UKC

James Pearson has made what is likely the third ascent of The Elder Statesman (HXS 7a) at Curbar, Peak District.

The route tackles the famous arete to the side of Elder Crack and was first climbed by Steve McClure back in 2004, and repeated not long after by Steve Dunning...

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=67844

In reply to UKC News: Really interesting grade, looking forward to the video.

I wonder if anybody has looked at going direct up the arete, avoiding the rest

In reply to JimboWizbo: Presumably that was the original idea so I guess it was deemed too hard.

In reply to JimboWizbo:

Great effort from James

In reply to UKC News:
Presume Dunning's repeat is captured here:
youtube.com/watch?v=RjURGAfd4hs&

"It took Steve three days but he managed to top rope it clean on his second go. Unfortunately he didn't have any large cams so he couldn't go for the lead on his first day. Day two was too warm and on Day three Dave Buchanan lent his dad's large friend and Steve climbed it on his first headpoint attempt."
http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=10634

Interesting what Pearson says here:
"This time I was very surprised to find some moves a lot harder than I had remembered. It soon turned out that a crucial pebble foothold had broken and nobody had climbed it since. The weather was good so I had a few attempts on the abseil rope last Thursday, figured out a method, and then climbed it on Friday. Super cool, crazy double sideways slap... very fun!"
http://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?l=2&keyid=40...

In reply to Alex Thompson:
Cheers for that. The clip only has 31 views, including me. That went under the radar. Interesting how the style of movement differs between McClure and Dunning, will be interssing to see the clip of James.

In reply to Jimbo C:

You mean Dunning lanks it?

In reply to Jimbo C:

Nope, there are other versions of the same video on YT.

In reply to Fraser:

Like this one:

youtube.com/watch?v=P4BGZ1FpZnY&

In reply to UKC News:
Where is James' belayer hiding in the photograph?

In reply to deepsoup:
Belayer, I mean. <facepalm>

In reply to UKC News: looks like james used some different beta from Steve McClure. He seems to have in his right hand the hold that McClure has in his left before the swing round the corner. That's interesting because I always in my own head rationalised high technical grades as justifiable on the basis of how many different ways something is capable of being done. Therefore, any given 6b move can usually be done maybe 6 or 7 subtly different ways, whereas most 6c moves can only be done one or maybe 2 different ways. When it comes to 7a grades and the like I'd usually expect them only to be possible only one exact way. Guess i'll have to revise my own private theory then.

In reply to M0nkey:

It's cool how many different ways to do hard problems there are. Bradd Pitt Springs to mind.

Even in top boulder comps there people seem to approach them in vastly different ways.

In reply to M0nkey: Your theory is correct as a general trend, but there are some exceptions. It's perhaps because it's towards the limits of possibility that there are fewer ways to do a 7a move, rather than because of some intrinsic quality hard routes have. If we could all dyno 12 feet, then a lot of 7a moves could be climbed in many different ways.

In reply to UKC News:

Interesting to hear that he chose to headpoint. I guess its not the nicest fall though...

In reply to JimboWizbo:

But there isn't really any lower arete, do you mean avoiding the runner in Elder Crack?