UKBouldering.com

[Are You Having It About the Woolly Mammoths][Esgair Maen Gwyn][XI 10] (Read 8302 times)

Pantontino

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 3339
  • Karma: +97/-1
    • www.northwalesbouldering.com
Hardest winter route in Wales falls to Pete Harrison:

http://news.v12outdoor.com/2010/12/28/are-you-having-it-about-the-woolly-mammoths-xi-10/

Terminator (Haston's legendary VIII on Craig Ddu) gets second ascent (only 25 years after the first!) by Nick Bullock:

http://news.v12outdoor.com/2010/12/28/haston-test-piece-repeated/

Wild looking VII 7 on Clogwyn y Geifr by Nick Bullock and Tim Neill:

http://news.v12outdoor.com/2010/12/28/falling-angel-vii-7-clogwyn-y-geifr/

And last but not least a three pitch VIII 8 in the Devil's Kitchen chasm itself from Pete Harrison:

http://news.v12outdoor.com/2010/12/28/faust-or-famine-viii-8-clogwyn-y-geifr/

I think I need a drink... :beer2:  :dance1:  :beer2:

al123

Offline
  • **
  • menacing presence
  • Posts: 161
  • Karma: +2/-3
i drove past while pete was on the route! something inside me said get out and take some snaps but i didnt... bollocks.

SA Chris

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 29579
  • Karma: +643/-12
    • http://groups.msn.com/ChrisClix
Great stuff. Any signs of it warming up over that side? 7 degrees here today.

chummer

Offline
  • ****
  • forum abuser
  • Posts: 582
  • Karma: +26/-2
Well done that man! :o

warm and rainy over here with some snow hanging on in the hills, if it stays until it gets cold again the conditions are going to be absolutely mint!

SA Chris

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 29579
  • Karma: +643/-12
    • http://groups.msn.com/ChrisClix
Same here. Coastal snow has cleared for the first time in about 2 weeks, Holding out in the hills though, forecast to get cold again thursday, in time for 5 day homganay weekend!

Ally Smith

Offline
  • ***
  • obsessive maniac
  • Posts: 331
  • Karma: +16/-0
Congratulations on what sounds like an awesome new route Pete.

Fingers crossed for another cold snap before everything melts out

petejh

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 5868
  • Karma: +639/-36
Rant alert. (please log pile this Simon/Toby if it ends up turning into a shit-show). I wanted to reply publicly to some comments made about me on ukc to try and nail some of the utter bullshit flying around.

Jack Geldard – your news report is a bit misleading, compare these two news reports http://news.v12outdoor.com/    and   http://dmmclimbing.com/newsArchive.asp?id=6&ngroup=2

With yours:  http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=59615

Si Panton and Ray managed easily enough to produce reports which just state the facts and included photos of the actual route. On the other you've written your report in a style which implies a lot, includes comments which leave things open to the readers interpretation, contains what seems to be attempts to stir up controversy about dry-tooling and even, for reasons best known only to yourself, makes a news item out of the fact that I disagreed, along with 98% of the rest of the climbing community, with dry-tooling on Millstone.
This route, as is the way of many new routes, is close enough to the bone as it is and it doesn’t need that sort of treatment... and I really can’t see how you or ukc would have treated Dave Macleod, Andy Turner, or any of the other well-known, sponsored winter climbers in the same way. What is your motivation for taking something which I’ve worked really hard for and have waited three years to come into condition and turning it into a sensationalist piece of journalism?
At the very least I’d like you to use a proper picture of the actual route you’re reporting, in its winter condition.

As for other stuff...
Some jokers (fawksey) on that crock of shit forum suggested I must climb hard winter routes to 'gain publicity' and 'satisfy a need to make news for a sponsor'.
In short fawksey, whoever you are, I can stretch to offering you 4 words. Kiss my fucking arse.

The long version:
I’m not sponsored. Me and Simon had a blast climbing this pitch and then we went home. I didn’t climb it because I wanted my name to appear on some crock-of-shit news website designed to sell advertising, nor did I climb it because I wanted to do a grade xyz. I’m not sponsored by anyone and I don’t have any pretensions of ever being sponsored by anyone unless Petzl feel like charitably replacing one of my Nomics which is completely fucked from bashing in too much turf gear and pegs (and because Dane still hasn’t delivered his promised hammer to me yet!). I didn’t get in touch with anybody about my ascent except Si Panton and I only got in touch with him because he’s a mate and he’s the only person who I’d normally send any news to because he’s helped me out massively with my NW Limestone guidebook project. Si’s news website is done by someone who loves the scene and reports grass-roots VDiffs as well as top end climbers in N.Wales and isn’t too overtly commercial though it’s obviously got its business links (just like the winter wiki which I’ve also put a massive amount of my own time into to try to make it a good resource, or kind of not too bad at least). Ray (dmm) phoned me up and was pretty insistent that I should let him write-up something on the dmm website because he said ‘it was significant’ – I told him that I haven’t got any connection with dmm and that I don’t see why there should be anything about me on their website, but Ray’s a friend and so I ended up agreeing to let him write it up and put it on his site. Baggy (who runs the winter blog) also contacted me to ask me for details and I told him I’d prefer to stick to the quiet approach so he didn’t put anything on his website.  I almost wish now that I hadn’t agreed to let Ray write anything up...  But at least Ray’s dmm report and Si’s V12 report demonstrate how these things should be written – in an unbiased style and just reporting the facts, without attempts to stir up controversy with links to Millstone dry-tooling and pictures of bolted M-climbing.

Note I didn’t send anything about our route to UKC and I never had any intention of sending anything to UKC because I generally find them to be an odious bunch of commercially-motivated wankers who don’t add anything to my own experience of the climbing life apart from hosting a rather brilliant logbook service. If it was down to me I’d have stuck with putting my route up on the winter wiki and Si Panton putting up a brief report on the V12 site. But it didn’t work out that way and thus I end up reading, with gritted teeth, posts by assholes and morons like fawksey about what my underlying motivation for climbing hard routes is.

The route - lets get this straight, the route is what it is, and that is a hard bit of technical pumpy climbing up a very compelling line, on a dirty and damp piece of overhanging rock in an unpopular part of the Llanberis Pass. It's about 20 metres of hard climbing and easier up the slabby top (it's longer than just the summer line of Mammoths because it carries on up the wet bit where Mammoths leaves the cliff) I could have called it 30 odd metres because it actually is to the belay but that would be misleading. It’s relatively worthless except to the wildlife that lives there and to obsessive’s like me who are prepared to spend months getting fit enough to be able to climb up said scruffy little cliff. I don’t recall myself claiming it’s the Orion Face or Anubis/Don’t Die of Ignorance/The Hurting or fucking Cerro Torre. I don’t recall Dave Macleod’s grade X 11 route, Cathedral, getting slagged off for only being 30 metres long so what’s the problem people?

The cliff sits at about 320 metres. Compare with Craig Ddu (Terminator 2nd ascent done the day previous to my route) which sits at 200 metres, Clogwyn y Grochan – which had mega-looking icefalls on it last week at 250 metres, and Craig Rhaeadr (Cascade, Central Icefall Direct etc) at 450metres. But using height in arguments of what constitutes a winter route is a red-herring, a bit like using strict calendar dates in an argument about what constitutes a winter ascent. I don’t think anyone would argue that this constitutes a winter line - http://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.html?id=162268 even though it’s at sea level.

In terms of the make-up of the route it reminds me a bit of this - http://davemacleod.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-02-26T13%3A48%3A00Z&max-results=10    - another great-looking compelling piece of climbing.

To some of the ukc posters - Please don’t denigrate something you haven’t experienced but which others have worked hard to achieve, for the ill-informed reasoning that anyone who climbs a hard route must do it because they want to be well-known for sponsors, or because news of the ascent appears on some shithole of a news page and gets your fire up because the grade is too high for your liking. Some of the more idiotic amongst you seem to think I’m claiming to be the next Ueli Steck,  I’m not and I’m a pretty shit climber if that makes any of you punters feel better about yourselves  - F8a, E6, V9 and IX being my previous best efforts, so completely shit in the grand scheme, but I try hard and I enjoy the whole amateurishness of this sport I love.

Raphael Slawinski - http://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/, a climber we’d all do well to try to emulate in style and outlook, hit it on the head when he wrote: ‘I figure climbing is a pointless activity, so why do it if not for fun?

Thanks a lot ukc for taking some of the fun out of my climbing. Chapeau. (And yeah I know  :boohoo: )
Rant over.

fawksey I apologise I'm sure you're a fine bloke in real life.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2010, 02:23:28 pm by petejh »

danm

Offline
  • ****
  • junky
  • Posts: 844
  • Karma: +112/-1
Don't get too upset with the retards over on the other channel - they are like pre-programmed performing monkeys. Fair play, a few voices of reason are fighting your corner, but I've given up and won't post on there again as it's a total waste of time.

SA Chris

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 29579
  • Karma: +643/-12
    • http://groups.msn.com/ChrisClix
Another shitstorm in a teacup. Great effort, fuck them all.

T_B

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 3108
  • Karma: +151/-5
I really wouldn't worry about it as 99% of people who read about your route will simply think "wow, great effort, what a line". What I would say though is if you give something XI (even if it is) then you've got to expect some 'attention' I'm afraid  :devangel:

Fultonius

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4504
  • Karma: +155/-3
  • Was strong but crap, now weaker but better.
    • Photos
 :lol: That rant made me laugh on multiple occasions - good work! Looks desperate!  :thumbsup:

Johnny Brown

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 11575
  • Karma: +719/-22
Top effort Pete, and I think anyone with a brain and some experience can see that what you did was in reasonable style. Ignore the chattering chumps!

Sypeland

Offline
  • ***
  • stalker
  • Posts: 289
  • Karma: +11/-2
    • http://www.climbersbalm.com
That's probably the most amusing and truthful post I have read on the internet in 2010.

Well done on the ascent.

Drew

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Am I really a
  • Posts: 1739
  • Karma: +36/-4
Pete. First up, great effort. Looks exciting.

And I'm not sure if it applies to you but Petzl are giving away free Nomics. Okay so that's a slight exaggeration (UKC stylee), but if you bought them recently, then they have been recalled.

I can see how from where you're sat, it sounds a bit negative from J.G. but from an outsider's perspective it just seems like a bog standard news report, with a bit of padding (like the link to the Millstone thread). And to be honest, no-one from UKC has responded in the thread. It does seem a bit like a Troll though.

craic-head

Offline
  • *
  • regular
  • Posts: 36
  • Karma: +1/-0
I agree you've been hard done to and I hope an apology is forthcoming from UKC.
Phenomenal line. Looks fantastic!

chris j

Offline
  • ****
  • forum abuser
  • Posts: 589
  • Karma: +19/-1
Respect, Pete. Both for the route and the honesty of your post. If I had enough posting history to give karma I'd wad you for that, for what it's worth. Looks like a fantastic ice feature, must have been 'interesting' getting established on that, well done!

Dave Garry

Offline
  • *
  • newbie
  • Posts: 25
  • Karma: +0/-0
Said it before Pete ..but thought I would do it here too.

Good Effort.

Lets hope it comes back in again before I'm too old.

 

SimplePortal 2.3.7 © 2008-2024, SimplePortal