UKC

Dave MacLeod made his first ever visit to Pembrokeshire last week and came away with the third ascent of Tim Emmett's Muy Caliente! (E10 6c) in Stennis Ford.

He also repeated The Brothers Karamazov at St. Govans, linking the E8 and E7 pitches together to give a long and pumpy E9.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=58137

In reply to UKC News: he's jolly good this macleod chap isnt he?

In reply to UKC News:

hoho was waiting for that, what a quick repeat too

In reply to UKC News:

May I be the first to say: Yeah, but what's he done on grit?...

Seriously impressive stuff coming from Mr. MacLeod. Top drills!

In reply to James Jackson:

Blind Vision, second ascent! :-P

"the most easily accessible and softest E10 anywhere"

well that's me going to have a go at it then!

to describe any E10 as soft is something else, but then there's always someone looking for the soft touch tick just so they can put that grade in their book.

In reply to petestack:

in the dark, dodging rain showers.

In reply to tony:

I can't help but agree that this is impressive (to me). But, it's worth remembering that Dave has soloed 8C (albeit with a low crux?): http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=868 and that Echo Wall was ~8C with a good chance of decking from high up on the headpoint crux.

So, Dave's ascent of Muy Caliente is massively impressive in terms of my standards and most people's standards, but to Dave this probably wasn't all that hard or impressive. We should probably be more impressed by Tim putting it up in the first place, as this was much closer to his limit and he hadn't actually linked it when he got on the lead...

Ben

Blind Vision, second ascent! :-P

in the dark, dodging rain showers.

Blind Vision is only a 7c+ boulder problem to a rest on a ledge big enough to put your harness on. followed by a soft e7, probably around the e7/8 mark in reality.
Would love to see dave repeat Equilibrium as this is to many people (me included) the benchmark for e10. the fact that its accessible absolute quality and still has only 3 ascents speaks volumes of its dificulty. Not to mention that it held of the advances of team America who seemed to be crushing everything.
Blind Vision was unrepeated coz its shit and overgraded.

Good effor to dave once more, it seems that hardly a week goes by these days without him doing something fairly impressive.

In reply to catweasel:

So you've done it?

In reply to petestack:

It was the first, has had the most repeats and nobody has quibbled the grade; seems to define benchmark quite well (and no I havent done it either!)

In reply to UKC News: Love the one hand clapping comment in the blog entry.

Shit and overgraded? Ouch.

Maybe worth noting that a lot of people tried BV - including Neil Bentley - who of course was the FA of Equillibrium. I gave it E10 because that's what was suggested by everyone who tried it and couldn't do it (Seb reckoned it was E10, and Neil Gresham suggested at the time that I give it E11 - and he made the 2nd ascent of Equillibrium). I think it's probably E9 7a - though one that a lot of E9 climbers seem unable to do - I tried it with Miles Gibson who couldn't do the start and I think it's the only route at Froggatt that Ben Heason hasn't done. The fact that only Dave M has repeated it says plenty when it's 20mins from Sheffield. Doesn't get climbed much because strong boulders don't fancy the exposed top half, and bold climbers struggle with the start, hence a route that doesn't suit specialists.

In reply to catweasel:

An interesting assertion. I thought that Dave Mc was trying Equilibrium at one point. Also, he is not normally shy of downgrading routes and I don't believe he made comments that Blind vision was only E7/8 (or shit).