Some (but not all) notable ascents and events:
- Kevin Jorgeson's ground-up ascent of Parthian Shot (E9 6c) (which was attempted with Ben Bransby, who also came extremely close).
- Kevin's repeats and possible down-grades of The Promise (E10 or E8) and The Groove (E11 or E8), which grabbed headlines worldwide.
- Alex Honnold's onsight solo of London Wall (E5 6a), a hard and insecure finger crack (note, an on sight solo of this would equate to something like a hard E7 on sight)
- Alex's on sight ascent of Master's Edge (E7 6b)
- Alex's third ascent of The Promise (E10 or E8).
- Matt, Alex and Kevin's team ascent of End of the Affair (E8 6c)
Interestingly Kevin notes in his blog that:
"I was super impressed with the difficulty and boldness of Equilibrium. After spending over 7 days working it, I still felt nowhere near ready to lead it. For my body, it has the hardest physical moves of anything I tried on the trip, with certain ground fall from the move I ripped my finger open on. To me, it represents E10."
Equilibrium was first climbed by Sheffield strong-man Neil Bentley in February of 2000, and was first top-roped by Ben Moon back in 1993 at a French grade of F8b+. Repeats have been from the super talented Neil Gresham, and man of the moment, James Pearson. In light of recent grading speculation, it is worth noting that James Pearson made a fast ascent of Equilibrium (over four days) aged just 19, and he is, as John Dunne put it, "the real deal".
The Videos:
UKC have a series of three films featuring Alex, Matt and Kevin in action on the grit.
- Film 1: Kevin (first) then Alex climbing The Promise (E10 or E8)
- Film 2: Kevin makes the first Ground Up ascent of Parthian Shot (E9 6c)
- Film 3: Team America climb End of the Affair (E8 6c) (watch out for that no-hands rest!)
We will be publishing Film 2 at 9am tomorrow (Thursday) morning and film 3 at 9am on Friday morning.
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