UKC

Jim Pope, 13, a member of the junior GB Climbing Team (profile), has become the fourth youngest Brit to climb an F8a. He topped Hot Fun Closing on Saturday 29 September.




Hot Fun Closing is a bouldery route on Rubicon Wall in Water-cum-Jolly, first climbed in 1986 by Ben Moon and Chris...

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=67476

In reply to UKC News:

Effort young man.

Interesting route. 2 boulder problems on top of each other. Intense but very workable i guess - as long as you've got the fitness of course.

Hope the comp goes well for you.

In reply to UKC News:

beast

In reply to UKC News: Nice one Jim. Hope to see you at the Castle again soon.

In reply to UKC News:
MONSTER!!

Kudos by itself is near impossible, let alone the full route. Nice one.

In reply to UKC News: Love his big grin to the camera at the end.

In reply to UKC News:

Awesome!

In reply to UKC News: aw he looked one happy lad at the end of that. Great effort, well done.

In reply to UKC News:Good Lad

In reply to Nik Jennings:

It's nice to know you think that too Nik!

In reply to UKC News: My word that is impressive! This was one of my targets for last year before injury. Kudos boulder is absolutely Font 7b by the way, although the little fella makes it look easy in the video!

In reply to UKC News: very impressive kids now are awesome! mind you that was some really shoddy belaying he would of hit the deck until the second bolt was clipped with all that slack out. hope it wasnt his dad!

In reply to Joe Costello:

Debatable. This and Weedkiller were both dubious recent upgrades.

(not taking anything away from Jim, by the way. 8a at 13 is impressive!)

In reply to UKC News: great lad, well deserved

In reply to sammy5000:

I guess that's why the boulder mats are there then.

As that part of the route is normally climbed as a boulder problem i guess the thinking was to approach it like that. First bolt pre clipped and rope well out of the way until the second clip but protected by the mats.

I have only thought about this so much as my initial reaction was to shoot the belayer as well.

In reply to UKC News:
Thats a great acheivement, well done Jim... A smart route choice too

In reply to biscuit: Biscuit = Thanks for thinking about the belaying before diving in. (Belayer's dad here.) They thought hard (you did too: sorry if it hurt so much you wanted to shoot my boy) in advance about every move as a team of two, knowing what Jim had done at the start and could do. Now let's not turn Jim's achievement into a forum scrap. Enjoy Jim's success.

In reply to robin mueller: Weedkiller is debatable for sure but not Kudos. You climb too hard to know the difference these days Robin .

In reply to UKC News: Glad he got it in the end! Seen Jim working it a few times and lapping Kudos god knows how many times.

Awesome effort!

In reply to UKC News: Good effort Jim. I don't know the route and I wouldn't know F8a if it slapped me round the face (as it undoubtedly would) but Jim is an inspiring climber. He climbs hard, he climbs beautifully and he seems to really, really enjoy it. He actually does inspire me and I've been climbing twice as long as he's been on the planet.

In reply to Alister Martin:

Only just looked at this thread again so apologies for late response.

My first post was all about enjoying Jim's success. I only put the 2nd post in as someone had commented further up that they thought the belaying was dangerous. As i said my first reaction was " What's going on there !" and then i thought about it and it made sense and so i never mentioned it in my initial post.

I was actually sticking up for the belayer and the comment about him being shot was a tongue in cheek response to the earlier post. Sorry if that came across in bad taste and don't worry the thinking didn't hurt too much.