UKC

Awesome video of James Pearson doing one of the craziest moves on gritstone!

"Such a brilliant set of moves in a very exposed position, and despite all its oddities, it is one of the better routes I have climbed on the Grit!"

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=67875

In reply to UKC News:

Didn't bother with Mcclure's three rope system then?

In reply to UKC News: He also is climbing in odd shoes, is this a trend that is likely to catch on?

In reply to Joel Perkin: He's probably using the Katana for the toe jam as its stiffer than the Futura. Can't imagine that a LF Katana wouldn't have performed fine on the LF smears? Interesting comparing different hand sequences from Steve Mac's ascent.

Great video and well done to James!

First time I've seen an ad at the end of a video like this. I think it was very well done and being interested I stayed watching and learned a little about their range. Do any other companies do these sorts of ads at the end?

In reply to UKC News:
When did NI start being used instead of night?

In reply to UKC News:
I think of James like climbings' own David Beckham - had some difficlut time but the last few years he has embraced these difficulites and come back better than ever. I superb display and made it look so easy, I remeber rocking over onto that slab doing Elder crack and was terrified, james used that position as a rest! LOL Well done fella, good vid. Is that the first repeat then?

In reply to blanchie14c: Second I think. It was repeated soon after for definite and in the news story reporting James's ascent it names the chap (I can't be bothered to search to be able to link it).
I like James too, impressed by his moving on from and his acknowledgement of that difficulty in the recent video.

In reply to puppythedog & blanchie14c:


The only difficulty he's had as far as I can see is from grade obsessed armchair commentators who were basically wrong about him being no good. That's bound to get you down a bit.

In reply to jonny2vests:

I thought the bit of odyssey where he talks about being a bit of a one trick pony and things was quite honest self analysis, and since then he has done a very good job of becoming a far better all round climber. Probably wasn't easy for him to get to that point (and far from being armchair grade obsessives let's not forget that his new routes were being repeated at speed by a lot of very non armchair climbers and being very publicly downgraded by in some cases quite considerable amounts) but he's used it to catalyze a big change, good on him for that.

In reply to AJM:

No, he was simply a focus for a while. Plenty of other climbers out there get grades wrong and think they're weak. Don't be a sheep.

In reply to UKC News: Really enjoyed the vid, the guy seems to interview well. All I could think was 'Blue Peter Presenter'. Found it amazing how solid he looked swinging around the arete, even when you take top-rope practice into account.

In reply to UKC News: Why is it graded HXS? Is it cos of the potential swing around the arete? Gear looks solid enough and not particularly esoteric. Thought that grade was pretty much for hard, esoteric routes with very dodgy to little gear?

In reply to JonmapDL:

James more or less tries to explain it but I think gets it wrong. HXS is above XS and MXS which are usually loose climbs where the tech grade doesn't really convey the difficulty and hard to assign a trad grade to. As you say they're usually fairly esoteric!

I think Steve graded it such just because he didn't know what trad grade to give it so went for the easy (vague) option.

In reply to UKC News:

I think Steve's grade was spot on, it seems to describe it perfectly!

In reply to UKC News: Just seen Jack Geldard's explanation here http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=67844: 'The grade HXS is due to the route being very safe, but very very hard, therefore difficult to assign an E Grade to.'

suppose it would be hard to assign E-grade... but thought HXS was quite a strange alternative, since usually thought it meant 'if you fall, gear prob won't hold and you will hurt yourself.'

if you see grades like HS 5a... why not E4 7a?

anyway, watevs.. not a big deal, just interested.

In reply to UKC News: that right foot was seem very close to the cam he placed... AND with a camera angle that was hiding a possible .......you can guess the rest

In reply to Redsetter:

Shush.

In reply to JonmapDL:

whatever happened to E for Effort?

In reply to JonmapDL:

It's a cop-out basically. He could also have called it 'E-hard' or similar.

In reply to jonny2vests:

Sheep? Not sure quite where that came from but hey ho. The man himself after a period of self reflection seems to have come to the view that he needed to change the kind of climber he was, catalyzed by that period, so if broadly agreeing with his reasoning for why makes me a sheep then perhaps so.

In reply to UKC News: I would like to see some one take a lob on it.

In reply to AJM:

Moo.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

Steve seems to be conservative when it comes to grades. I'm thinknig about his link up at Malham which he graded 8c+ even though it climbs through difficult sections of a 9a and a 9a+.

I've seen various grades for this route from E2 7b to E7 7b, but it the end it doesn't matter. If you know the route, you know what you're getting.

In reply to Jimbo C:


Even at E7 it would be undergraded as E7s are generally now onsightable by the best trad climbers and I can't see anyone onsighting this one any time soon. I agree though about it not mattering much and I rather think that the HXS grade works pretty well here.

In reply to john arran:
Even at E7 it would be undergraded as E7s are generally now onsightable by the best trad climbers and I can't see anyone onsighting this one any time soon. I agree though about it not mattering much and I rather think that the HXS grade works pretty well here.

I'd have thought this route would be impossible to onsight, lets be honest how many people haven't seen the video of the first ascent?

In reply to UKC News: With regards to the grade, i guess a lot of it is to do with the relatively weird nature of the moves. An E grade is meant to give you an idea of how difficult a route is to onsight, this route's got 3 blind momentum moves in a row so it's going to be absolutely nails to onsight. Caling it E11 sounds a little off the mark though. HXS seems like a good compromise to me.

In reply to UKC News:

Yep, well done James, nice to see interesting climbing rather than just pulling hard.
As for the vid: music spoils it at the crucial point (as usual) but then its not really a vid is it? its a WC advert.

In reply to UKC News:

Cool moves. there can't be many people around that can climb stuff like that!