UKC

Superb effort. Great to see the young guns climbing so hard. 

Congratulations on also having, what is surely, the best name in climbing right now. 

Fantastic effort and nice to do it in a proper shirt as well. 

Do you know of anyone else who's climbed 9a in a shirt and jeans? He looks smarter than I did at my mates wedding. 

"He looks smarter than I did at my mates wedding."

Quality comment

Seems like folk are now queuing for this route

I believe he did before going to work. Flippin effort, casual 9a style!

I didn't realise so many Brits were climbing at this level now (assuming most of the ascents have been by those based in the UK).

Top Man!
(Other clothing retailers are available).

Brilliant stuff. Hope his chalk-bag is on using his tie.

We've definitely got some good young climbers coming up but it seems like they don't shout about what they do and so much of it doesn't get reported. I think that's this is the 9th ascent of Rainshadow and they're all Brits apart from Adam Ondra's second ascent.

Added to the 8 British ascent of Rainshadow there's about another 7 or so people who have climbed 9a depending on how you count - I'm not counting boulder problems. Other good climbers include Luke Dawson who I think has climbed 8c+ and Jim Pope who was recently close to doing Ondra's 9a, Le Cadre at Ceuse.

There's a good short vid of one of Will Bosi's recent redpoint attempts on Mutation at Raven Tor. Sounds like this will probably get upgraded to 9a+ at some point.

youtube.com/watch?v=MXWUXyJvwtA&

Hadn't seen that, brilliant footage!

Interesting stuff. Why has Rainshadow in particular become so popular? (i.e. is it better than the other English 9a routes?)

Hey Lee

what you doing on here?

Well a) there are not that many 9as to choose from. b) it bangs right up the middle of malham and c) the bottom half is a 3 star classic 8a familiar to the vast majority of decent climbers in the UK. 

And above all else it seams standards are indeed on the up. Lots of people capable of doing it these days which probably wasn't true when it was first done. 

As Snoop6060 says there's not a lot of choice and it's one of the best, most accessible and probably more reasonable of the routes at that grade (though not a soft touch).

Mutation at Raven Tor is reputed to be extremely difficult, probably 9a+, and extremely finger intensive.  Northern Lights at Kilnsey also looks pretty tough. It took Alex Megos two days when he's regularly done 9a+'s elsewhere in a day. Ben Moon has spent far more time on it than he has on Rainshadow and still not done it. Not sure about North Star (Kilnsey). The crux of Big Bang is a slab, as is The Meltdown and we've only got one James McHaffie (who's done both). Hubble is more of a boulder problem and much less attractive a route than Rainshadow. Though it has had 7 British ascents plus Alex Megos. The Anvil is in Scotland is far from much of the country's climbing populace.

If it's better than these routes then that makes sense. I don't quite get the 'reasonable' argument though - isn't 9a meant to be tough? 

Do you mean familiar as in know of it, or have been on it? It perhaps depends what you mean by 'decent', but I definitely wouldn't say the vast majority of decent climbers have been on it!  

It does seem that way, yes.

Sorry I meant in the context of rainshadow. In that I mean the vast majority of people that are pondering which 9a to project have probably already done raindogs. So it becomes an obvious choice. And it looks ace of course.

I clicked on this hoping Buster was a dog. Bit disappointed to be honest.

I've no doubt Rainshadow is tough. Pete Dawson took days to do it yet he did True North at Kilnsey, reputed to be a solid 8c, on his second go. So clearly it's far harder than 8c. I think all Steve's routes are tough. Most of the other hard ones either haven't been repeated or have only been repeated by Ondra and Megos (Northern Lights). The fact they've been done by the two best sport climbers in the world doesn't really tell us much. So yes Rainshadow is tough but others maybe be even tougher still. Also I suppose the more ascents a route has the more the mental hurdle has been broken down.