UKC

James McHaffie has become the first person to complete Ken Wilson and Bernard Newman's 'Extreme Rock', ticking his final route - Revelations 8b - today (26 May).

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Now that is THE ticklist completed. Proper effort.

Andy F

Can we please get an interview with him on his experiences doing extreme rock? I know I would love to read it.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if it were already in the pipeline.

It will SURELY go in a book.

Congratulations Caff - stellar effort!

Neil

UK...completed it mate. This is f*ckin' rad. Well done love

Chapeau! Incredible achievement.

So who’s going to pen the “modern” extreme rock?

The ultimate challenge in puerile ticking!

No. That will be Extreme, Hard and Classic. The true challenge remains.

Great effort Caff, but what've you ever done on grit?

Incredible! The greatest, realest trad achievement I've ever heard.

Blimey! I'll have to get him to sign my copy, it'll be worth £££ then!

Any more puerile than all the 8,000m peaks etc?

Book, film, interview, article, whatever - I really want to hear about this. It is a stunning achievement. 

I suspect the dislikers of this post aren't familiar with the origin of the phrase.

https://www.needlesports.com/Information/Features/Hard-Rock

I suspect the dislikers have had a sensayuma bypass operation

This is one hell of an achievement. 

Pages 171 - 235 it would seem

Amazing really that it’s taken 35 years for a completer to emerge.  I guess everyone who might have been capable thought it was a hopeless dream so didn’t really try and it’s probably only the fairly recent arrival of the “professional” rock climber that has made it possible.

I sold my spare copy last year for a little under £200, not a bad return on the £25 purchase price…..

Not that surprising given that, as the article points out, you've got Indian Face as one of the routes. Folk aren't exactly queuing up for that one; I think we're still not past 7 ascents? And out of 7 exceptional climbers, how many are going to be motivated for a mammoth undertaking like this? Not Dawes, Dixon or Gresham I'm fairly sure, nor Dave MacLeod. Calum Musket perhaps best bet for a repeat?!

Surely a challenge is what makes us strive to be better. It’s not puerile. There are a lots in there head and shoulders above the rest, which I could (at one time) have hope to lead, so well done for a fantastic effort that has resisted the decades. Finally for the ultimate in puerile, applied from your statement would be bouldering, lugging a mattress up a hill to find the hardest way up a small rock. It’s whatever floats your boat and that’s the beauty of all forms of climbing.

I think your missing some historical context here, the puerile ticker comment is a quote by the book series creator and I suspect not entirely serious.

I think it was KW himself who came up with the purile ticker tag but IIRC is was first applied to Will Hurford who named a route after it on the Cromlech in 1978.

Doh idiot!! You’re entirely correct and I should have remembered Ken saying that, especially as I wrote two of the chapters for the book,

Nice achievement, but what has he ever done on chalk?

Massive congratulations to Caff. If I could swap rock climbing CVs with anyone it would be Caff.  
I remember as a student starting university purchasing Extreme Rock which seemed a huge sum of money at the time but has been huge source of inspiration over the years.

I’ve been wondering that too. And what will it be called? “Hard Extremely Severe Rock” I suppose. Maybe the reward for being the first to complete Extreme Rock should be getting to choose what goes into the next book, and NOT have to climb all of them...

The point about the Classic, Hard, Extreme series is not the choice of routes. It's also about the diversity of authors and essays that go with it.  It shouldn't be one person's choice.

I was thinking “Pure Dead Mental Rock” myself, but maybe that’s just The weegie rubbing off on me.

Surely to go with Classic Rock and Hard Rock we need 'Heavy Metal', a compilation of the best pegging routes

Caff works for the BMC for 4 days a week as its Youth and Equity Officer. Surely that makes him a determined and talented weekend warrior, rather than a 'professional' climber?