Interesting that Hazel gave Donkey Kong Ext 8a+ but labelled Pig in the Roof 8b in her pic. I thought Pig was easier than DK...
It seems the controversy continues as it sounds like some holds have broken in the initial boulder problem taking it from 8B to 7C (says Fred).
Quote from: remus on November 22, 2020, 07:35:53 pmIt seems the controversy continues as it sounds like some holds have broken in the initial boulder problem taking it from 8B to 7C (says Fred).How conwenient.
Which cartoon?
Quote from: SA Chris on November 22, 2020, 11:31:46 pmQuote from: remus on November 22, 2020, 07:35:53 pmIt seems the controversy continues as it sounds like some holds have broken in the initial boulder problem taking it from 8B to 7C (says Fred).How conwenient.Can confirm via a friend that worked Akira pretty hard that the initial section used to be 8B. His breakdown was 8B to a crap rest on a 3 finger pocket into a second 8B to the lip. He never tried the final rope section (8a?) as he thought it was pointless.Bit Sad for Fred that it finally gets repeated but not with it's initial difficulty, even at 9a it would still have been a monumental achievement at the time of the FA. Loved Rouhling ever since the cartoon he sent to OTE as his submission to a grade debate article, legendary trolling before trolling existed.
Quote from: ferret on November 23, 2020, 03:05:42 amQuote from: SA Chris on November 22, 2020, 11:31:46 pmQuote from: remus on November 22, 2020, 07:35:53 pmIt seems the controversy continues as it sounds like some holds have broken in the initial boulder problem taking it from 8B to 7C (says Fred).How conwenient.Can confirm via a friend that worked Akira pretty hard that the initial section used to be 8B. His breakdown was 8B to a crap rest on a 3 finger pocket into a second 8B to the lip. He never tried the final rope section (8a?) as he thought it was pointless.Bit Sad for Fred that it finally gets repeated but not with it's initial difficulty, even at 9a it would still have been a monumental achievement at the time of the FA. Loved Rouhling ever since the cartoon he sent to OTE as his submission to a grade debate article, legendary trolling before trolling existed.Who’s the friend? Pretty important info as without other confirmation that it’s massively changed no one is going to believe Fred. As far as I can see without proof it’s changed it will be down as what ever grade it is now.
Gav, for what little it's worth, Phil had a training replica on his woody that I saw him do big links on. The thing was nails, despite being a pretty solid 8A climber at the time I couldn't do more than a few moves at a time and some of them not at all. Nothing 7C about it. It was my anti-style though, big moves on incuts and deep 2 fingers, lots of cuts and campusing.
Phil Gondoux, about 15 years ago he tried it a lot. He had good form for hard roof stuff, 2nd ascent of Fatman sit (8b+ before that nutter took a 🔨 to it) as well as lots of other stuff around that grade FA of Queen of Hearts, Tortuga, etc. From what I recall he had done the 2 halves and linked into the 2nd 8B and thought it 8Cish to the lip (no route grade offered).Might be slightly out on the details as it was a while ago, but probably not by much.Fred did a lot of the FAs and repeats of the early 8's in the area (Targasonne) and was regarded as a beast by all the locals and not a man to be doubted on his claims.
I just did a quick google of Phil gondoux ( as I had not heard of him) and he also seems to have a lot of doubters and controversy surrounding him. Words such as “infamous” and “doubtful ascent” immediately appear in the google searches.
Bit more digging it’s actually one of the 1st ascents you mention him doing that is disputed , Queen of hearts. He originally gave it 8A+ but no one could repeat it including Nacho. It was then done by Klem at 8B+. You also say he suggests Akira is two 8Bs where as Fred suggests it’s an 8B problem into an 8b+ route to an 8a. So the new info that got me interested is someone with big ? s next to his name, who’s 1st ascent is doubted, has infamous prefixing his name in another article, is linked to Farman and Akira of which he suggests a much harder sequence than Fred suggests. I still believe that Fred did the route, it was really hard at the time, as hard as anything in the world, but it wasn’t 9b it was 9a and it hasn’t changed much at all.