In reply to UKC News:
Thanks for your feedback guys. For those who are keen, Way Out West starts up Western Union then goes across Committal Chamber to the junction with 6-was-9, then it pulls up and left along a sloping ramp into a scoop under the roof, where there's a good rest. From there, break out diagonally right across the headwall, crossing below the hanging groove and dyno for the jug on the overlap (there's an old peg here but I didn't want to use it so taped it up so you couldn't clip it and placed a small nut instead). Pull over onto the upper slab and finish up this, just left of where 6-was-9 tops out. To me it felt like the line of least resistance up there and it's not eliminate at any point. Hope you enjoy it. Regarding Ironed Out, ho hum! : ) I'm still not quite sure what's gone on here and am trying to get to the bottom of it! I chatted to Al and Glenn about this line a couple of years ago and came away thinking it was new, valid and up for grabs. I've been round the houses trying to work out exactly where the original line of Iron Man goes in the upper part and I've heard conflicting versions. Apparently the line may be marked incorrectly in the guidebooks and the descriptions about the top part are very unclear. I've looked at this bit of wall extensively and my conclusion, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that Glenn went left into Pumping Iron earlier (just above the peg) Al went up the central crack then pulled diagonally left to the arete of Pumping Iron's top groove. If so, this pretty-much climbs the headwall with only a minor deviation at the end and means that Ironed Out adds relatively little new climbing, although it does straighten it via a completely new and I dare say, a harder crux. I guess it's a variant and may barely qualify as a new route but it definitely feels like a really exciting and pure way to climb that line. Check the vid and hopefully you'll see what I mean! To be clear, this isn't in any way to detract from the fine previous efforts of Al and Glenn, who's interpretations are clearly just as strong. It's all good and I guess we see many examples of this sort of thing in climbing these days. In some cases there will be just one obvious line but in others there will be major and minor variants. For me, Ironed Out was a bit of sport to get going at the start of the season and no doubt, Way Out West felt more like it was breaking new ground. Hope to see you out there if it ever stops raining!