UKC

James Squire has climbed The Never Ending Story (8B+), his first of the grade. The problem is perched on the edge of the river at Magic Wood and was first climbed by Chris Sharma in 2003. It is a power endurance test piece and links an 8A+ boulder problem into an 8A, to complete the logical and full line. James is the first Brit to climb the problem.

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In reply to UKC News:

Strong work James.
Some very promising strong youngsters about!

I was surprised to hear that no other Brit has got this ticked.
I thought Dave Mac got this few years back.

Great work James!

No Brit other than James has done this one AFAIK. Dave Mac has not to my knowledge.

In reply to teddy:
That is mostly due to the quality of the climbing. A number of other Brits have done it, just not reported it through mainstream climbing media.

In reply to alx:

?

In reply to Tyler:

Polish like you will have never seen before! It's also underwater for long periods of time.

In reply to alx:
Ah right. As a bouldering dilettante I'd always thought this was something of an iconic problem (meaning I'd actually heard of it!), I can't name many other problems in the area. Don't suppose you're prepared to name and shame the other Brit dark horses who have climbed this polished bag of? Personally I think 8b+ is pretty noteworthy.

In reply to alx:

"A number of other Brits have done it, just not reported it through mainstream climbing media."

I'd be interested to know who these people are?

In reply to Tyler:

So first you need separate things out, 8B+ is noteworthy, more so if being known for sporting performance is potentially what you want to do for a living.
Second the climb is no bag of shit, the river polish is heinous, it condenses easily making it slippery as hell, there are nicer climbs where the challenge is less condition dependent.

As for those who have already done the climb, some people don't give two shits about appearing in Vimeo, YouTube, Instagram, they have a family, kids and a full time job to manage. You don't have a right to know everything about every climber.

In reply to alx:

Your post makes you sound like a wanky know all

In reply to aln:

Ha I had to like that! I really did not intend that to be that to be the case, apologies if that came across in that way.

In reply to alx:

I assume one of the dark horses mentioned is Leeds' strongest Dr?

In reply to Ally Smith:

That's a new one on me. Thing is it's such an obvious line and one of th few climbs that stays dry in the rain for quite a while if not underwater.

In reply to alx:
The reason for asking is to get a view of how many are climbing at that sort of level. The ukb threads did a good job of flushin out the dark horses (or so I thought) but you seem to be implying there are lots more. Just because someone doesn't post videos of their ascents doesn't mean they operate in a vacumn. So as not to betray any confidences how about saying how many other British ascents of Never Ending Story you know of.

Surely no British climber thinks they'll make a living from repeating boulder problems?!

In reply to Tyler:

Only one unfortunately, I know 5-6 whom boulder in the 8B range that don't appear in the UKB list but can be found by googling known problems and scanning Vimeo or YouTube. I only came across these latter individuals when chasing beta for particular climbs so they were not hard to find.

I think weekend warrior or top end amateur climber standard is creeping up, 9a sport or 8B+ is within possibility for those with full time jobs and busy family lives.

In reply to alx:



You seem confused.

In reply to alx:

As others have said I'd be interested to know who any of the 'number' of climbers who have done it are?

I'd also say this is definitely one of the better hard problems in Magic wood. Well done to James again. A classic tick and certainly a sought after one. Jimmy Webb, Daniel Woods, Dave graham and others all rated it highly on 8a.nu.

As for the cream of the crop list on the other channel I don't think it's a case of just dark horses not being on it, It doesn't look to have been updated for a long time to me. The list of U.K. Men who have bouldered 8B is massive now compared to that.

In reply to alx:

Mike Adams and Polish Dave have both recently climbed 8C with full time jobs and busy family lives.


Sure. But there's nothing wrong with being interested. I know some climbers aren't keen on playing the social media game, but I've yet to meet anyone who wants everything they've done kept secret. This is just climbing chatter, it's not an intrusion into their personal lives. Why not just say who has climbed Never Ending Story?

I always thought it was a pretty impressive line, by the way. When you say polish, most people think of rock that has been rubbed slick by countless climbing shoes. The NES block is river-sculpted and amazingly frictionless because of it. I think that makes it quite special.

In reply to MischaHY:

You stitching two separate things together. There are people that don't care for social media and there are those who do. Within those segments will be people whom are inclined to one end or the other of the spectrum where a video of their ascent is for personal or close friends use, others whom use it for other purposes. You are right though in that I failed to get this across in my initial post!

In reply to robin mueller:

Definitely river washed polish, although the heel on NES pt 2 is particularly nasty!

In reply to UKC News:

So, other than one snide remark.... Well done James