Last year he soloed Gaia E8 6c at Black Rocks, in January this year Ben climbed Parthian Shot E9 6c (Burbage South) at night by headtorch. In March he did a ground-up, one-fall low down ascent of The Master's Edge E7 6c at Millstone.
Ben, who was recently chosen to be a member of the Scarpa Youth Academy, last weekend made an impressive ground-up ascent of Careless Torque (Font 8a/8a+....or E6/7 7a), the highball boulder problem or Super Bloc at the Stanage Plantation (Derbyshire) first climbed by Ron Fawcett in 1987. Careless Torque has had several ascents (this is the second ground-up ascent, the other being made by Andy Earl) but this one is perhaps significant as Ben did it in non-sticky grit conditions with the temps in the low 20's, four 'normal' bouldering mats, and a spot from 16 year old, 5'5" Peter Whittaker (not a passer by as originally reported), a member of the British junior climbing team. He took the big fall eight times before topping out.
As you can see from Pete 'POD' O'Donovan's excellent photographs HERE, Ben was very pleased when he grasped the top of this problem.
Pete O'Donovan filled in some of the details above and added this, "The 'unknown' passer by story comes from the previous Saturday when a couple of passing climbers offered to spot — one of them apparently loosing quite a lot of blood from his nose during one of the longer falls. I think the most impressive thing about Ben's ascent was the conditions, but then, as he says, "Back home in New South Wales you wouldn't even take your jacket off on a day like this!"
Ben is sponsored by Scarpa and Black Diamond.
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