In reply to petemeads:
Agree - brilliant!
A few years ago, somebody I knew mentioned that they were coming down from London to Portland with a bunch of mates, of mixed climbing ability, and would I meet up with them. I duly did and paired with a guy called Duncan. We did a bunch of fun little routes together and he was pretty much the ideal climbing partner. If there's such a thing as 'balance' (of desirable qualities) in a climbing partner, then he had well-nigh perfect balance.
He mentioned that he was intending to do the Comici on the Cima Grande with John Cox. Given John's well stated distaste for 'the Portland crowd', I quipped about the irony of Duncan 'training' for the Comici on Portland. The pair of them did it not long after.
You do a few routes with someone, you chat about this and that, and... you get a feeling about them. The feeling I got about Duncan was uncannily almost word for word what he said about Romain Vogler. He was laid-back, relaxed, unassuming. And yet there was this inner steel, allied to well-nigh perfect balance. He never mentioned Yosemite, let alone El Cap. But when the list of NIAD records was posted here a while back, somehow his ascent (and the time!) came as no surprise.
An unsung hero of climbing.
Mick