UKC

The grit season is finally here, and after one of the best summers the UK has had in recent times, its not shaping up too badly either. With first ascents of last great problems, repeats of hard testpieces, and lots of people out there making the most of the great recent conditions

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=68503

vimeo.com/79040700

In reply to Fultonius: Nice one Will!

In reply to UKC News:

Surely a troll?!

How does 12ft of climbing, 4 spotters & 4 or more mats constitute E6 6b?!

Has the climbing world really lost the plot?

In reply to El3ctroFuzz: Have you tried it? or do you know the route? The pad is perched on a ledge above a f**k off great drop, and it's hardly controversial anymore to grade a route with the use of pads, the grade is given for a potential onsight.

In reply to El3ctroFuzz:
Don't forget, it is in the Peak!!

In reply to deacondeacon:

I really dont think anyone needs to try it to get a clear view of it, his hand is over half way up the route before he's done any climbing.

Well that 'perch' is big enough for 3 pads and 4 spotters to stand on. I would hardly describe it as a perch.

Im not after the 'controversy'. I dont think it's controversial, I think it ridiculous.

In reply to El3ctroFuzz: Get a grip. It's only you that thinks giving it E6 is somehow an ego thing. It's borderline. The guy obviously thinks the same hence not being sure whether to give it 7a or E6. It's a highball with a bad landing, it doesn't fit easily into either grade. Making a judgement call on it in the trad direction is hardly strange or out of balance with other highballs with bad landings, so your tone of ridicule is embarrassing and misplaced I think.




My Kai is at Shining Cliff, not Shining Clough.

In reply to El3ctroFuzz: Ok, but would you not say your route 'bad breath' looks nothing like E6 6b in the photo on your gallery? I'm sure it'd be different seeing it in the flesh which may well be the same as this route.
No beef meant by the way.

In reply to Boy:


Umm.. Wow? I dont think using a Trad grade is an ego thing at all. If you are clearly bouldering, use a bouldering grade. If you are clearly Trad/ Soloing use a Trad grade. I really dont see this blurring any lines between Trad/ Solo and bouldering.

Damn, what must the Yanks think of us.


In reply to deacondeacon:

No beef taken!
Yeh, i would totally agree that Bad Breath could be construed in the wrong way through those photos, and if the angle of the Gecko video was such that it was hard to tell, i would have kept my mouth shut. But, seriously, you can see the whole climb and most of the landing of Gecko very clearly. Bad Breathe was climbed without mats, basically above a rock pool.

In reply to El3ctroFuzz:

Why are you getting upset about E6 instead of 7a then if you don't think it has some dubious motive?

>If you are clearly Trad/ Soloing use a Trad grade. I really dont see this blurring any lines between Trad/ Solo and bouldering.

Given that picture of you this seem absurd. I know which of those I'd rather fall off! In case you didn't know, using/not using pads does not change the grade of a route. Routes are graded (theoretically for an onsight without pads), not individual ascents. You could argue that a padded ascent of an E route is invalid, but it's pretty trivial hairsplitting and hardly worth the argument on a sub cutting edge FA.


What? Who gives a shit. What has this to do with Americans. What must the Turks, Jews, Spaniards and Mongolians think of us and this thread? I really doubt they're watching or giving a shit anymore than those scary old yanks.



See above, routes get grades not ascents. Otherwise I could empty a sack of dog poo and broken glass under Heaven Crack and claim me an E1.

What must the Yanks think!?

In reply to Boy:

Call it autism? I wouldnt call it hairsplitting. I just really dont see how this can be anything but a boulder. I take it everyone else must have been to see this and its landing then? And you would rather land in a rockpool than on a mat?

If i climbed a trad route with a cherry picker with boulder mat on it, following me up as i climbed a route, what grade would i take then? And in the case of a FA, Would it even count as a FA?


Yeh, that was a joke, maybe i should have included a - Talk about hair splitting.

In reply to UKC News:

Wooo GRADES!!!

The yanks probably think we're idiots, who cares?

Worth keeping an eye on this - vimeo.com/79173222

So far its been a good season, long may it continue.

Call it what you will.
I'm not bothered about the grade. I saw an unclimbed line and climbed it.
If you want to give it a boulder grade fine, if you want to give it a trad grade fine.

The potential fall is bad therfore I graded for potential danger.
Plenty of routes and high balls have both Font and trad grades.

My blog explains my thoughts behind the whole thing and I'm tall lol I make most problems look small.

In reply to Kyle Rance:

I think you would have been better giving it a H (Highball) grade.

The adjectival grade doesn't really work with a lot of gritstone routes.

ALC

In reply to UKC News:
With first ascents of last great problems, repeats of hard testpiece.....

I'm sorry, not an expert climber here, but this video doesn't show what I would think of as E6. I've pulled down my bag from harder to reach luggage racks.

Let's try to keep it all credible. Please. E6 is more scary than this.

If it looks piss then go and try it before typing shit on here.
It's blind, slopey, poor footholds, with a unpredictable fall zone. Good effort Kyle for getting out there and doing it

In reply to mark20:

How do YOU know? Have you done it?

In reply to El3ctroFuzz:
Did it on shunt yes, didn't fancy the solo

In reply to El3ctroFuzz: After seeing the "snowballing" video that was on UKB last year I had a look at Shine On/Cemetery Waits when I was climbing nearby (not because I thought I could climb it I hasten to add). The landing for both routes is horrific, I could see how it could justify a bouldering grade if the landing was packed out with snow, but without snow it would take many, many pads to make the landing look acceptable to take falls. It's also higher than the picture would suggest. Just my 2 pence worth.

In reply to UKC News: I cant really agree, and following the video of general lee I find it hard to see where the grading is coming from. Not that I have climbed anything near that grade, but surely the chance of survival from falling off those routes is higher than many lower trad graded routes regardless of the high technical grade. Plus there are no real uncontrollable factors such as loose rock and holds to contend with.

In reply to El3ctroFuzz:

I wonder how you arrived at the decision that posting that was a good idea. I'm truly fascinated.

In reply to above:

In my experience reading about routes like this where a trad grade is given, either it's a relic from the past (when there were no bouldering mats) or it's worse than it looks from the photo.

In reply to Michael Gordon: exactly, and the only way to know is by having a look with your own eyes, or even better, getting on it.

In reply to El3ctroFuzz:

Yes, and in this case from what I can see yes. Funnily enough I’d rather get wet than bounce of a ledge into a boulder choke. But having not seen what’s in the rockpool I can’t say for sure. Maybe there are some yanks in there, in which case I’ll take the ledges. The point is it’s a bit arrogant to disregard someone else’s grading without knowing all the facts.

In reply to El3ctroFuzz: Plus your 'E6' looks like a line of positive crimps rather than slopers and smears i.e. a lot more secure rendering an unexpected fall highly unlikely assuming you have the strength to pull on them. The point being that danger is a combination of the consequences of a fall AND the likelyhood of one, not just the former. Again appearances are often deceptive. You're better not leaving hostages to fortune in your gallery if you plan on jibing other peoples climbing though.

In reply to Rassapotimus:

Oh god, please no more armchair musings. Especially nonsensical ones.

In reply to UKC News:
Hi guys, my name is Joe,

I am the guy who filmed Kyle on this ascent. for everyones information, not trying to start an argument, or continue it, I thought i would just go through the thought process that we went through when he was grading it.

He had recently put up and E5, which the grade was checked by Pete Whitaker. Geckomania was as we saw it more dangerous. the ledge which kyle starts on would break ankles or legs from any of the insecure moves above. this hitting of the ledge would have caused a fall into a "rock pool" which drops very quickly down almost past end of the affair. this made the climb more dangerous. plus all of the moves are insecure. I tried it on top rope and although could do it, fell off on almost all of the moves individually.

As far as spotters are concerned, i would just like to say that he was going to do the ascent with just one spotter... me. some people turned up and i don't know about you but if people offer to spot you, you aren't going to say no, no matter what your doing.

I would like to add that if he gave it a highball grade, more people would consider doing it, and with such a poor landing, I would hate for people to do it and get seriously injured. I know is up to each individual climber to assess the danger but still. I would hate for people to try it because of the grade.

Finally, there are very few unclimbed lines in the peak and it takes a lot of time and dedication to find them and finish them. What Kyle is doing is hard and dangerous and I think he should be Respected more for his climbing rather than the grade in which he feels the climb deserves.

In reply to heeley:

The face over to the right is Dirty Sanchez E1 5c an old school solo that my mate Iain and I re-climbed (and named for convenience) when checking for the guide (ditto for Jackass,the HVS 5b arete to the right again) they felt like solo routes to me but would be boulder problems in the US or at Font. Grades are for onsights (sans mats) and are the best guess of the FA (or the editor in the case of those two traditional previously unlisted micro-routes) its amazing how much easier they can become from an armchair... if someone thinks they might be wrong they should go and climb them and downgrade if neccesary. Big Air is a similar height route very fall-offable above a horrible landing. Others slightly higher precenents would be The Block at Black rocks upto E8 (Angels Share) above better landings or Moorside Rocks upto E8 (eg Superbloc).

In reply to El3ctroFuzz:

Again, the recorded grade of a climb is for the route not for the individual ascent. You could climb Indian Face with a hot air balloon strapped to your back, desperately clawing onto tiny undercuts to avoid being ripped into the air; it would not change the grade of the ROUTE one iota. Your ASCENT would not be valid in most people’s eyes, but it would have no impact on the grade of Indian Face at all. Grading routes is messy enough as it is without having to guess what means of protection they are supposed to represent. As I said before, you grade for a notional onsight without pads, even if this is not how you do the route, even if it’s inconceivable that anyone ever will do it onsight without pads. What style of ascent you actually use is up to you, as is how you reconcile this with the notional grade. Of course the real world is complicated and things don’t fit neatly into boxes, but it really isn’t a huge problem if you use grades as information rather than trophy.


You could give it a route grade but as most people would consider your cherrypicker style as invalid it would not apply to your ascent in most people's eyes. Everything other than a pad free onsight is a divergence from the baseline on which a trad grade is made. How far from that base is still considered a valid (first) ascent is an open question and a matter for community consensus. I'd say that at the moment your reductio ad absurdum hypothetical ascent would not be considered a valid trad FA (though you could claim it as some sort of bizzare boulder problem)and that Kyle's is fairly well accepted as legit.

In reply to El3ctroFuzz:

Good idea, one for the toprope leading thread but for highballs?

In reply to El3ctroFuzz:


Whatever the grade it certainly makes one of the most underwhelming climbing videos I've seen

A bit like this: http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=569165 but not tongue in cheek!

In reply to UKC News:
Looks like another good couple of days on the grit if the UKC Recent Top Ascents is anything to go by...

In reply to UKC News: What a rum do! People who say it isn't E6 should just go and climb it and then down grade it to what they think it should be. The grading system in england now is nuts I think. Is it 7a or E6,6b? Personally I preferred it when a boulder problem was just given a technical grade like 6b (old skool 6b). Im just an old fart who still wears lycra so what would I know but there did seem to be less confusion back in my 'padless' old days.

In reply to UKC News: Personally I think it looks great and absolutely worthwhile. So what if the video isn't the most exciting ever, for those who climb E6s at Curbar it's interesting to see it. It is hard to know whether to go for trad grade or bouldering grade on a route like this but given the look of the landing I think the first ascentionist made the right decision. There's certainly no way I'd get on this while out bouldering on my own.
And is it E6? Well until I try it I wouldn't dream of making a judgement. He makes it look easy but maybe he's got it dialled or maybe he's just really good. I hate all the negative comments & agree with everything Boy says. This lad has gone and done something, he's excited and wants to share it. Good on him!

In reply to Dave Musgrove Jnr:

It does looks easier than it is, which is why on a crag popular with wads in a guidebook with many tidied up gaps it stuck through the years of drafts and made it to the guide as brushed but unlead.

In reply to UKC News: I think more importantly than these E6/7/8's being climbed, is the fact that yesterday, a very damp Sunday, The Staffordshire nose time record was broken once again by the Wide Boyz, taking the time down to 5 hours 53 minutes!!! (that's 6 routes an hour, which is even more impressive when that time takes into account both climbers completing the routes, and getting to the next route/crag!)

They did use the very unsavoury tactic or "running" though, I am led to believe...

In reply to Dave Musgrove Jnr:

Well said. +1.

And well done the Wide Boyz as well. Let's see Hans Florine beat that.

jcm

In reply to andi turner:

After route 4 the wet clag had come in, I dangled near the sloth fully expecting a phone call saying they were in the pub but out of the mist they jogged, slimy boyz. Amazing achievement and they were already discussing the eastern edges version on the way home.

The challenge is there for a well practised couple, get to it!