In reply to UKC News:
Well done. I am really happy that John and Dave’s FFA has been repeated after nearly 20 years. Great that you guys had the courage and enthusiasm to launch out. You never know how it will turn out. Easier or harder, epic or a cruise, another adventure. And you got to the top which is what it is all about.
That nut at the start of P18 was from the ‘70s, both I and Dave T worked on it for a while. It was the main crux of the pitch for Dave not to be able to use it. Nice to hear the hair is returning to the traverse on P17 to help concentrate the mind.
I hope someone takes the original line from the top of the Vile Crack out left along the Forever Traverse into the centre of the wall before tackling the Unconquerable Flakes into Hospital Corner home to the insatiable, twirling, bi-emitting fulmar to get a real flavour for the place, sort of ‘in your face’. Not as direct, but more central on the Wall and classic, and probably pretty easy nowadays.
I noticed that Alex Mason and George Ullrich had repeated the Limbo Traverse, P3 my topo, to my surprise, ‘like a sand crab’, see Alex’s blog,
http://alexmasonclimbing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-long-blog-post-part-ii.... . I had assumed that the other guys had taken a higher traverse line. It must have been quite scary considering the sandy nature of the overhanging sand dunes. Perhaps not really surprising how impossible changes to easy over the years. Even so one could go with an unpleasant whoosh, there. Their picture tackling the Unconquerable Flakes seems to me to be way above the real ones which are well below the Main Overhang and are more ‘heevy’ than balancy, and solid.