[petejh]

Fair enough sorry I'd forgotten about that thread. Mods split?

[mrjonathanr]

I don't think people realise just how good Jordan is.

+1

Don't think you can really criticise the only repeat ascentionist for having an opinion on this.

JH sounds like he wants to forge a career using the tools at his disposable. Fair enough. A grading consensus will emerge whatever is on Instagram.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Hi Pete.

I can imagine that you think I'm being a bit disingenuous in my responses, and to a certain degree that might be correct - you're addressing some things that I'm not, but I don't think I'm as directly opposed to your position on those issues as you might think.

Overall though, I feel we live in a time and culture (which is too pitiful to warrant being called a Zeitgeist) which is predominantly motivated by self interest, and gaining advantage over other people. In my post, I responded to the overriding sense of toxic put down which often persists.

For me, getting out there, getting something great done in a principled style and celebrating the fact in what I think was an honest way, seems so much more important - and worth applauding, considering how often efforts are ripped apart on the internet.

I think we can forget some of the aspects of the internet which have been around longer - e.g. forums like this - and have started to believe that the virtual world now only exists on social media sites, F book, Instagram etc.

I wanted to applaud what I felt was the merit in what was being done.
Here was an effort that I sensed the wolves were circling around, salivating for some meat.

For me, the other issues surrounding publicity on social media sites, is a current but separate one. Perhaps it's contrived for me to separate it in that way. However, much of your own position seems directed at a perceived injustice surrounding who is recognised and applauded, and who isn't.

Back in 1984, I went to the Brenin for a rock course. We were talking about guidebooks, and Malcolm Campbell made the point that the authors (Paul Williams et al) of North Wales Rock Climbs were uncomfortable with the name of the publishers "Extreme" being emblazoned on the cover. They felt it would put people off buying something they couldn't relate to - and that was just a guidebook. Unfortunately, there will always be more money to be made selling margarine over butter, cagoules more than cams. It's the way of the world, and what's easier to relate to will always be what manufacturers prefer to pedal.

Your main issue is with truth though isn't it? So much gets twisted these days. It seems pathetic, what some people get up to, to put themselves at the centre of the shot. There is a big issue there for me too; routes get frigged in ways that just wouldn't have been acceptable a few years ago. That was how I interpreted the name "Eyes Wide Shut", and I found the approach taken - no pads, trad route etc - really refreshing. It was also clear that Joe found the route hard. In some ways, the number almost seemed irrelevant. For me, there was some integrity here, and that can go a long way if nurtured carefully. I'd like to think that some of the other points, Joe might take on board and consider, but that's always more likely when issues are addressed less aggressively. I hope he's not put off establishing other good new routes!

I'm not particularly aware of what gets publicised on social media, and don't in any way feel that it "defines" who I am/what I am as a climber. What that is, in public perception, is influenced in part by what we each do, but there's always been the Cliffhanger effect, and the public never do understand really do they?

I've always felt there's a degree of emotional isolation in there too, which probably fuels some of our consternation, but that's definitely a different topic!

Dave.

[BID]

Joe is a good lad, and a strong lad. Repeating dangerous stuff doesn't really interest him too much, he said he wanted to push himself on new stuff.

He's bouldered 8A, but not sport climbed too hard, maybe 7C, so this was a step up for him in terms of both sport climbing difficulty and trad (I think he's climbed E8 in the past but don't quote me). So he approximated, I think from knowing him he did it with clear conscience.

He's a bit of a Facebook/sponsor whore but he's fairly pragmatic about it. Making a living without feeling a bit dirty at some point is a rare gift.

I think it's all a lot more simple and chill than this thread has made it 

[Wood FT]

Dont hate the player, hate the game

[Fiend]

Do we have a two-ascent consensus on the star quality yet?? It does look very good and given it's fighting an uphill battle against the inherent awfulness of Peak Limestone, that is something possible more notable than the downgrading??

[twoshoes]

This thread highlights some of the best, and perhaps more of the worst, things about climbing.

[Will Hunt]

This thread highlights some of the best, and perhaps more of the worst, things about climbing.

Great input to the discussion.

[twoshoes]

This thread highlights some of the best, and perhaps more of the worst, things about climbing.

Great input to the discussion.

Thanks. It just makes me a bit sad.

[SA Chris]

Go have a cry then

[petejh]

Thanks for your thoughtful post Dave, here's a few more thoughts in reply.

Yes for me the instagram/social-media whoring thing is about truth.

But it's also about what gets given recognition in climbing - people who give back as much as they take, versus people who just appear to want to take.

To put that in context - yesterday I visited an esoteric crag on the Little Orme called the allotment to give a mate a catch on his newly bolted project. The allotment is one of those crags on n.Wales limestone that take a little effort to climb at – a short ab in and a jug or climb out; also the ground is a little spongy from the squadrons of shags (not cormorants, you always remember your first). It's a venue where finding a belay is never going to be a doddle.

Luke’s new route is brilliant. A genuine three star gem, rising traverse above a roof. Cool visual line, great rock, and brill technical moves make it a proper classic 7c in waiting. And it turns out he’s been a busy man developing routes all over this underdeveloped crag. A good tecky 7b (sandbagging sod!); a re-equipped 2-3 star 7a; another 7b+ in development and a 6b+ warm-up. All bolted by Luke (except the 7b+ by, ahem..). On a crag most sport-climbers would balk at even visiting lest developing.
So I’m stood there belaying and looking around, knowing how much effort Luke’s put in to develop new routes and re-equip teh old ones at this crag, and I’m thinking not for the first time that this right here is the lifeblood of climbing. This is what climbing exists on. Routes. New ones. Good ones. Poor ones. Bold ones and safe ones. And information - inspiring guidebooks and topos.
Yet you don’t see much recognition - in our mags, online media or by the climbing companies - for this work which is so essential to the scene. You rarely hear about this stuff but it used to be there'd be a 'new routes/regional news' section in the mags of old. Because someone realised that's what really makes the scene tick and it's what keeps people psyched to climb - new routes are like new partners it's the coolridge effect in action.
BTW there's still plenty of 8s to go at the allotment - come on instagram-heroes, where are you? Too much real effort for a low return of clicks on time invested of course..

The true legends in climbing climb at cutting edge levels of difficulty but also put up inspiring cutting-edge new routes and propblems: Kirkus, Brown, Livesy, Fawcett, Dawes, Moffatt, Moon, Gullich, McClure, Sharma, Ondra. All the greats made/make major contributions to the crags. What would climbing be without its routes and first ascensionists? A lot of plastic and repeating the same old things.

But the self-serving blowhards of instagram seem to me to be a new and different species entirely. They appear to want to use climbing as a vehicle for self-promotion and take from it whatever they can get without contributing much back in return. Videos and images are used to image-craft their climbing which is then used to 'enhance their social media profile' in an effort to be piggybacked by whoever want their brandname on it. Cheers easy. It could be any activity really, doesn't need to be climbing, as long as it benefits the individual and the sponsor.

In the rare instances social-media whores actually contribute something concrete in the form of a new route or a some other contribution to the wider 'scene', they're sure to get a photographer to record it and a often a film crew on hand to release slick film shortly after. You could be mistaken for thinking they're the beating heart of climbing.. but really it's nothing much more than self-serving bullshit.

Maybe I'm too naive for thinking it's a load of bullshit and should accept that's how it is - hate the game not the player. But that seems an intellectual cop-out.

I get that it's harder than before to go out and do new routes these days; and standards don't seem to have risen that much since E9 was done in the 80s.
We've had a smattering of E10s/11s but where's the unclimbed rock for harder trad? I wonder if British climbing is now stuck in a cycle of people instagramming about repeating the same routes over and over ad nauseum. That's a depressing thought.
But in the lower grades, I know I've managed to find 12 quality new rock routes in the 7s/ 8s and E6s/7s in the past 3 or so years and another five or six or seven good quality lines just waiting to be done (winter routes, pah there's loads every year!). It seems to me they're still out there for the keen who know where to look. And look at what Caff's uncovered in the Pass and at Gogarth in the past year or so; and Doylo's just done two new 8c+s in a few months - who else has done that recently, apart from Robins who did four or five! You'll notice none of those names are well-know social-media whores although Caff and Dolyo are a bit loose.

He's a bit of a Facebook/sponsor whore but he's fairly pragmatic about it. Making a living without feeling a bit dirty at some point is a rare gift.

Really? If you're vaguely self-confident and able I think it's pretty normal to do work that doesn't make you feel like you're whoring yourself for cheap, or over-blowing your achievements; or selling out your values. Again perhaps I'm just naive for thinking it's bullshit to use climbing as a vehicle for self-promotion when you're not also extremely good at it.


Edit - spelling

[bigironhorse]

Making a living without feeling a bit dirty at some point is a rare gift.

Couldn't really disagree more with this. Maybe I'm a little naive and haven't made much of a living for myself but compromising my own integrity and honesty to get ahead is just not how I roll!

[user deactivated]

It would be handy to be provided with a list of 'blow hards' and 'understated wads' so when I'm flicking through Facebook during Coronation Street I know who's achievements it's ok to give respect to.

[slackline]

I thought the essay by Robin Campbell, titled Climbing Ethics (pp229-235 in the version of The Games Climbers Play I have) which was read to the National Mountaineering Conference of The BMC 1974 contained an interesting perspective and whilst written about mountaineering it also seems applicable to climbing in general and therefore this discussion so I've typed some bits out, but its worth reading the rest of the essay so that these are not taken out of context and the authors full views are understood...

Ethics is a serious business; I should like to say right at the start that I'm quite sure that climbing should not be a serious business.  It is clear, however, that many of you in England regard it in this way.
...
When mountaineers become excessively serious as well as excessively numerous this, I think, is simply because they wish to invest their mountaineering activities with a significance which their other activities palpably lack.  I believe this is a factor which has led to the tremendous increase in outdoor education.
...
I hope, then, that I have made my own attitude to the present concern with mountaineering ethics perfectly clear: I believe it to be symptomatic of a general desire amongst us to invest our climbing activities with a significance which they do not possess and that this desire, in turn, arises from dissatisfaction with our daily lives.
...
I would nevertheless re-emphasise my belief that very little depends upon what view we take of the ethical problems that arise in normal mountaineering (short of grotesque rarities like 'Should you eat your climbing partner?').  If mountaineering as we know it turns completely sour, as I think it will, then this will just be one among many things in the Western World which are rapidly turning sour, in which case it will deserve no undue mourning.

[Luke Owens]

Luke’s new route is brilliant. A genuine three star gem, rising traverse above a roof. Cool visual line, great rock, and brill technical moves make it a proper classic 7c in waiting. And it turns out he’s been a busy man developing routes all over this underdeveloped crag. A good tecky 7b (sandbagging sod!); a re-equipped 2-3 star 7a; another 7b+ in development and a 6b+ warm-up. All bolted by Luke (except the 7b+ by, ahem..). On a crag most sport-climbers would balk at even visiting lest developing.

So I’m stood there belaying and looking around, knowing how much effort Luke’s put in to develop new routes and re-equip teh old ones at this crag, and I’m thinking not for the first time that this right here is the lifeblood of climbing. This is what climbing exists on. Routes. New ones. Good ones. Poor ones. Bold ones and safe ones. And information - inspiring guidebooks and topos.

Thanks Pete, means a lot.

I think some of us are just wired differently, as you said yesterday most people just want convenience.

I often find myself dangling on a rope, equipping, thinking why aren't many others doing this? This is what it's all about! Yet so many people will never experience it and would never be bothered to go to the same effort.

I frequently tell many people out at the crags the massive effort you've put into equipping, re-equipping and handlining, well, basically everything! Everyone always finds this really interesting, is really appreciative and wouldn't of otherwise known.

It's a selfless act that largely goes unnoticed yet without your input and the other small group of equippers there would next to nothing to go at in N.Wales, that goes for the rest of the equippers elsewhere too. It inspires me more than anyone posting a picture spraying about their latest rings session taking them to "the next level."

The reward of giving something back to climbing far outweighs any amount of Instagram likes.

[User deactivated]

Feel like a right fraud after reading this thread! Suppose we all like different things, didn't realise this was how most viewed things though. Certainly not with such strong feelings.

[Moo]

I'm assuming someone can point Joe towards this thread so he can add his two penneth?

[Duma]

Couple of quick thoughts - basically I'm with Dave T here.

I waste way too much of my life on FB and climbing sites - and still the name Joe Healy was only vaugely familiar - the thing with anyone who's ott on the whole self promotion through social media thing is that it's very easy to avoid surely? If this sort of stuff irritates you just don't follow them - and they'll disappear from your life. The exception to this is the media sites - but then your argument is with them surely, not the individuals? Also seems sad that all this is going on on a thread about Joe putting the effort in to find clean and do a quality new route in the peak - ie "giving back" which is one of the things pete appears to be bemoaning the lack of?

[nik at work]

What Duma said.

As i said above i hadn't heard of Joe before this thread ( i am on facebook), however i had heard of Pete H and knew something of his massive contribution to climbing.

It's worth bearing in mind that there is also a line to be trod with regard to 'significant' ascents (whatever that means). There has been no shortage of 'in this day and age where every phone can take video everyone should be able to produce a video of their ascents' comments and threads.
So not taking a video is not trying hard enough...
...but editing up a video and sharing it across media platforms is trying too hard?
So where is the 'right' point? You're allowed two cuts to close up and one share on general social media and one on climbing specific media? You can tweet about it twice but only facebook share once?
Or maybe you can just do what you want and other people just have to deal with it.
I'm actually a bit surprised that there is moaning about a media platform where people can post whatever they want and people are posting whatever they want...

Or maybe i'm still bitter after the hopes and dreams ahattering downgrade i was subject to 

Nice one to all who have gone out and contributed to climbing in any way, this post is dedicated to you all with special mention to Joe, Pete and Luke. I love you all

[Will Hunt]

There has been no shortage of 'in this day and age where every phone can take video everyone should be able to produce a video of their ascents' comments and threads.
So not taking a video is not trying hard enough...
...but editing up a video and sharing it across media platforms is trying too hard?

This.

Given that EWS was a bolted project and hadn't been done, and Joe is a climber without much trad pedigree, had he chopped the bolts and climbed it without any footage then this would instead be a thread about whether we should believe that he'd done it.

Not to mention in Pete's post that he's bemoaning the new generation not going out and making the effort to climb significant new routes - and yet when they do, and in the folly of youth and inexperience they give it a daft grade, they get accused of being fantasists.

How does one "win" in this scenario?


For anybody vaguely interested in this then I would recommend the first episode of Series 3 of Black Mirror (on Netflix now) which picks out well why Instagram culture is so bleak. It's hollow, it's fake, it's plastic. It's totally fucking empty. I'm going to guess that the people commenting on this thread are generally aged between 30 and 50, with a few younger and a few older. I'm 27, and I think social media became a big thing at about the time that I was 17. To people now in their early twenties, using Snapchat, or Instagram, or Twitter, or Facebook is as natural as breathing, or as natural as speaking to someone in the flesh. A world in which they, as adults or young adults, do not have any form of social media as a significant part of their lives is completely alien. It has never existed, nor will it ever exist, it's here to stay.
And since there are no editors on social media, anybody can set themselves up as a significant climber, and since this is the way in which young people and young climbers view the world, those "significant climbers" become the real deal. It is entirely feasible that in the next generation of climbing's superheros, there will be 20% real significant climbers, and 80% self-made stars/starlets whose biggest contribution to climbing is a daily photograph of their morning muesli.

[bigironhorse]

And since there are no editors on social media, anybody can set themselves up as a significant climber, and since this is the way in which young people and young climbers view the world, those "significant climbers" become the real deal.

Sorry to take this even further off topic but this reminded me of this article I read a few days ago about a fake russian millionaire:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37693095

[Will Hunt]

Mods, any chance of chucking the relevant posts into the Climbing Today thread?

[petejh]

There has been no shortage of 'in this day and age where every phone can take video everyone should be able to produce a video of their ascents' comments and threads.
So not taking a video is not trying hard enough...
...but editing up a video and sharing it across media platforms is trying too hard?

This.

Given that EWS was a bolted project and hadn't been done, and Joe is a climber without much trad pedigree, had he chopped the bolts and climbed it without any footage then this would instead be a thread about whether we should believe that he'd done it.

Not to mention in Pete's post that he's bemoaning the new generation not going out and making the effort to climb significant new routes - and yet when they do, and in the folly of youth and inexperience they give it a daft grade, they get accused of being fantasists.

How does one "win" in this scenario?

For a start Will, I'm not posting about just one person. I'm talking about a trend in climbing that a lot of people before me have talked about. Various writers far more eloquent than me have discussed this topic of self-promotion and it's a theme that runs through climbing.

It's perhaps easy to disagree when you're disagreeing with points I'm not trying to make.

Second, I'm not bemoaning anyone going out and doing a new route and I'm not calling anyone a fantasist. I just spent an essay saying that what JH is doing is the lifeblood of climbing. Go out and do new routes. And then call them what they are - in this case standard E7 or 8, and let that be enough.

..Or choose to promote the shit out of yourself and have half the scene quietly thinking it's all bullshit, unless you're extremely flipping good at climbing.


As usual forum talk doesn't communicate the nuances of what people actually think. I'm definitely not a hater.


Edit: Will your description of the differences in culture is most likely accurate. But you can't 'set yourself up to be a significant football player/athlete/boxer/astrophysicist', if you aren't actually one.

The same can and should be true for climbing.

Some of the aspects of climbing that attracted me to it - the freedom, adventure and questioning attitude to authority - is also it's weakness when it comes to holding people to account.

[Duncan campbell]

Maybe all those instatweeters thought this was a real thing;

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/getting-your-name-out-there-to-become-legal-tender-2014102392043

[cowboyhat]

I guess this is the new brand ambassador mold, above average at climbing, an engaging personality and heavily involved in social media. If this is what the brands are looking for, then I can't fault the lad for taking the opportunity.

No it isn't new. See Gresham, Heason etc. Countless examples. Anyone ever sponsored by patagonia, (They choose carefully who represents them).

What Simpson failed to understand when he threw a wobbly about Heason receiving more sponsorship than than him was there is a lot to be said for just being nice.


Some good points by all on this thread. Climbers are just people, apt to think freely and make mistakes. People climb for different reasons. Some want to be famous, others what to enjoy their past time. For some, being well regarded by their friends is enough. Others simply don't care.

Pete i'm intrigued, do you feel that there is an injustice? Is someone else missing out? And if so, why do you think that is? And are they bitter about it? I imagine not.

Sponsorship is advertising.

Worlds greatest climber takes moral high ground by refusing to be filmed. Dedicated athlete gets out climbing every morning doing dead 'ard repeats and new routes, trains all afternoon in parents garage. Which happens to also be where he lives.

I'd wad him but I don't know which routes he's done and besides, he's still on dial up.

At what point do you draw the line?