The Portland Olympian
Our Friday Night Video this week takes us to Portland on the south coast. In September 2018, Pete Scott and Jon Butters established a 24-hour climbing challenge that is accessible to anyone. The original idea behind the challenge was to climb 7a (or higher) at every sector (based on the Rockfax guide) on Portland in a day.
Jon told us: 'When he [Pete] told me about it back in 2017 it seemed like quite an obvious challenge; it's possible to complete it in a round trip and that grade range covers some of the best climbing on the island.'
'Coming closer to the day we started to put more rules on the style that we would stick by, like starting and ending at the Olympic rings and being self-supported throughout. We also came to the conclusion that if other people wanted to have a go, there are so many options at each sector that it would be possible to complete the challenge no matter what grade you climb. Pete being the mathematician that he is, came up with a scoring system that makes it very inclusive regardless of your level.'
'We picked a stunner of a day in September 2018 to attempt it on; perfect calm seas, clear skies and cool breeze. I'm not sure I'll ever have a better run than down the east coast above Cheyne Weares as the sun was rising. Even Mirthmaid at white hole didn't seem intimidating (I once saw Pete bail off this in high seas and thought I wouldn't ever even entertain getting on it). The training and route practice we put in really paid off and we were cruising up until Sacred Angel, where we had a bit of an incident (you can see from the footage), then plain sailing in golden evening light all the way to the finish.'
Pete and Jon's ticklist for the day is as follows:
The Cutting Edge (6c+) Direct Start (7a)
The Accelerator (7a) (7a)
Aquamarina (E4 6b) (7a+)
Mirthmaid (7a+) (7a+)
Superfly Guy (7a) (7a)
Skyscraper (7a) (7a)
Vin Chaud (7a) (7a)
Acid Jazz Disco (7a) (7a)
Jurassic Shift (7a) (7a)
Bilboes (7a) (7a)
The Strobolising Scyphostoma (7a+) (7a+)
Sacred Angel (7a) (7a)
The Portland Olympian was filmed by Matt and Harry from Papercut Media and was supported by Unilite, 3rd Rock, Boulders and 8b plus.