UKC

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:

Brilliant effort!

How an earth did The Promise ever get E10!?!

Silly grading!

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC: Nice one!Fair play to Kevin and Alex-amazing effort, whoever got the footage and you guys at ukc, cheers, I appreciate you guys getting the clips, you really seem to be on the ball at the moment, keep up the good work.

In reply to willackers:

seriously

In reply to Silum:

Yep

It's an amazing effort for them both to repeat it and for it to get climbed in the first place but E10?

I'd rather try that than EOTA or some other E8's there is to go at!

E10's a massive grade!

In reply to willackers:

>"How an earth did The Promise ever get E10!?!"

What grade did it feel like to you? I might be tempted to give it a go if you thought it was around the E1/E2 mark...

Nice report, however one innaccuracy - Ben Moon gave Equilibrium French 8c in 1993 and not 8b+. It was later downgraded by others.

In reply to teddy:

I thought they kicked their trip off with a rapid ascent of New Statesment arguably the best line of the lot!

In reply to willackers: sorry, i was a agreeing with you.

As in, seriously, theirs now way looking at the route it could possibly be E10, it looks like a boulder problem number 1, and from the shot of alex bounce testing the gear... it looks pretty bomber

In reply to xyz:

Yes, the video footage of that was very dark and grey, and filmed from a static position quite a distance away. Not a great bit of footage although a very impressive ascent never-the-less.

Alan

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC: Its interesting watching that footage in comparison to the first ascent on Committed. Without all the drama and suspense created by the Hot Aches team it is shown for what it is - an inspiring line with really nice looking moves.

In reply to Silum:

Thanks.

Technically it looks really hard but compared to lots of other routes with a lower E grade it's just not as serious.

Amazing line what ever the grade is!

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:

Good report. Glad you mentioned James Pearson, as despite all this saga over down-grades he is still a f*ckin good climber who has set some great lines.

As Kevin states, Equilibrium is hard, very serious and JP ticked. Respect.

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:

Music's great as well, especially through my sound system.

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:

On the DVD it was made to look like a route rather than the boulder problem it appears to be here. I wonder if JP will get fed up with the flak and become a runner like Rich S too?

Just had a quick compare between the footage here and on Committed. It doesn't appear that Kevin/Alex are using a drastically different sequence to JP - same hand for the slopey edge at the crux. They might be doing something subtley different with their feet to get more reach though - Kevin seems to get his higher.

Kevin, in particular, makes it look like a path!

Great effort guys.

J

In reply to Toccata: Boxer first Shirley?

In reply to orge: Kevin undercuts and gets his foot higher before going for the sloper. Alex looked like he used the JP method.

All three make it look easy on the lead.

In reply to Richard Bradley:

One comment stands out though - Alex thought Promise was two E grades harder than End of the Affair.

In reply to DrGav:

Uhhh...

I met up with them at a very windy Curbar, shortly after Alex had made a flash ascent of The End Of The Affair. In line with what I have said above, he was incredibly modest, and un-phased by this very news worthy ascent and told me, without a hint of snobbery or cockiness, that he felt the route was E6!




http://jamespearsonclimbing.blogspot.com/

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:


Yes Good film

It would be so much better without the music though and just leave the sound from the footage with maybe a few tones or something more transparent.

Why do all climbing films now have the stock music soundtrack?

In reply to The Pylon King: watched Dosage V tother day and found the music on that annoying. I put it down to old age though.

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:

Wow, that was some impressively controlled climbing.

I think JP is getting a fairly unfair bashing on these boards at the moment. The climbing looks seriously hard and these americans are awesome climbers, not just some unknown punters. They are up there with the best in the world so you would expect them to climb our hardest routes.

In reply to Fat Elvis:

Has he done much at E6? You get the impression from the news that they spent the whole month on E8+. Did they get ticking (presumably solo) of the classic 3* routes at E6 and under?

In reply to teddy:

Hi I wondered if it might be possible to amend this in your report? I remember reading about Moon's 8c grade for 'Yoghurt Arete' on toprope in a 'Rock Notes' report in High Magazine in 1993 (showing my age....haha!)

Thanks a lot.
Ted Kingsnorth

In reply to Monk:
>The climbing looks seriously hard and these americans are awesome climbers, not just some unknown punters. They are up there with the best in the world so you would expect them to climb our hardest routes.

Yes, but what have they ever done on g... ..Oh hang on a minute...

In reply to Monk:

You keep hearing this. This so-called 'expectation'.

Before Team America came over, very few UK climbers had heard of Kevin Jorgeson, Alex Honnold and Matt Segal (a trio amongst many talented American climbers who are progressing climbing).

We'd run several news reports about Alex's solos and Kevin's highballing at Bishop and Hueco.

But very few UK climbers actually knew how good they were, until now that is.... now that they have performed on our hallowed gritstone.

I'm sure many, disregarding the inevitable and expected ; o ) grade debates (very peculiar to the UK because of our complex sysytem)..... are absolutely inspired and motivated by what they achieved on such a short trip.

Mick

In reply to teddy:
>

Come on, Ted. That really is nonsense!

You know you should never rely on such works of pure fiction...

Neil

In reply to teddy: Hi Ted,

Thanks for the info.

I accept that Ben said it was 8c at that time - I really have no idea (I was 12! However my OTE collection started with No. 38 in 1993, so I guess I should have got High instead), but it is generally regarded to be 8b/+ now, though the top-rope grade before Neil B led it was considered to be 8b+.

Personally I struggle to grade short grit-esque things with French grades anyway, and find bouldering grades much easier to interpret.

Here's a nice article covering Equilibrium from Neil B - with the 8b+ grade mentioned:

http://www.cragx.com/articles/issue10/grit_extreme/intr02.htm

Cheers, and thanks for the good posting.

Jack

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:

On sight solo of London Wall?! That's mind-boggling to me, especially having seen footage of Leo Houlding just barely managing it on lead.

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:

Great thanks for the link Jack, (I myself was a callow youth aged 14 at that time!) Yes it is 8b+ now, Moonie probably didn't use the best sequence.

I'm shocked Neil! I thought it was gospel!....only kidding

Good climb, great effort; but isn't 'bounce testing' the gear actually hanging on the rope? Surely it counts as a fall?

In reply to iron in the soul:

"Good climb, great effort; but"...... always the but.

I'll repeat what Jack said before..... are you nuts???

Of course anyone in their right mind would bounce test a single piece of gear that is the only piece of gear on a climb.

In reply to iron in the soul: When he bouce tested the gear he started on the ground and finished on the ground. It was no more of a fall than when he walked to the crag.

If you call it an onsight, or a clean attempt then placing all your weight on the gear is a fall. Being on the ground just means the gear was pre placed. It is vastly different testing gear whilst on the lead to fully loading it whilst standing on the ground.

It seems to me that as the grades increase there is a different set of ethics applied. If the climb was HVS we would call backing off from the gear or jumping on the gear a fall, or at least a compromised ascent. Why, just because the grade is harder is it any different? Is there a general reduction in ethics just so we can bag higher grades? Would it be OK to say, "It is OK to pull up on the gear, you'd be mad not to because it is E10!"? As he was back on the ground, would it still be a clean ascent if once back on the ground he left the gear, went home for a kip and came back the next day?

I'm interested in what constitutes a clean ascent, I think it looks an awesome climb and climbing it in any style is a great thing but surely there is a continuum of ascent styles and swinging on the rope is less pure than it could be?

In reply to willackers: HAVE YOU DONE IT ? if not how can you make a comment like that ? if you have then fair enough

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

But Mick, don't you think it's not unreasonable to have a sort of "retro-expectation". Knowing now just how strong these 3 guys are, you wouldn't be surprised to have them succeed on some of our hardest routes. The fact that a fair few of these routes are almost high-ball problems (to them), doesn't take anything away from their achievements, but I would like to have seen them on TWOL or come up for a play on Echo Wall. To me, that would be much more impressive, but just for different reasons.

Makes you wonder just how many unknown climbers there are out there, just off the radar, sending very hard routes.

In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC: Its a highball boulder problem, hehe!! good efort dude