UKC

The day after winning the CWIF title with a gutsy performance involving contortion, multi-dynos and lots of thinking, you'd expect Sean McColl to allow himself a day off...

However, keen to try out our fabled gritstone climbing, Sean headed to Black Rocks alongside Jorg Verhoeven to try the bold and technical Gaia E8 6c - as his first gritstone trad route!

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In reply to UKC News:

Very smoothly done!

In reply to Shani:

Did he just campus the crux?!

In reply to UKC News:

What a beautifully smooth and spectacularly rapid ascent!

In reply to UKC News:

Nice video, and glad he enjoyed the experience. But newsworthy?

"One of the worlds strongest climbers headpoints Gaia"

...I should think so too. Does he have a day job, or is he a full time pro?

Loads of us have headpointed that route, with full time jobs, weak arms, average technique, rubbish diets etc.

In reply to satnav09:

Probably not but I still enjoyed the video. Especially with a different sequence to ascents I've seen in the past.

In reply to UKC News:

it's such an iconic route, with a nice writeup and video, so absolutely newsworthy.

In reply to satnav09:
To be honest I think it is newsworthy. For lots of us Gaia was cutting edge and the iconic footage in Hard Grit of 'the fall' made it quite an intimidating line to even think about. To see some dispatch it quickly and so unbelievably effortlessly is different enough to be newsworthy.

If were some strong local climber wobbling up using the same sequence as all before then absolutely not. It's not newsworthy. In my opinion.

In reply to satnav09:

It's newsworthy in the sense that it is carrying on the great tradition of foreigners coming over here and handing our arses to us on the grit?

In reply to Jubjab:


^
this.

and to be honest I even find the vids iconic, Mark R's was gripping....

In reply to Removed User:

Yes, in the cases of Alex Hannold et al, visiting the uk and onsighting it... yes that puts us brits in our place.

But in this case, a top class foreign climber coming and headpointing it.... That's what hundreds of uk climbers have done. 250 plus of us maybe?

We've had a uk flash of the route. Not sure about it being onsighted by one of us.

In reply to satnav09:

Must be getting polished now, maybe E9?

In reply to satnav09:

I found it more interesting than reading the com results and how to win a Sea to Summit Comfort Plus Insulated Sleeping Mat.

Suppose it depends what your into..

In reply to Mark Westerman:



Ground up on Gaia, aghhhhhhh.

All credit to Sean for doing Gaia, I can't relate to indoor comp climbing as I'm weak but it sounds like he really enjoyed the experience of climbing a legendary route, something which I can relate to.

In reply to UKC News:

Incredibly slick!

In reply to satnav09:


Has anyone done it as their first route on grit though? That seems to be the newsworthy bit for me.

It's also an interesting because he's small and Gaia is meant to be quite a bit harder for short climbers, english 7a I think people used to say. So it was interesting to see the ease with which he did the crux.

And the fact that he is a predominantly indoor, competition climber and able to effortlessly transfer those skills to a very bold, hard grit, trad route. In general I'm interested just to know what things top foreign climbers get up to when visiting this country too.

In reply to stp:


He's known for his plastic climbing, however:
"As an outdoor climber, Sean has onsighted 5.14a (8b+) and climbed multiple 5.14d’s (9a). On the bouldering side, Sean is one of a dozen climbers in the world to flash the grade of V13 (8B) and redpoint V15 (8C)" ( see seanmccoll.com/about/)

Yes, it's a good effort doing it as your first grit route. However, as I say, there are hundreds of us mere mortals that have headpointed the route that can barely climb v8 let alone v15!!

In reply to UKC News:

Loved it! Yah boo sucks to the sourpuss...

In reply to stp:

"It's also an interesting because he's small and Gaia is meant to be quite a bit harder for short climbers"

How is that remotely interesting? Johnny Dawes isn't exactly 'tall' himself now is he.

He's a flipping world class comp climber, I'm sure he's been able to cope with those long reaches for a while now.

In reply to satnav09:

OK, I'll say it: well done on headpointing Gaia. Really, well done. We are not worthy.

Can you stop now?

In reply to ChrisBrooke:

fair enough, I'll stop, but I wasn't after praise, as a. I'd be identifiable by my user name, and b. as I say, there are 250 plus people that have headpointed it.

All I'm saying is that we get enough of the "so and so climbs 9b or v15..." mantra that re-enforces that "we are not worthy" to the likes of McColl, Ondra, Sharma etc....

So when McColl or the likes does something totally within themselves, that is in fact quite ordinary, then there is no need for yet further praise.

In reply to satnav09:

Interesting definition of the word 'stop'

In reply to satnav09:

I was only being snarky because most people are happy to applaud something really cool, like a nice little no-frills video of a really smooth ascent of an infamous hard-grit sketch-fest. Even if it's not 'hard' for the geezer involved it's still a lovely thing to watch and if I had been there I would still have said "nice one dude" or similar, without the need to cross-reference his climbing CV to check whether it was within himself or not

In reply to satnav09:

Is this really true?

(I'm asking for interest, not asserting that it is untrue.)

In reply to Coel Hellier:

definitely a popular headpoint

on another note:

IMO 'most' of our routes just aren't that hard
Why would an 8b+ climber find a 7b+ hard? (approx. difficulty of Gaia)

I'd imagine some of the highballs in Bishop are just as scary as Gaia, with much harder climbing. Not to mention the soloists out there

It is a fantastic line though

In reply to UKC News:

At last, a climbing vid without all the lingo and accoustic ambient musak. Exactly what a climbing vid should be.

In reply to Coel Hellier:


There are 11 people in the database that have lead it and there are probably quite a few other climbers who, like Sean and Jorg, aren't even on UKC, so it must be at least 20 or so, if not considerably more. It's also on a lot of people's wish lists.

In reply to UKC News:

I think it was great to see such a different style of ascent, really dynamic movement between the holds. I just hope that isn't all he did whilst on the grit. It's not really a true representation of what gritstone is all about (not that I'm against putting a rope on something hard). It would be good to see what he made of Angel's Share, or onsighting some classic E6/E7s.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Well let's assume most of them happened in the last five years or so, when activity seems to have picked up among the dozen or so logbook users who led it to the top, that would mean someone head pointed it every week. Not every week of the year will have had suitable weather - say half of them - so let's say in dry weeks it saw two head points a week for five years. I Know not many people go to black rocks but I feel like someone might have noticed.

In reply to simoninger:

This discussion seems fairly pointless.
Given that the route has now been ground-upped by people who are not at the very top level (not to take anything away from them of course), it should be clear that headpointing it absolutely nowhere near newsworthy as an ascent in itself.

What is more notable and interesting is (a) what the top stars get up to when they are over in the UK (for example also Jan Hojer doing The Ace), but (b) in a social media context, Sean's article is excllent and really got across what the experience meant to him personally, which I really enjoyed reading. Great effort Sean.

In reply to ben.phillips: this thread is great. It isn't a hard route, and it isn't a good representation of gritstone is.

For future reference , any suggestions on what visiting climbers should do?

In reply to Si dH:
Oh I completely agree with you, I was just having a bit of fun with the whole "there's hundreds of us have done this" thing, which in the absence of much data struck me as pretty unlikely. Still does.

In reply to wbo:

It's high time for a 'Wizard Ridge or nothing' rule for these pesky blow-ins!

Really enjoyed that video. So fast and smooth! And it was interesting to read his blog; the route obviously meant a lot to him.

D.

In reply to satnav09:


I don't really see the problem with things being 'newsworthy' or not. It's not like UKC is print media and this article pushed an on-sight ascent of Indian Face off the front page.

In reply to ben.phillips:

I think he may have tried Angels Share too? He said he tried a nails slab there then also went and did Deliverance later on that day

He was on reddit chatting to folks about it. He genuinely seems really excited about getting gaia.

https://www.reddit.com/r/climbing/comments/4asclf/video_of_my_first_gritsto...

In reply to planetmarshall:

That's a good point and also we all like looking at climbing stuff, probably spending more time looking at it than we should. However, you can't report every E8 headpoint etc as it would take forever and clog up the feed. The interest here is that it was his first experience and he wrote eloquently about it. If we look at it from that perspective, as an interest piece, rather than 'news' item it's a non-issue.

In reply to UKC News:

From our perspective, a climber of world-cup standard coming over to try out gritstone trad and doing Gaia as his first route - immediately after two intense days of world-cup standard competition bouldering - is interesting in itself, but Sean's write-up and video added an extra level of 'interest.'

It's not always about the numbers for us. As has been mentioned, it's just nice to hear about people experiencing something new and writing about something we probably take for granted!

In reply to UKC News:

Just :o0

The most confident ascent I've ever seen of a UK test piece... the guy is just on fire, so, so talented - respect. Just watched this like 10 times, can't get enough.

Compare this to the classic pic of Johnny fiercely pulling on to the main wall... Sean does it pretty much one handed?!

In reply to wbo:

The video didn't float my boat to be honest.......equivalent of watching Geoff Capes opening a particularly stubborn jam jar. Not that I'd want to detract from the personal experience, so no offence meant Sean, if you're reading.

Now seeing a repeat of 'Harder, Faster'......that's not done much is it?