given the acensionists its had.

In reply to miss_chief09:

Spot on.

And let's be honest 8A+ to 8C (let alone 8C+) is ridiculous. Seriously, it's impossible for most people to comprehend just how hard 8C is. To put it in perspective there are many climbers in this country operating at 8A+ only 30 odd who have climbed 8B and 10 or so 8B+ or harder (possibly only Tyler who has done 8C).

As I said. Get the strong boys on this and I would be amazed if they didn't destroy it.

By the way has anyone seen what Paul Robinson has just done to Switzerland........... http://www.p-d-robinson.blogspot.com/

Astonishing.

In reply to seagull:

what a hell of a day out!!

inspiring to see what the top guys can do on a 'strong day'!

In reply to seagull:

Don't forget Jonny G's 8c's in Trowbarrow and Fairy Steps.

In reply to teddy:

Jesus. Sorry! Of course.

How could I forget the best!!

I'm ashamed of myself. And I used to climb with John too so it's doubly bad.

In reply to seagull:

Video link (poor) in the news report and amended repetition list.

In reply to seagull:

Good point, I agree that font 8c or 9a sport are unimaginably hard grades, I think it was malcolm smith who made the point that there is still room for crazy hard stuff in font 8a and couldn't imagine that there are many sport routes truly worthy of anything more than 8b as there is still so much room for amazingly hard things within the grade.As you say I imagine one of the really strong guys would probably crush it, what paul robinson is doing in Switzerland is crazy, and in less than ideal conditions too!

What was it like to climb with Gaskins by the way?I can only imagine how inspiring it must be to see him climb let alone climb with him regularly!

In reply to john howard 1:

Malc was on about Font 8B+ IIRC but yeah, that's the point he was making.

When I climbed with John he wasn't that strong in comparison to other people I climbed with. Naturally very strong fingers but it was before he put the hours and hours and hours on the board in.

I was stunned when i heard he'd done Hubble but it just goes to show what hard work can do. He went on to prove that point beyond any doubt!