UKC

Something for us old giffers to enjoy! Interesting to compare to current lead comps, especially the 20 minute time limit!

https://youtu.be/Gl0spp0S34Q?si=fxKJRgn5UhqKxx2T

Edit: The video title is actually first international comp (but I’m not sure even that is correct)

I think the first was Troubat, or maybe Arco in Italy. This is La Riba, a couple of months after Sniwbird, early September 88

https://www.flickr.com/photos/30814373@N02/4236508925/in/dateposted-public/

Thanks for sharing that link. I've often wondered what might have happened if I'd stayed in the US a bit longer. I'd been there a few years and was fit as a butcher's dog, but I left 6 months before that comp, and as I was based not so very far away in Boulder, it's pretty likely that I might have been talked into taking part. Not that I would have expected to have done well, but that vert climbing was very much my forte and it would have suited me well, so who knows?

Instead I took a year or more off climbing and toured around the world, which I don't regret at all. But by the time I got back into climbing and got fit enough to enter comps, I did ok at first but the walls very soon got much much steeper and suited me far less well. Time then to divert attention to other forms of climbing that brought greater rewards!

Are those photos your own Jon? I’ve got a copy of Climbing magazine where I’m pretty sure the hair cut one is featured? It’s an article by CG and DG and when I want an ego boost I read the section where they list all the grade 8 routes and climbers in the world!

Edit: I did a quick Google for Bardonecchia and came across this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportroccia

My friend and I were having a discussion about how hard this route was, do you want to add to the speculation with any contemporary info?

I have a strong memory of visiting Arco sometime in the eighties and onsighting the womens' semifinal route on chipped natural rock. Possibly 6c or 6b+

Thankfully things soon moved on.

Yes, sorry, I wrote Arco but was thinking of Bardonecchia as well. Chipping comp routes was the order of the day I believe (never got on one myself). Bad for the crag but bad for the comp- one of the La Riba routes had a chipped pocket which made it a total lottery to read as it was hidden from below.

The La Riba and all photos in the photo stream were taken by me (apart from the ones of me, obvs!).

Haircut in the campsite was Christian Griffith, Lidia Painkiher and unknown American at Les Cèdres, Apt, about 1990. I climbed a bit with Lidia on that trip, somehow persuading her to get to the crag with me for 7am to redpoint  Polka des Ringards before the sun hit the slopers on the crux. Good times  

DG was there then- that’s him and CG in the Face Ouest photo

Wow, Lidia (was it Lidja?) was still climbing then? I climbed with her a lot in Boulder around 1986 but soon afterwards she all but stopped when she joined the Hare Krishnas! Good to hear she started again. I have fond memories of the two of us riding on my old Honda CB400 (which I'd bought for $200 IIRC) at midnight from Boulder up to Estes Park, hiking into the Diamond, climbing some 5.11 (D7?) and riding back again all in one epic push!

My guess would be around 7c/+. 7c+ was definitely being onsighted by that time but I suspect the comp route wasn't quite as hard as that. Very difficult to say though, of course.

The one of Jason S. with shaved head is August '88, not 1987. I know this for sure because that's our blue Avenger and tents in the background!

Hi elliptic  Could you have gone on consecutive years? I think it’s 87, because Jason, Yoav Nir and I met on the BMC International Youth Meet August 87 and went to the Verdon together afterwards. I started uni just afterwards, in October. I’d have been too old for the meet in 88.

@John Arran- Good story, she was still pretty keen. Lidja (probably right spelling) had some Hare Krishna beads she had to spend time chanting with. Nice lady, enjoyed climbing with her.

I think this got mentioned in the podcast episode as being 13a, so F7c+.

Just the once, it was the year I finished at uni. Four of us went down to Verdon and Buoux for a couple of months in that Avenger which was acquired for the trip and rusted apart fairly soon after.

I do remember Jason and the other Americans being around, Dale, Christian, Jim Karn, maybe Beth Wald? - not that we hung out with them per se - and the surrealist pink paint job on whoever's car that was. IIRC it got them some hassle from the gendarmes in Apt though I can't remember why, probably just didn't like it lowering the tone of their nice respectable French town!

Well this is trip down memory lane! Slightly the opposite to you, I got talked into belaying Lidia on Polka des Ringards when she was trying it, she had it pretty well wired, in return she belayed me on songe sucre which was my absolute limit at the time but she got me up it. 

And that mad pink car, I think the guy getting the haircut drove it, can’t remember his name but we had a few lifts to the crag and back in it, happy days!

Scruffy climbers didn’t bring a huge amount of tourist ££ to the local economy, so I’m not surprised the gendarmes were a bit shirty.

The date is a conundrum! Neil Gresham was on the meet and remembers it well. Maybe we could ask him to have the casting vote

Songe Sucré is a great route! Need to return to Buoux!

IIRC that’s Ad Van Der Horst’s white van in the background. I travelled to Rotterdam in it to train with him for a few weeks before coming back to Buoux. It had no seatbelts- felt like travelling 1,000 miles in an ejector seat.

For some reason the pink car hasn’t stuck in my memory. Gav and John’s little white van has though - they painted a massive ASOLO logo on the side, an exact replica of the brand’s symbol, just with an R inserted between the A and S.

Yeah, happy days indeed!

I remember that trip ! Assuming there wasn’t a series of blue Avengers !

In the very early days of comps the climbers had no time limit, they would come out with their rucksacks, put their harness and shoes on and then start climbing. The World Cup started in 1989 in Leeds - it was called a Grand Prix but was 'official' in that it was run under UIAA rules. A certain Mr Moffat won with Didier Rabatou and Simon Nadin also on the podium.

I have a picture of Fred (I forget his surname) smoking his pipe in isolation, which lasted about 10 hours - I will post it if I can find it. The Leeds comp was the same weekend as the FA Cup final replay, Scousers vs Scouers, I watched it in the bar sat next to Catherine Destiville, both of us having a pint. Happy memories from different times.

Just the one but it served us well, IIRC you kept it afterwards until it gave up the ghost. 

That was a good summer but an alarmingly long time ago. Hope you're well!

Chris.

The photo mentioned by Graeme is now down loaded 

That's Fred Mortimore I think

Done thanks