[Sloper]

Absolutely, the 'ends justify the means' is a very dangerous argument and the lad in question needs to be told that it's not on.

None of which, however, diminishes the achievement.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

That's quality. Great video, and a great lob - onto sporting mattage.

I get pretty annoyed about overuse of chalk, tick marks (me-me-me marks as I like to call them), and having watched the video, there doesn't appear to be a lot to complain about here, very little, if anything.

The white lines showing up in the pictures above    IS clearly ice. It's where the icicles are at the start of the video. You're looking through most of it, which is why it doesn't show up - except where the surface curves over and reflects the light.

[lagerstarfish]

looks like ice to me and I'm an expert at looking at ice in video stills

I still think we should we drown him to prove his innocence

drown him and then burn him just to be sure

[Sloper]

What; and then complain that the second death wasn't onsight?

NB What's the approved sequence for drowning these days and how do you train for it on a Beastmaker? Dense?

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Hmm, I've looked again.

Not ..entirely.. sure now!

It's a difficult one, isn't it. Alex' approach is clearly pretty pure. I'm sure I will have used chalk to dry holds in the past - blow torches too, on the lime - and if it was cleaned off as much as possible afterwards, I think you'd have to say "fair effort". (Great effort, BTW).

There will always be some impact - even when trying to meet the objective challenge in the best/purest/most sporting way possible.

Maybe what we should be trying to encourage, is the right/better approach - in other words cut out all the crap that isn't necessary; admit when you aren't quite ready to try something - and the impact of over-preparation, over-chalking, tick marks, mountains of pads. None of which, in my view, applies here.

A fine effort.

[tomtom]

What; and then complain that the second death wasn't onsight?

NB What's the approved sequence for drowning these days and how do you train for it on a Beastmaker? Dense?

7 seconds under, 3 seconds rest constitutes a rep. 6 reps then a 2 min break and repeat. Sounds a bit soft to me - need some greater duration to get a decent drowning...

[petejh]

Is that taken from the Waterboarder's Training Manual (Bush Brothers, 2008)?

[tomtom]

Blair and Cheney  (2004).

[abarro81]

I have nothing to say on chalk use and tick marks in general, but anyone who thinks that's ice not chalk has been smoking the Christmas crack too much

[FilW]

Just to clarify: it is chalk, and it was being used to dry a damp area. This does work providing the chalk is then brushed off once it has soaked up any moisture it is going to. This particular area turned out to be just outside the area their feet were touching so the drying process wasn't finished at the time. It was cleaned off before we left. In future I'm sure all superfluous chalk will be cleaned up as they go. I fully understand peoples reticence to the over use of chalk and I know Alex feels the same. Should you wish to drown him, feel free................

Happy New Year!!  

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Aha! Why didn't the usual "warning.. other replies since your last post" alert pop up?

If there's a mod lurking about, you can delete this. 
Happy new year peeps. xx

[rodma]

to clarify, is drying gritstone acceptable?
Is it that much tougher than sandstone?

[tomtom]

It depends.. Some is tough (da cliff) some is not (bridestones). Some is tough with soft bits (think the 7A arête at Higgar)....

[rodma]

Thanks Tomtom

Is the grit weaker when wetter?
I only ask the question that way because I expect nothing is every truly 'dry', so we go with 'looks/feels dry' regardless of relative humidity etc.

[JMB]

Jakob Schubert climbed Chris Sharma's 9b route Fight or Flight, his first of the grade and according to 8spray the only person other than Ondra to climb the grade this year (which sounds plausible).

[bendavison]

Proper good effort! I think that makes Jakob the 4th person to climb 9b on a rope (including Bernabe Fernandez but not Fred Rouhling).

[mrjonathanr]

When was Akira downgraded?

[jwi]

Akira is in the same style as the 9b in the Ali Baba cave, no?

[mrjonathanr]

So excluded as only the second part requires a rope rather than disputed?

[bendavison]

Both, in my book. Not that I don't count the Ali Baba 9b's as 9b.

[mrjonathanr]

Disputed ascent or disputed grade?

What's the evidence for this? Thanks.

[a dense loner]

Disputed ascent, and Fernandez. It's all been combed over before somewhere on here.

[abarro81]

http://novebi.ning.com/group/villanuevadelrosario/forum/topics/chilam-balam
this covers the chillam ballam controversy, with plenty of links. Also a brief mention of Akira from Andrada: "I could tell of many other stories like the one of Akira, a story, which I know very well: the route does not exist in its original version any more, in which it got redpointed. There are broke holds and others are glued. Before these changes it maybe had been 8c+/9a, a very hard route at that time, but it hasn´t been the first of that grade!"

[dav]

http://www.climbing.com/climber/fred-rouhling/

[mrjonathanr]

Quite. I haven't read anything which credibly refutes his claim, just doubts cast without any hard enough evidence to convince.

In the absence of really strong evidence to the contrary, I've no good reason to disbelieve him.