UKC

Hazel Findlay has redpointed Mind Control 8c at Oliana, Spain. The 50m endurance based route had been a long term goal for Hazel since 2014. In 2010, Hazel injured her shoulder, which required surgery in 2015 and she has since endured a careful and gradual recovery. Initially graded 8c+, the general consensus for the climb is now 8c, which Hazel agrees with.Read more

In reply to UKC News:

A nice send and a great story of returning from injury. Sounds like there may be more where that came from!

In reply to UKC News:

Good effort and good that she's over that injury.

From interviews on the net I've heard Americans seem to reckon that getting an MRI scan should be the first port of call for all serious shoulder injuries.



Pretty disrespectful to Sharma, Ondra et al, for whom I'm pretty sure consider Oliana as 'real climbing'. It's not as if Mind Control is the hardest route there. It's actually pretty far down the list and has been flashed by several climbers.

In reply to stp:

Yes, you'd think that a climber of her calibre wouldn't see the need to put down sport climbing (presumably in favour of trad?) But maybe that's not quite what she meant? Maybe she meant that she could get back to real climbing now after climbing much easier stuff due to being injured for such a long time, and that this route signaled the start?

In reply to stp:


It's not an American POV per se, I guess it depends on the injury and the consultant. An MRI was the first diagnostic test I had done on my shoulder when I injured it, and that was not only in the UK but on the NHS.

In reply to jon:


This is how I understood it, when I read it.

In reply to Luke_92:


I think you're right. It's hard to see how anyone who's put that much into a route would dismiss it as not real climbing. The start of being able to try really hard on routes again, most likely.

I think we must have heard too much from the dinosaurs lately and we're reading things into comments like that that almost certainly aren't there!

I'm pretty sure she meant trad or adventure climbing as real climbing and I'm also pretty sure that it was a lighthearted comment using the term in a tongue-in-cheek, throwaway way that doesn't need analysing to death.

In reply to john arran:

That's what I read into it (even though probably tongue in cheek). I thought "good for her". But then I am undoubtedly a dinosaur.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Dear me, what happened to people's appreciation of English self-deprecation? She started out by saying that Mind Control was the hardest route she's ever done, then says, 'Psyched for some real climbing now'.

In reply to UKC News:

I think she enjoyed the indoor climbing and training regime from Tom Randall/Lattice that she is keen to get back indoors and pull on some plastic

In reply to ukb shark:


This.

In reply to stp:

A sport route and grade certainly doesn't do any justice to Hazel as a climber. In many ways she is the best technical and bold climber I've seen in action, some of her efforts on routes have been what I regard as extraordinary.
'Ben and Jerry' would have appeared as pretty useless on many of the climbing mediums Dawes excelled at and I put Hazel in a similar genre of climber. I'm pretty sure some of the climbers who flashed mind control would struggle on what Hazel excels at so I wouldn't use it as a 'measure' of achievement.

In reply to caff:
This from the man who recently accused hazel of mostly lazing around doing nothing ;-p

In reply to caff:

I think you've misunderstood my point. I regard her achievement as excellent, all the more so given it didn't seem that hard for her. My point was nothing to do with her climbing ability but about how I interpreted her comment about 'real' climbing. If, as I read it, it was a bit of a diss of the climbing at Oliana, my point was that wasn't really an authoritative position given there are many more, much harder routes there. If it was a tongue in cheek comment as others suggest then it's not actually relevant at all. Personally I can't see her tongue at all when just looking at plain text on a web page. Did I miss something in the writing? Or is it just that others could infer that from knowing her? I've never met her so have no clue about her sense of humour etc.. None of this though is about her climbing ability which, as for all of us, stands separately from what we say.

In reply to caff:


That may be true but your point doesn't mean much other than 'Dawes/Hazel were or are good at technical bold climbs and Ben/Jerry are or were good at power and power endurance climbs'. Certainly Dawes or Hazel would struggle on all of Ben/Jerry's hardest first ascents, if you want to start making comparisons.
Neither style is inherently any more 'worthy' or 'real' than the other. And, as you know, pure power endurance at the top end of the grades is a very hard style to master if it's not your forte. Some climbs you just can't tech your way around