In reply to Norrie Muir:
I top-roped Gaia clean a couple of times the other week, in-between snow showers. I imagine the start is a pretty hard boulder problem if you're less than 6 foot. If you're over 6 foot, it's an 'easy 6b' reach. The top bit is probably significantly easier if you have long arms too. In other words, we already know that The Dawes was a genius. Gaia might be one of the most climbed grit E8s, but for shorties, it actually involves some hard moves. In terms of the line and the quality, I think the climbing on Gaia is probably better than any route on gritstone.
Samson. Notoriously graded E9 7b. I tried this on a top rope a few times some years ago. Not really a line with one desperate weird deadpoint. In some ways, I'm surprised it's taken so long to get a repeat, but maybe not at Highball Font 8a?
In terms of newsworthiness. They both are. I know quite a lot of the top British women climbers and they are into climbing hard, safe routes. None of them are really into pushing it on the grit. Lisa doesn't seem too worried about the danger of headpointing. Her US sponsors don't really understand grit or how the grades translate, so it's not as if she gets much kudos back home for it. Welford's repeat is significant, really cos the route has a 'history' (i.e. being given a daft grade). He does seem to be being v modest though about a solo, which, one can imagine if someone else had done, would have been well-hyped.
