[mindfull]

At last, some good news, in this cruel word. Well done!

[a dense loner]

 

[davej]

Awesome even older than me!!! 

[mindfull]

Does this Nalle even exist. This dude doing 8C+ man? Those days we were only doing 8c+ ...

[Jaspersharpe]

Rationally I can understand Jaspers thinkings but also emotions around this.

Yes! This is awesome    Please do keep posting. Sloper for sure needs his thinkings responding at.

Every forum needs a Belgiumer.

I still don't understand but I get this point.

I'd like to know what you think my emotions around this are though.

[mindfull]

Hey Jasper, at least I hope there is some frustration there, but also a big smile 

Maybe we should get a different thread though, as this should be the News section and me being so prominent in it is not really doing it. I rather read about non-existing people soloing big walls, 9A boulder problems, and from time to time the lovely Hazel.

[Jaspersharpe]

 

[Doylo]

http://blog.nallehukkataival.com/post/77896523061/gioia

Nalle blog on Gioia. Fairly non committal on the grade.

[cowboyhat]

Its interesting how many 8c's there are and how many guys there are climbing that grade: it feels like we've been stuck there for ages.

Despite some of them being able to climb what are supposed to be the hardest problems in only a couple of sessions, they still won't commit to the idea of anything being harder.

[Nibile]

What a disappointing blog entry from Nalle. Nothing but a cold chronicle.

[mindfull]

A bit dry. But I like how he makes his remark about the difficulty. But if he has other boulders that might classify in the 8C+ range if gioia is, it would be interesting which ones he means. Still nice effort and the guy is a strong climber, but doesn't have to apply for the nobel prize for literature. Neither am I

[Jaspersharpe]

I'll be surprised if his sponsors don't drop him after that.

[Doylo]

Its interesting how many 8c's there are and how many guys there are climbing that grade: it feels like we've been stuck there for ages.

Despite some of them being able to climb what are supposed to be the hardest problems in only a couple of sessions, they still won't commit to the idea of anything being harder.

Only Ondra has been prepared to stick his neck out. Should be interesting when Daniel Woods goes to do Gioia, I reckon he'll give a proper answer. He's done more 8cs than most so should know.

[i_a_coops]

Only Ondra has been prepared to stick his neck out.

He doesn't have much choice....

[petejh]

He's Finnish...That was a gushing, emotion filled soul-baring post for a Finn.

[jwi]

He's Finnish...That was a gushing, emotion filled soul-baring post for a Finn.

Agreed.

[SA Chris]

Yaaaar.

[miso soup]

Didn't Woods try it and not get it done?  He'd take 8C+ for sure.

[Jim]

I've done it and can confirm it's low end, but definately 8c+

[Doylo]

I've done it and can confirm it's low end, but definately 8c+

Why isn't it on your scorecard and where's the blog?

[Jim]

I'm too shy for all that nonsense

[Nemo]

At the risk of disagreeing with everyone...

"Didn't Woods try it and not get it done?" - miso soup

He had a brief look whilst travelling through in the middle of summer - think he did the stand and he seemed to think the rest would suit him well but would obviously need to go back in winter.

"The whole world seems to have accepted it as 8C+ since Ondra did it (including Core)." - Doylo

Hardly.  Only people who (bizarrely) assumed Ondra was the best boulderer in the world because he is clearly the best sport climber and has won bouldering competitions (both of which have very little to do with properly hard bouldering.)  (Whether he has the most potential, if he put his energies into bouldering is a different question).  Anyway - all Ondra was saying by giving Gioia 8C+ is that it's a grade harder than the other 8C's which he'd done - ie: stuff like From Dirt, Big Paw.  I'm sure Nalle and everyone else would agree with that.  I'm equally sure that lots of people think they're 8B+, and hence Gioia 8C.  Ondra doesn't have anywhere near the experience levels in bouldering that he does in routes, so I'm surprised anyone took what he said about the grade terribly seriously - if Daniel Woods says something is 8C+ it's a different matter - as Doylo said, he's done way more than anyone else...  But top end grades are all over the place in different areas - the only area which is becoming pretty consistent is the US, because there's lots of people at the required level so a consensus is slowly getting formed on the well repeated problems.  Elsewhere there are things which have been given "8C" that are everything from around 8A+ upwards.  And there's plenty of problems with easier grades that are way harder than some of the "8C"s. 

So Nalle's post seems perfectly sensible to me.  Declaring it's "8C" or "8C+" without having a massive rant about what that actually means in relation to other stuff is completely pointless (and he's in the middle of a climbing trip, so has better things to do).  It clearly didn't take him long and he's just diplomatically saying it's not as hard as quite a few other things - which should have been obvious even just by reading this thread if people had believed what the Americans had said ages ago rather than dissing them.  The hardest problems in the world are almost certainly (beta changes aside) stuff in the US like Hypnotised Minds and The Ice Knife Sit, both of which are probably quite a bit harder than Gioia.  And it sounds like some of the other stuff Nalle's done (The Understanding etc) is at least as hard as Gioia.

And as various people have pointed out, one of the main difficulties with Gioia is that it's really sharp - so unless it's baltic you're likely to get split tips.  As such it's not a great problem to try on long trips from far afield because it could completely wreck a holiday - makes much more sense on Ondra style repeated short trips for those that live within driving distance.  Frankly it doesn't even look that great a problem to me so I'm surprised about all the hype it's had - it's a low sharp traverse (as some of the Americans got torn to pieces for saying).

"Its interesting how many 8c's there are and how many guys there are climbing that grade: it feels like we've been stuck there for ages.  Despite some of them being able to climb what are supposed to be the hardest problems in only a couple of sessions, they still won't commit to the idea of anything being harder." - cowboyhat

Well, there are a ridiculous number of problems which have been graded 8C (and quite a few which have been graded 8C+).  But as I said above, everyone's using different grading systems so we haven't been stuck anywhere - it just appears that way if you take the grades that people say as being relative to some perfect grading system which everyone agreed on.  There's been stacks of progress in the last decade.  Using old style swiss grades, which for the most part were pretty consistent (but ridiculously narrow), then stuff like Hypnotised Minds would probably be 9A+ - it's miles harder than the Nicole / Zangerl things which were vaguely given 8C+ - Terremer, Anam Cara, Memento, Entlinge, Amandla etc etc.  Equally using old skool Peak type grades it's probably hard 8B+ or perhaps just getting into 8C, and nothing's anywhere near 8C+ yet.  All that's been happening is that as things have been getting considerably harder, people have travelled more and different grading systems have slowly been equalising out.  Hence why we've been "stuck there for ages".  In the end the system the American's are converging on (which is somewhere between the two extremes just mentioned) will probably win out, because there are lots of them and they do lots of travelling.

[jwi]

We are all Jens Larsen

[Doylo]

I was referring mainly to the worlds media which obviously has a knock on to what the majority of punters think (I.e. Most of the world). Like you say it'll be the yanks (and Nalle) who'll likely decide where hard 8c ends and 8c+ begins. Ondra gave that trav in Czech 8c+ too (if you think Gioia looks shit.....) but I can't see any of the top boys going to check that out. Story of Two Worlds was always touted as the hard 8c of the world but even that's had a fair few ascents now.

[Stubbs]

The hardest problems in the world are almost certainly (beta changes aside) stuff in the US like Hypnotised Minds and The Ice Knife Sit, both of which are probably quite a bit harder than Gioia. 

I was going to mention Hynotized Minds here: in Colorado, near the road, not stupidly highball or morpho, seems to have a good length of season to try it; zero repeats. Dave Graham seems to have put a LOT of time into it and still not managed it.