In reply to UKC News:
The spoof has now made its way across the Atlantic to the
Rock & Ice realm:
"
Britain’s Legendary Indian Face Soloed Onsight … Bull*hit!
The May 18 ukclimbing.com headline was astounding. Indian Face Solo … without ropes!But the accompanying story was far more outrageous.
According to the report, written by website editor Jack Geldard, a women contacted him claiming that her boyfriend had onsight soloed Johnny Dawes’ 1986 headpoint Indian Face (5.13a X), a route that has seen only two other ascents in 24 years.
Geldard posted the e-mail correspondence and claimed that: “after a little Google and Facebook investigation it became apparent that the couple involved are indeed real people and this is not a wind up.”
The soloist, a 41-year-old given the pseudonym Joseph Smith, claimed to have climbed the 165-foot slab in “stickies” or rubber boots, and he described his style as, “a bricklayer wearing water-skis doing ballet. I’m self taught.”
The whole affair smelled funny, to say the least, and the website’s forum lit up. Predictably, many people called it a hoax, but Geldard replied that, “the e-mails are real.”
A surprising number of people defended the claim. One person, who used the avatar “Clinger” asked, “Why is everyone so quick to dismiss the guy? Yes, I know it'd be a truly astonishing story, and I agree it should be looked into and verified, however I prefer to take people at face value and only downgrade my opinion of them if subsequent events require it. So I say well done to the guy.”
Welldone, indeed. Indian Face, a dark and forbidding rhyolite wall located high in Wale’s Snowdonia National Park, is probably the most storied modern climb in the British genre of scary trad. Tall and continuous, with creaky side-pulls, protected by a quiver of body-weight brass nuts and with ground fall potential at the crux—even Dave MacLeod (best-known for pants-filling routes in Scotland like Rhapsody, the world’s first E11) opted out of leading the line after top-rope inspection.
Neil Gresham (who writes the Ask The Coach column for Rock and Ice and has climbed at a world class level on trad, sport, mixed and ice climbs) made the most recent confirmed ascent in 1996 and has called his lead “without doubt the most scared I’ve ever been.”
All ascents of Indian Face have relied on extensive top rope practice—except for Joseph Smith’s rubber boot onsight solo this past Tuesday.
Listen to first ascentionist Johnny Dawes and second ascentionist Nick Dixon talking about their experiences on the route here:
http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=45484 "