[GCW]

Why are we only finding out now?  Shirley this is the news of the decade.

[Sloper]

Source? Witnesses, Photographs.

Just curious, after all we've never heard of things claimed turning out to have been a wee bit ficticious?

Note I'm not calling the chap a liar, glad that it's been done just suprised at how the news has come out.

[Bonjoy]

T'would be interesting to hear what sequence was used and how hard it was thought, given the spankings I've seen it deal out to the great and the good! Anyone know said Chaz Cooper?

[dave]

is he one half of Chaz & Dave by any chance?

[Bonjoy]

You should know, Dave!

[dave]

I'm afraid I'm generally too busy potting the red ball and screwing black for the yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black to notice the identity of my co-performer.

[Bonjoy]

Didn't you recently split up anyway?

[dave]

Presumably etc.

[Pantontino]

Source? Witnesses, Photographs.

Just curious, after all we've never heard of things claimed turning out to have been a wee bit ficticious?

Note I'm not calling the chap a liar, glad that it's been done just suprised at how the news has come out.

I reported it in my bouldering column for Climber. I don't know Chaz personally, but he writes to me occasionally reporting various new lines in the quarries around the Oldham area. Given the style of the climbing (all the problems previously reported looked very fingery and old school) I thought it a credible claim, and it amused me no end that it took some unknown climber to repeat the supposedly unrepeatable.

Witnesses: not sure, he didn't say, and I didn't ask because I don't have his email or telephone number. (When I said that he writes in, I meant he writes letters, as in good old fashioned pen and paper.)

Photos: he said he didn't have any.

Did he do it: seems plausible to me, after all it's 8A, not 8C.

How will that go down in your kangaroo court? 

[r-man]

New problems in quarries? South lancs side or peak side of Oldham? Either way, I'm intrigued. Has he done loads of new stuff, or could you could give us a quick run down?

I remember reading a comment on yorkshiregrit from one of the been-around-for-a-bit generation: he thought that while general ability on steep stuff had improved loads, vertical climbing hadn't really moved on much. Apart from some of Gaskin's problems, this seems to be true. There aren't many wall climbs above 8A. Is this because they are hard to find, or because people just aren't into vertical gnarl any more?

[Bonjoy]

It's due to lack of available resources if you ask me. The less steep something is, the greater the effect on difficulty any change in hold angle, size and spacing is. The gap between easy and impossible is relatively narrow compared to on steeper ground, so less rock features fall into it. It's much harder to find a decent unclimbed vertical 8a than a steep 8a despite the fact that vertical rock is much more common than steep rock. And it's even harder than that to find a slabby 8a despite slab angled rock being probably the commonest of angles.

[Johnny Brown]

The gap between easy and impossible is relatively narrow compared to on steeper ground,

I wouldn't agree with that.

slab angled rock being probably the commonest of angles.

Or that.

because people just aren't into vertical gnarl any more

But I would agree with that. Look at all the early eighties problems still regarded as hard - Walk on by, Monoblock, Scoop de grace etc - all vertical grimness. Folk used to train on vertical walls, either stone or brick edges. Standards haven't moved forward on this because of a lack of interest, not a lack of projects.

[dave]

go on then, where are all these vertical projects that are actually climbable?

another factor is of course that to make vertical walls harder the holds get smaller or further apart. the further apart they are the more it rules out shorter people, hence less suitors. the smaller the holds get the less likely anyone is to want to pull on them, the more condition dependant it becomes, the less goes you can have in a session, the more it becomes about pain tollerance rather than fingerstrength. compared to climbing steeper problems where the holds favour longer sessions working them, in a wider range of conditions.

Plus in terms of bouldering, vertical walls end up all being short and biased towards very hard moves to stay within bouldering height, whereas the steeper something is the longer it can be before it gets out of hand, and hence has to be less cruxy, and hence more approachable/workable it is.

[Sloper]

I don't read the printed climbing press, it just seems odd that an unknown climber would repeat such a well known problem and then report it in that manner.

Like I said, I'm not calling the bloke a liar, just suprised by the manner of the report.

[Bonjoy]

The gap between easy and impossible is relatively narrow compared to on steeper ground,

I wouldn't agree with that.

Think about it for a minute. For example a climber has even spaced 30mm hand and footholds on a 45 degree wall and holds of a set size and of equivalent holdability on a vertical wall, for the sake of the example say these are 8mm holds at the same spacing. If you knock 7mm of the size of these holds the steep position will get a fair bit harder to hold, the vertical position will become impossible to hold. You get bigger holds on hard steep problems, therefore you’ve got more slack to play with to make steeper problems harder. That is indisputable. Where is the flaw in my logic?

slab angled rock being probably the commonest of angles.

Or that.

That's because you aren't really registering most of the easy angled rock. I'm talking about all available rock, not just the stuff that's worth climbing on.Take a look around the peak as a whole, or your average boulderfield, there is loads of slabby rock, most of it you'd barely notice as a climber as it's plastered in ledges and heather. Some you can't even see because it's so ledge covered that it's burried under grass.

Like Dave says, where are all these vert/slabby projects? I've got a document on my PC with all my proj ideas and there aren't many slabs/walls on it and it's not for lack of looking.

[nik at work]

I am (obviously) very interested in this bit of news.
I don't doubt the repeat, I have no reason to, and I'm SYKED that someone has finally got up this. I would however like more details, how tall is this guy? What sequence did he use? Any thoughts on the grade (there have been several 8a+ soundings)? Etc, etc, etc.
The guy sounds wonderfully eccentric.

Curious as to when it became highball, this new found popularity of the quarries must be causing significant ground erosion

[Somebody's Fool]

Is it possible that Chaz Cooper is the pseudonym Dense adopts when he's living his suburban-father-of-three double life on the weekends?

[Pantontino]

New problems in quarries? South lancs side or peak side of Oldham? Either way, I'm intrigued. Has he done loads of new stuff, or could you could give us a quick run down?

I've sent you the full details, but for everybody else the problems I've reported in the last few years are as follows:

Early 2007
Machete - a V9/7C traverse in Quarry 6 at Running Hill Pits

Mid 2007
Vengeance - a V10/7C+ wall in Huddersfield Road Quarry

2008
The Whack (V10/7c+) - the obvious thin undercut face problem in a quarry off the A640 Huddersfield road

2009
Surface to Air - a highball V8/7B in Den Lane Quarry

[Jim]

could you send me the details please.

I wonder if any of those problems are what we named 'city wall'?

[Monolith]

There's still a keen gnarly wall scouse contingent. In fact it's all we've got and all we live for.

[Jim]

lanky bar-stewards the lot of ya

[a dense loner]

sounds like "whack" kes. fool, don't think i didn't see what you did

[nik at work]

I know of Den Lane and Running Hill Pits but anybody got any more knowledge on these two:

Mid 2007
Vengeance - a V10/7C+ wall in Huddersfield Road Quarry

2008
The Whack (V10/7c+) - the obvious thin undercut face problem in a quarry off the A640 Huddersfield road

Are they the same venue?? Stallion this is your area isn't it??

[a dense loner]

they're not the same quarry

the whack sounds like its what a couple of us christened city wall, but never went back to do. thought round about 7c but easier if you were tall. decent looking bit of wall, the only thing there tho. basically head up the a640 towards the motorway from diggle/delph, always get confused which is which (its the one next to uppermill), its on the right half way up the hill in a little bay quarry kind of thing. very obvious when you're there

[nik at work]

Cheers Dense, I'll have a looksie soon.

Any knowledge on Huddersfield Road Quarry?