[richdraws]

I do not think James Pearson is a bad person a liar or anything other than a climber who got it wrong and is digging himself out of it.
http://jamespearsonclimbing.blogspot.com/

How many pads did it take to reduce an E12 to E9? None. What it took was a respectful approach to climbing that took into account multiple E9/E10 ascents of different styles of trad climbing. I don't think there is any reason to call Pearson a liar, it just his grading basis is almost tautological.

[chummer]

To extend on what Rich Draws said; this is what i think, right or wrong its just an opinion and i'm bored at work. Sorry if this is old ground..

With regard to the Promise i thought the issue was really the font grade of the route, not the E grade as this was bound to be different due to the pads and faith in the gear.
Font 8a to 7b+. 'Conditions dependent' of course it is but he must have had some good conditions on one of the 10 days he tried the route. I suppose this comes down to being shit at grading. Fair enough.

walk of life E12; I just think James was incredibly nieve and perhaps, and dare i say it a little arrogant even if he didn't mean to be(i'm sure he didn't). Before you who know him well shoot me down all i mean is he didn't seem to place his route into context with other hard non gritstone routes such as Birkets If six was nine, confirmed at E9, Fr8a+ climbing with an unthinkable fall. I really dont think relating the difficulty of WOL to his hard grit routes is relevant simply because the style of the route is so different; big long pitch on edges, if anything, more akin to slate than grit perhaps. Perhaps James just isn't used to this sort of climbing(relatively speaking) and not as good at it as the Grit and bouldering. Of course thats ok, i am just suprised in view of this that he wasn't a little more conservative with the grading. It seems to me that Dave Mac is simply more qualified to grade it accurately just as James would be if Dave Mac did a super new route on the grit. I'm not sure if this post actually went anywhere, so appologies in advance.
This ain't an anonomous dig at james, i am just discussing the issue. The biggest shame is of course that all this has overshadowed the obviously awesome route and i'm sure everyone(esp James) is gettin a little tired of it now.
thats me lot, i will probably regret being bored at work and getting sucked in.....ah well
Jon ratcliffe

[Adam Lincoln]

thats me lot, i will probably regret being bored at work and getting sucked in.....ah well
Jon ratcliffe

You make it sound like this is the first time you have been bored and sucked in at work Jon.
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=330692&v=1#x4878390

[chummer]

Ha!! You're good Adam!  :guilty:I guess some of us don't learn eh? Well i didn't mean too, anyways i simply wanted to raise the points about the grit route comparisons, etc. and at work i have the time. (shit i'm justifying myself...) Anyways, i thought they were valid points(i'm doing it again) to raise in this disussioninvolving James's blog. At the end of the day we're all on here cos we give a shit one way or another and have an opinion. Am i really qualified to comment? (i don't know James and i certainly ain't been on the routes.Knowing people who have doesn't really cut it i suppose). I guess not.  Are most folk on this forum? I have no idea. Does it make any real difference to what we do and our climbing? No. I do think though that to have a discussion in a pub or on here it is healthy to have a spectrum of opinion, a little like politics though hopefully we don't take ourselves too seriously at the end of the day. Speakin of which, it's been a long one...

[chummer]

Erm, in retrospect, did i get prematurely defensive there, probably.

[steveo]

Question about The Walk of Life
The route Dyer Straights {E8 6b} was climbed by climbing the arete to 2 pegs at 60ft. From there the route sweeps leftwards and upwards following 13 pegs to the top. James basically missed out the arete with a direct start ie. straght up the middle of the face. So in other words he added 70ft of climbing to the hard climbing of Dyer Straights. The first trustworthy gear on the route is at 45ft and the climbing is F7a, i don't know anything about the gear after that. As James removed the 13 pegs its going to make the climbing a damned sight harder placing the gear on the lead as apposed to clipping the pegs on the lead. To my relatively inexperienced climbing mind add the first bit to the second bit and you come up with something harder and more dangerous than E9 6c. Another curious thing about the original route {Dyer Straights} is that Ian Vickers the first and only ascentionist gave it a technical grade of 6b. Could someone make this clearer to me as the upper end grades confuse me.
 

[PATRuL]

...I'm off for a quick wink
... when i becomes a
///winker

[steveo]

Bloody hell...... i was hoping for a sensible answer, instead i get the Riddler

[clm]

There does seem to be a trend of "grade narrowing" at the top end.  i feel others are aware of this - the new stanage guide describes the hard routes on Marble wall as "showing just how far the grade of E8 can go".
As for walk of life - we have two ascents and two grades.  wait for another 10 ascents or so and we may have that wonderful thing. A concensus grade (how long would we have to wait for that?)
A question which may god knows who may have the experience to answer.  How does walk of life compare to the classic of hard slabs the Indian Face?

[clm]

i forgot to say that they are both thoroughly impressive efforts.