UKC

At the end of September, Miles Gibson climbed a new gritstone E9 at Wimberry. Whilst Miles concentrated on his new line, his climbing partner Ben Heason managed a rare repeat of the hard route Order of the Phoenix (E8 6c) at the same crag.

Speaking about the route Ben said:

"Physically it's the most sustained hard grit route I've done so far with no particularly easy moves on it. The climbing is highly technical, often with tenuous footholds and a crux slap up the arête from a 1-finger pebble (by which time the gear/rope is redundant), culminating with taking a small pebble in each hand to make a super high step to a smeary top-out."

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=2152

In reply to UKC Articles:

Ben is a Legend.

In reply to UKC Articles: quite an erratic climbing style

In reply to UKC Articles:
Argument for excessive use of chalk??!! did he actually touch any rock?

In reply to UKC Articles:

no disrespect but i think his onsight of the Fish was a much more interesting and impressive read.

In reply to ian stewart: The chalk all over that route really detracted from it in my opinion. It's like climb by numbers...

In reply to UKC Articles: Fair play for the vision and ability to climbing this new line. However its about 6 meters high. E8 6c???

In reply to UKC Articles:waste of time tying on to much chalk and i also ????? the grade at 6m,good to see hard routes climbed but i like to see the rock aswell. good effort.

In reply to Aigen:

What grade did you think it was and in what style did you do it - onsight or headpoint?

In reply to Aigen:

First ascensionist of Order of the Phoenix is Kevin Thaw, Ben's was a repeat ascent.

In reply to Martin Davies (KCLMC):


Wouldn't like to get those numbers wrong.

Mick

In reply to Aigen: LOL ! So what grade would you give it when you do it as a highball/solo then ? : )

In reply to ian stewart and the other whinger: It's people like you that give UKC a bad name. A video is shown of what appears to be a hard and fairly serious route, and all you can do is bleat about how much chalk used.

Good effort Ben, looks like a nice bit of climbing.

And people querying the grade, unless you have climbed it probably best not to comment or else you look stupid.

Oh, too late...

the chalk looks worse than it is

wimberry is a particularly dark grit with a good coating of green lichen all over it...this makes the chalk look particularly bad

good effort by the way ben...about time some of kevins routes saw some attention

In reply to Chris F:

Chris, it seems that chalk is just the latest thing that generaly ill informed people on the website have decided to take the moral high ground on. It was bolts the previous week, and it will be something else the next!!

In reply to dave o:

It may have something to do with this

Gritstone: Loving it to Death?

http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=50009

Some ill informed climbers over chalking at the crag.

There's lots of ill informed comment here from many climbers....mainly arm chair climbers who never go climbing and who live inside the UKC servers in Canary Wharfe!

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=378245

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com: Nice to try and link it to the article, but those aren't really tickmarks. Not done the route, but I suspect Ben had climbed on the grit long enough to know how much chalk he needs to use, and would like to think he brushes it off afterwards.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:


The good old 90-9-1 rule: 90% lurkers, 9% contribute from time to time and 1% account for most contributions ... Is this rule true of UKC ... so only 1% of registered uses actually contribute in a real honest reliable way ???

In reply to all:

I genuinly can't believe this thread.

Did anyone else watch the video showing Ben Heason Climbing a Horror Show? Or was that just me?

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Mick,

The article you linked is a very well informed and valid piece, and increasing peoples awareness of what is clearly becoming an issue in these honeypot areas can only be a good thing.

It is just very predictable and slightly anoying that nobody will be able to post a picture of a route for the next few weeks without somebody proclaiming that they are a disgrace because they used too much chalk, as this is the current 'in thing' for folk to take the ethical highground on.

A wee while ago a headpoint of such a route would have been so 'cool', now it is an excuse for people to get emotional and angry about their style.

Anyway, I think thats about all I have to say on the subject....

Cheers

In reply to dave o:
I think the main point is that people rather jumped the gun on this one. If Ben left the route in that state then it would have been a worthwhile discussion point as it looked like a can of Dulux had been chucked down it. As we don't know whether Ben removed the chalk there's not much to say apart from "good effort by Ben".
Cheers
Graham

In reply to Graham Hoey:
>If Ben left the route in that state then it would have been a worthwhile discussion point as it looked like a can of Dulux had been chucked down it. As we don't know whether Ben removed the chalk there's not much to say apart from "good effort by Ben".

If Ben left the route in that state I would say good on him, perhaps the chalk will help slow down the growth of lichen/algae that seems to be reclaiming this sadly neglected yet superb crag!

You've got to remember this is not Stanage, Wimberry gets far less traffic and faces north and I'm sure has much higher rain fall. In fact, if I remember correctly, didn't it piss down all the next day?

I tried to top this route one day whist Kevin was working on it, I could hang the holds but couldn't do a single move between them. I also suffered elbow tendinitis for almost the whole of the next year!

The route is nails and the landing is horrendous.

In reply to Marcus Buckley:
In reply to Graham Hoey)

Nice one Marcus, perhaps you'd be happy if we went and tipped bleach down the routes or a solution of copper2+ ions to leave nice clean streaks.
Oh, that's Ok then. No need to remove excess chalk on routes as it might rain - brilliant.




So? The route was too hard for you - not sure what you're trying to say here.


And?...not suprisingly its only a few metres of climbing and given E8 6c.

In reply to UKC Articles: Ha, a very hard route is repeated on a green, high, ominous crag and all some people want to talk about is chalk... F*ck sake, what a bunch of tossers. He used what he needed to get himself up a horrible looking series of moves.

Good work ben, that looked absolutely heinous and good work on The Fish, i seem to remember you saying that you had that in your sights, when we saw you in the peak.
Good to see you also got good conditions to onsight the Brandler as well.

In reply to Graham Hoey:


Glad you agree that clean rock is nice Graham, it can be frustrating to have to spend what could be climbing time making sure the route you want to do is in a climbable state (and no, I'm not talking about scrubbing the patina of our precious grit!). I would prefer to spend all my time at crags climbing not cleaning!


I'm trying to say well done Ben for climbing the route, and yes it was way, way too hard for me.

I'm not interested in getting into an argument about the ethics of using chalk, I just wanted to give Ben a "thumbs up" and add my name to the list of people who are not having a pop at the guy.

In reply to dave o:

thus

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=378604

In reply to Marcus Buckley:

Hi Marcus,
I think we were both a bit tongue-in-cheek! The point I was trying to make was not over the use of chalk, but over other peoples comments about it which all seemed presumptive. The main point I feel is to congratulate Ben on making such an efort on a route of this seriousness at this crag which has seen litle repeat action and where the routes are not as well known as say End of the Affair (for which a 3D holographic beta kit is probably now available from non-sight ltd).
Cheers
Graham

In reply to Morgan Woods:
Hmm does he name check the 19 yr old student that soloed The Fish last year?

In reply to UKC Articles:

I think this is really good.

Firstly that Ben's probably gone done the physically hardest grit route of his career, but also that he's finally now doing this shit with other people. I wish him all the best. I bet there are shit loads of lines still to go.

Also yet another hard line is done or repeated on Wimberry,

Oh hang on it's not KEvin THaw!

Now that's news

In reply to whispering nic: Absolutely, and says that his solo has to be one of then most impressive climbs ever done. The article is on Planet Fear, so you can read it yourself - your "Hmm" make your post sound a bit sniffy.