[north_country_boy]

http://davemacleod.blogspot.com/2009/01/therapy.html

[Johnny Brown]

Wow.

[north_country_boy]

Very wise post too from Dave......

[Sloper]

A very considered post but I think the comment 'It would be a shame if our hard E grade climbs, which really are great masterpieces of rock climbs and stories, implode into a black hole of sensationalist rubbish headlines and witch-hunts on ukclimbing.com.' is sadly likely to be prophetic with ill informed and defamatory speculation.

 

[Will Hunt]

Stop being so nice, Dave! We want to see claws, meeeow!

 


  to JP and the MC

[Percy B]

 

[Fiend]

Small numbers.

Again could boil down to Keenus being rubbish at judging ball-nuts

[Fiend]

Few thoughts...

- Very good of Dave Mac to go down and do it. An impressive logistical as well as climbing effort. He really is Mr UK Trad now.

- He might have had much better conditions than Keenus, it does make a difference on the culm stuff.

- Ball nuts.

- Down from 7a to 6c?

- Grade is for a hypothetical onsight, I still reckon that with this route, due to it's length complexity and general blindness/obtusness, there could be a greater than usual difference between a headpoint and onsight ascent.

- Looking at UKC I'm very glad Mick R. isn't on here, god his loathsome political posturing makes me queasy just scanning over it.

[nik at work]

Ace stuff keeps happening, it's brilliant.

Well done Dave.

[tc]

Few thoughts...

- He might have had much better conditions than Keenus, it does make a difference on the culm stuff.

- Ball nuts.

- Down from 7a to 6c?

- Grade is for a hypothetical onsight, I still reckon that with this route, due to it's length complexity and general blindness/obtusness, there could be a greater than usual difference between a headpoint and onsight ascent.

Bollocks. Just massively overgraded. Like The Promise.

[Fiend]

A crushing refutation there. I'm convinced.

(BTW is that the same Promise that was originally done without pads and graded on the (mistaken) assumption the ballnut was rubbish, and then repeated with pads and lots of falls taken on the ballnut?? Or a different Promise??)

[tc]

Yeah, the very same. To further refute your point, if you can't place gear properly does that mean Left Wall is E5?

[rainbow]

WOW, WOW, WOW. Agree nice and interesting comments on blog. Inspirational stuff indeed.   

[Neil F]

- Very good of Dave Mac to go down and do it. An impressive logistical as well as climbing effort. He really is Mr UK Trad now.

Hang on a second, Fiend.  Are you honestly saying that the cream of UK trad is represented by pre-practise and pre-inspection?  When the likes of Robins, McHaffie, El Mocho and a host of other supremely talented on sight climbers are quietly going about their thing?

Man, you are completely missing the point.

And if anyone thinks this is in some way a criticism of Dave Mac, I'm afraid you are completely missing the point too!

Neil

[Fiend]

Okay okay. For the record I totally respect on-sighting and pretty much totally disdain headpointing (new routes / cutting edge excepted). But still, big numbers are pretty important, yes?? Forgive my throwaway comment, I was thinking of the Welsh boys when I wrote it but couldn't be arsed changing it. And yes the logical course of action for Dave now he's injured and repeated the hardest trad slab in the UK etc etc is to do more onsighting and push the boundaries of that.

[JohnH]

Wow! Well done Dave, it looks like an amazing route. A very interesting and considered post too.

[Houdini]

Forgive my throwaway comment, I was thinking of the Welsh boys when I wrote it ...

Clarify please.

[Fiend]

Forgive my throwaway comment, I was thinking of the Welsh boys when I wrote it but couldn't be arsed changing it.

Clarify please.

I.e. I was thinking I should mention them as also Britain's top tradsters, but was too lazy to change what I wrote.

[Doylo]

Christ!

[Zods Beard]

- Very good of Dave Mac to go down and do it. An impressive logistical as well as climbing effort. He really is Mr UK Trad now.

Hang on a second, Fiend.  Are you honestly saying that the cream of UK trad is represented by pre-practise and pre-inspection?  When the likes of Robins, McHaffie, El Mocho and a host of other supremely talented on sight climbers are quietly going about their thing?

Man, you are completely missing the point.

And if anyone thinks this is in some way a criticism of Dave Mac, I'm afraid you are completely missing the point too!

Neil

Word Neil, very good point.

[Houdini]

Christ!

Yes, my child?

[Clart]

- Very good of Dave Mac to go down and do it. An impressive logistical as well as climbing effort. He really is Mr UK Trad now.

Hang on a second, Fiend.  Are you honestly saying that the cream of UK trad is represented by pre-practise and pre-inspection?  When the likes of Robins, McHaffie, El Mocho and a host of other supremely talented on sight climbers are quietly going about their thing?

Man, you are completely missing the point.

And if anyone thinks this is in some way a criticism of Dave Mac, I'm afraid you are completely missing the point too!

Neil

Hang a trout, if wasn't for people like Pearson and Macleod there wouldn't be these routes that people could go and onsight.
Great effort of Pearson for establishing the route and Macleod for repeating it. Inspires me to push that little bit harder.

[slackline]

  Great effort, especially when "injured".

Whats all the discontent about the grade anyway  ? 

EVERYONE (should) know that the grade given to a route by the FA, PARTICULARLY if its a headpoint, is a proposition of the on-sight grade (ditto for repeats if headpointed).

This does NOTHING to detract from James ascent in the slightest as acknowledged by Dave.

[Bubba]

At the end of the day, the grades are just numbers and keep climbers in idle chat between real experiences. What’s left are the climbs and the stories.

Please don't let this descend into yet another nasty grade bitch fest.

It would be a shame if our hard E grade climbs, which really are great masterpieces of rock climbs and stories, implode into a black hole of sensationalist rubbish headlines and witch-hunts on ukclimbing.com.

Let's not sink to that level please.

[SA Chris]

True.

Let's not detract from the fact that it is still a supreme effort from both.