[north_country_boy]

Totally agree with Bonjoy. Plus has this reputation that it is sandbag also grown from the fact that it was originally graded 8b with a duff sequence...?

Maybe lots of people have been trying this sequence and getting shut down?

FWIW I thought it was a hard move for 7c+, but then again, if you do the move you should do the route as it's a path in comparison afterwards.

I don't buy the short man card either as I know of at least two midgets who have done it and also found it steady at the grade.

[abarro81]

Closer to home, how about undercut-crimp-jug at tor. Timeless classic, what a line, might get you strong at big moves off left hand undercuts.

[shark]

Closer to home, how about undercut-crimp-jug at tor. Timeless classic, what a line, might get you strong at big moves off left hand undercuts.

 

Coincidently I was giving Ed Brown a power spot on that yesterday.

[ed brown]

Undercut Crimp...maybe but the crux here seems to be body tension enabling you to not only hold an undercut with a pretty extended left arm but to also take a relatively small hold semi statically with the right. Nice skills if you've got them but not a game changer on the Oak.

IMHO to rectify his 'weakness' Shark needs to concentrate on problems terminating with a bigger hold for the right the kind of see it on the skyline and know you are in type hold no matter what the left arm is feeling like.

Buckstone Dyno
Attitude Inspector
Glass Hour

Continuing on the dyno theme I'd be interested to know how the Shark fairs on Help the Aged?

[shark]

Undercut Crimp...maybe but the crux here seems to be body tension enabling you to not only hold an undercut with a pretty extended left arm but to also take a relatively small hold semi statically with the right. Nice skills if you've got them but not a game changer on the Oak.

BTW Undercut crimp doesn't start on the undercut but the edges below I was reliably informed today.

Hopefully I will have ticked the Oak before the grit season comes round again. Mind you I've been thinking that for 4 years.

[Nibile]

Hopefully I will have ticked the Oak before the grit season comes round again. Mind you I've been thinking that for 4 years.

Today I made love for the first time with a girl who was in love with me 15 years ago, she told me. 4 years are nothing, she told me. Stick at it, she told me. You'll get it.
 

[ianv]

Mind you I've been thinking that for 4 years.

Thats way too long, give it a brake and try something else nearer home.

[Stu Littlefair]

Hopefully I will have ticked the Oak before the grit season comes round again. Mind you I've been thinking that for 4 years.

Today I made love for the first time with a girl who was in love with me 15 years ago, she told me. 4 years are nothing, she told me. Stick at it, she told me. You'll get it.
 

I think this is the best advice on the Internet.

[Bonjoy]

What would Swiss Toni do?

[shark]

What would Swiss Toni do?

For me, climbing the Oak is very much like trying to make love to a beautiful woman whilst afflicted with erectile dysfunction

[ianv]

For me, climbing the Oak is very much like trying to make love to a beautiful woman whilst afflicted with erectile dysfunction

More like trying to get off with a fit bird that is really not up for it. Set you sights a bit lower and you stand more chance of getting laid 

[reeve]

More like trying to get off with a fit bird that is really not up for it. Set you sights a bit lower and you stand more chance of getting laid 

In this case though, she's well up for it, just playing hard to get.

[Doylo]

You just need to make eyes at some other routes. She'll soon put out....

[SA Chris]

Continuing on the dyno theme I'd be interested to know how the Shark fairs on Help the Aged?

Is that a jibe? I would think he will get it done before he gets a free busspass. Maybe.

[Jaspersharpe]

Totally agree with Bonjoy. Plus has this reputation that it is sandbag also grown from the fact that it was originally graded 8b with a duff sequence...?

I remember the magazine headline "Is this the hardest route in Britain? The Maximum E8 7a". The answer was found to be "no" pretty quickly.

[Jaspersharpe]

Is that a jibe?

No but this is:

[comPiler]

Fruit Ninja
6 February 2014, 12:11 pm

I like board games like chess and scrabble and whilst far from being a gamer there are a few electronic games I've got hooked which in chronological order are Tetris, Donkey Kong, Snake and more recently Fruit Ninja.

The kids showed me a couple of games on the Iphone when I got it and the "classic" version is the one I play. Tommy tried to show me the "arcade" and "zen" versions of the same game but I wasn't interested. The challenge of the original was still motivating.

I thought about this in climbing terms (like I do for pretty much everything) and realised whether its games, holiday destinations, crag destinations or whatever I don't have a great need for novelty or variety. If something is proven as interesting or entertaining enough I am happy to keep repeating the experience rather than seek out something new.

When I was young I tried lots of sports and hobbies, some of which embarrassingly nerdy (antique bottle collecting anyone?). I always felt that I was searching for something that would sustain my interest long term. It was not until I was 19 that I found climbing. 30 years ago. Since then any other activities like ski holidays have been an unwelcome distraction usually to earn brownie points.    

Consequently I suspect the reason I'm predisposed to getting locked into routes or problems (sometimes for years) is not because this is the best path to higher grades but is a personality trait or flaw. Maybe low level OCD.

Source: The Shark

[comPiler]

Peak Limestone – time for a re-think?
10 August 2014, 7:14 pm

I’m old enough to remember queueing for routes at Chee Tor. Back then I worried for the future of the crag because as climbing became more popular (because it is brilliant!) then the place would be overrun and trashed in the future. Things didn’t quite work out as I predicted. Nowadays instead of the whistle clean and well chalked lines of yesteryear these routes invariably have a sad and dusty quality indicative of neglect.

This reversal of popularity is evident to an even greater extent at less impressive limestone crags than Chee Tor. If you want to do a bit of classic trad away from the honeypot crags then expect to encounter overgrown paths, vegetated routes and maybe an agitated landowner who isn’t used to having people climb their crags anymore.  

So how did Peak Limestone trad lose its mojo? Thinking back to the mid eighties trad climbing was the only game in town. The choice was primarily gritstone or limestone trad climbing. I preferred limestone. Sport climbing hadn’t quite made it across the Channel. Climbing walls didn’t really exist. Bouldering on limestone was an oddity.

Lucky climbers now are spoilt by the proliferation of options. Want to do the hardest moves you are capable of? – go bouldering. Want to fill your pants? – go headpoint a grit route. Want to deliver a series of at your limit moves in relative safety? – go redpointing. Want to swing up 15 meters of jugs whilst it is raining? – go to Awesome Walls. Want to do limestone trad – well, err yes, go to High Tor or Stoney by all means but take care to dress appropriately for most other venues.

There are a lot of Peak Lime trad crags out there that are scarcely climbed on anymore – many of which through neglect we would struggle to reassert the right to climb on with landowners anyway. The approach paths are overgrown or even disappeared. Whilst the easier routes may still be attemptable if overgrown, the cleaner harder steeper routes are often reliant on situ pegs or threads that are now rotten. Small wonder climbers spend their limited time elsewhere.

About a year ago I was on the way back from bouldering at Raven Tor and passed the entrance to Horseshoe Quarry which was, as ever, rammed with parked cars. A few hundred yards on I stopped and scrambled up to Stoney West. There was no one there of course. The routes on the left still looked appealing and naturally cleanish (Tequila Tory, Twang, Northerners Cant Climb). Further right the rock quality deteriorated but was still climbable natural limestone which had the potential to be more appealing than anything else at Horseshoe Quarry (Main Wall routes excepted). I toyed with the idea of bolting these new lines and retro-bolting old lines and so got in touch with Simon Cundy who had done 4 lines in the E3/4 range back in the day. He was amenable to having them retro-bolted but said that Gary Gibson had already been in touch and had it on his list. Phew. That saved me a job.

Gibson subsequently took his industrial approach to Stoney West and put up 29 bolted lines – most new, some retro bolted. He did (at least one thing) I wouldn’t have done which was put up a bolt route very near an E5 called Northerners Cant Climb.

NCC is a route I aspired to do in the 80’s as it was recommended for being bold but on excellent rock with an exciting finale. Unfortunately I never got round to trying it at the time and so the moment passed. If NCC was on High Tor it would see regular traffic, but it isn’t and consequently probably hadn’t been repeated for 20 years. Nonetheless I think it is one that was worth preserving and with the increased attraction from the sport climbing at Stoney West might have got on peoples radar and potentially be climbed again. Gary bolted a line close to NCC which was I suspect close enough to interfere with that route’s independence. Incidentally the same situation occurred with Flycatcher on Garage Buttress. This sort of thing tends to cause disgruntlement for a minority rather than general outrage.

However, out of the blue Tony Walker mistakenly went and retrobolted NCC not realising that it had been done before. I don’t know Tony Walker well but was aware of him in my youth as an older, stronger and talented trad climber who notably took a groundfall attempting Ninth Life in the early 80s. I mention this to make the point that he is the opposite of a young wall bred climber unaware of traditional routes and ethics which is often presented as the archetypal retrobolter. The incident led to an online debate on UKClimbing and Walker reluctantly offered to remove the bolts. In some ways it was a storm in a teacup but it is illustrative of some changing trends on Peak Limestone.

If I was in charge (which I’m not) of a climbing governing body (which the BMC isn’t) then I would draw up and manage a definitive list of those classic Peak Trad routes that (I think) are worth preserving in their original form ie they shouldn’t be retro-bolted or spoilt by overly close adjacent bolted routes. Any attempt at bribery by First Ascentionists would be favourably considered. Furthermore the trad routes on The List should continue to be cleaned and climbed to continue to deserve their inclusion on the list otherwise they could be mooted as a potential target for retro bolting. Anything off the list is of course fair game for retro bolting.

Fortunately I’m not in charge which is certainly for the best. I know I would have railed against such overbearing bureaucratic interference in my youth and if the BMC Regional Meetings was similarly some sort of arbiter it would end up getting bogged down and distracted when there are more important issues such as Access and Land Management changes.

However, I do think that the bigger picture is worth at least rethinking. Whilst many from my generation have a lingering fondness for Peak Lime trad routes we should accept that the routes aren’t what they were and that however good Niall’s new BMC guidebook it is not going to be a DeLorean powered by a resurgent enthusiasm that will take us, the routes and crags back to the 80’s

That all said, in a sense nothing has changed. The real activity will be driven mainly by activists out on the crags doing their thing guided by history, peer influence and maybe an insatiable thirst for immortality. The occasional transgression will cause a more widespread hoo-hah on social media, in climbing magazines and even reaching the BMC Regional Meetings which may lead to counter action. Plus ça change.

However, where we are currently seems iniquitous insofar that a disproportionate amount of mid-grade sport climbing takes place on poor quality quarried limestone whilst on better (but still not brilliant crags) not a lot of climbing goes on at all which in turn causes self-perpetuating deterioration of those crags. It seems to me perverse and dog in a mangerish to argue that this deterioration is preferable to retrobolting.

Whatever does happen going forward it will unlikely to be carried out in a planned, strategic and sensitive way with the backing of an agreed consensus. Well that’s my prediction. But as you know I don’t have much success at prediction.

PS Word has reached me today that Gibson has applied his less than deft touch at Central Buttress..

Source: The Shark

[Johnny Brown]

There are a lot of Peak Lime trad crags out there that are scarcely climbed on anymore...

...on better (but still not brilliant crags) not a lot of climbing goes on at all which in turn causes self-perpetuating deterioration of those crags
 

Start listing them then. Vague allusions to the existence of these gets us nowhere.

many of which through neglect we would struggle to reassert the right to climb on with landowners anyway

Really? Without examples sounds rather like a baseless FUD campaign. Only one I can think of is Winnats.

Given the open enthusiasm of the 'oh, just bolt it all' camp on UKC & Facebook recently I think you can do this without fear of sticking your head over the parapet.

[shark]

There are a lot of Peak Lime trad crags out there that are scarcely climbed on anymore...

...on better (but still not brilliant crags) not a lot of climbing goes on at all which in turn causes self-perpetuating deterioration of those crags
 

Start listing them then. Vague allusions to the existence of these gets us nowhere.

many of which through neglect we would struggle to reassert the right to climb on with landowners anyway

Really? Without examples sounds rather like a baseless FUD campaign. Only one I can think of is Winnats.

Given the open enthusiasm of the 'oh, just bolt it all' camp on UKC & Facebook recently I think you can do this without fear of sticking your head over the parapet.

I dont know what a FUD campaign is but I'm going on what has been mentioned at the Peak Area meets - specifically John Peel Wall was mentioned at Dovedale, upper circle of Water Cum Jolly, Ping/Pong buttress, left end of Chee Tor where White Life is has been mentioned too and Dogs Dinner buttress I think and more recently Central Buttress.   

[comPiler]

The Broomhill Complex
25 March 2015, 7:58 pm

I devised a new training session today which I’m very excited about.

Of late my fingerboard training has focussed on max deadhangs with added weight. Between each deadhang I take a few minutes rest and typically played fruit ninja on my phone. Unfortunately I have plateaued for several weeks on fruit ninja and new stimulus is required.

Today after a progressive warm-up I experimented with doing the ironing. The protocol was one hard max deadhang followed by two or three pieces of laundry. This is obviously early days and I may tweak the rep structure but the initial results were impressive. 18 items ironed. Because I was slightly concerned that the ironing may have reduced my testosterone levels (studies on the subject are inconclusive) I finished off by doing a deadlift.

However, what if I get so good that I do the whole of the family’s ironing before the end of the session? I don’t think this is setting the bar too high as rapid gains are possible given that ironing is more technical than strength oriented. The obvious answer at that point is to apply my new skills outdoors in a competitive environment. This may sound like I’m getting ahead of myself but I think it is important to set a goal however unlikely it seems and work towards it. Dreams do come true if you work hard enough. The world of extreme ironing beckons. I gather Rich Simpson is the current World Champion.

Source: The Shark

[Fultonius]

Just don't forget to split the ironing time between your left hand and right hand, wouldn't want it to be detrimental to one hand...

[tomtom]

 Smooth post Shark. Left me creased up with laughter.

[Nibile]

Absolutely brilliant.
And far more useful than it may appear!

[andy_e]

Going strong Shark. If pressed, would you say you're ready for extreme ironing? If so, it might be time to strike whilst the... never mind.