In reply to johncoxmysteriously:
Interesting thread John, though your title is rather misleading!
Thinking back to things which have amazed me when I heard about them, then it was always the stuff I didn't know was being 'projected' which really made me sit up.
So whilst Echo Wall may be a hard route, there was an inevitability about the outcome, even if it did come a bit sooner than folk had been anticipating. The same goes for majority of other long-term sieges.
I do remember being amazed when I heard about Simon's Menopause solo. I wasn't there, but I'm fairly sure he didn't solo the first pitch - I think he started up Our Father, or perhaps Scoop Wall. Although not the technical crux, the first pitch is the one with the snappy rock and inobvious moves. By contrast, the top pitch is one bouldery move into a short-lived shallow groove, all on perfect rock. But a quite audacious solo, nevertheless.
But the solo of Revalations really was in a different league. You have to remember that it was by common consensus the hardest route in the UK at the time, and people simply shook their heads - not in disbelief, but sheer amazement - when they heard about Anthoine's solo. I think tracking down a photo of such a historic event (when no photos had been seen before) is Peak Rock's biggest coup, as far as recent history goes.
More recently, I was amazed when I heard about Pete Whittaker's lead of the Headless Horseman arête this Sunday, but that is mainly because I hadn't heard he (or anyone) had been trying it. Chatting to him at the wall on Monday, he was typically downplaying the significance, though he did let slip that it did feature some of the hardest moves he had ever done...
Mitch thinks 6c/7a, though local expert Justin Critchlow (from a 2008 blog comment) disagrees...
http://gritlist.wikifoundry.com/thread/2079957/The+headless+horseman+arete+...
Neil