[Bubba]

8a.nu[/url]"]
Jörh Zeidelhack reports from Australia: "I'm at the Grampians right now where also Day Koyamada is doing his thing. In 20 days, he has climbed every single boulder in the Hollow Mtn Cave and has added a new linkup by doing Sleepy Hollow, 8A+, into Cave Rave, 8B+, after 3 days of effort,
grading it 8C (He hasn't named it yet) ! He also sent Ammagamma, 8B, and Lost for Life, 8A+/B at the Citadel. He still has 30 days left here and is already searching for new projects ... let's wait and see what he finds."
Dai is the third climber , after Nicole and Zangerl, to have climbed three 8C's.

[ian h]

:shock:  :shock:  :shock:

hardcore

[irish si]

Nice to see this boy doing some stuff away from home, basically confirms his stuff and the fact that he is truely a beast!!!

[a dense loner]

b4 i begin i will point out that si from basingstoke is right, dai is a beast. however, how many people actually think that the 8C is a boulder prob? this is quite a serious question. i myself (but who am i in the grand scheme of things) do not think that 40 foot of roof climbin is a prob. i would suggest it is a route, even though it's on the bottom of a boulder. in the same way i do not think cave rave etc is a prob. would be interestin to know peoples opinions on this. rememberin i am not doubtin dai or anythin like that, just intrigued as to how far boulderin goes along, not just up  :D

[Doylo]

Long problems like the one in hollow mountain cave are boulder problems but perhaps a sport grade would give a more accurate picture. Not really bothered myself.

[a dense loner]

no, not bothered myself. when i said serious question i meant not takin the piss, not a serious question with repurcussions around the climbing community.  :?  am not really interested whether someone can do the 30 moves on big holds with heel hooks all over the place in trainers that's supposed to be 8B n not a route grade. just thought i'd enquire as to peoples thoughts about where the line becomes blurred  :D

[Doylo]

When i say i'm not bothered i mean i'm not bothered whether long problems get route grades or conventional bouldering grades not i'm not bothered about the issue   Thats enough not bothereds for now anyway! It is a good question, you can't really compare one move problems with 25 move problems so maybe they should get a different grade.  

[Percy B]

Intrestin' argument...

Article in the latest Grimper magazine regarding whether or not Mauro Calibani's problem Tonio 78 is really 8c+ or not raises a few pertinant points.

They interviewed all the top french waddage on their views, and one point raised again and again was the length of some of the new super-hard problems. It highlights a few examples, such as....

Dreamtime 8c  between 15 and 20 moves long
Tonio 78     8c+  between 15 and 20 moves long
Unendliche Gesichte  8c  between 15 to 20 moves long

....so, are these problems merely short routes (requiring stamina of the route climbing mentality), and not real boulder problems in the truest sense of the term? How do we define what is a boulder problem and not a traverse or a mini route? ( For international bouldering comps the rules state that a boulder problem can have no more than 12 moves - 'cos after that you are doing stamina work and not bearing down.....theoretically not what bouldering is about.)

Has anybody really done a power-based 8c or 8c+ boulder problem?

Discuss.......

[Bubba]

John Gaskins has.

[a dense loner]

nice discussion bubba  
good subjects which you can rant for hours on. i only don't like long probs cos have no stamina, wait till girlfriend finds out  :shock:

[Nigel]

Yes Percy, Bubba is correct:

Walk Away Sit Start - 5 hand movements.

Il Pirata - 12 hand movements total, but the majority are reserved for the cruise to victory along a relatively easy arete. Personally I'll give you the tick for matching on the lip - 5 hand movements.

And my own personal opinion, which is that At The Heart Of It All (V14) *looks* as hard as any European "V15", gives further dismay - 7 hand movements.
While we're at it, Kaizen V14 - 5 hand movements.

Go to Trowbarrow to have a look at the ultimate nasty - the 4 move "V16" project. Oh. My. God.

[a dense loner]

as if by magic...
no disrespect to ben, but from 8a.nu

Ben Cossey, who's more known as a route climber, has repeated Eve rave, 8B+, in the Hollow Mountain Cave, Grampians. Ben's hardest problem before this 30+ move-test-piece, was 8A.

from 8a to 8b+, just add more moves. there are a lot of people in the world who can climb 8c/+, there aren't that many who can climb font 8b+

[Doylo]

could be a case of dodgy australian grades, Ben heason did cave rave which gets 8b/8b+ and he reckoned 8a+, eve reve is a slightly harder finish i think. Having said that it was Loskott and nicole who graded those problems. I definetely think longer problems are more do-able for most, its just a case of seiging and gaining fitness.

[curly ben]

Hmm crazy thought.. but perhaps boulder problems could be given some sort of  E grade or stamina grade/prefix..... so mega long problems could be font 8a/ stamina 4  or something. That would completey confuse the hell out of everybody but would break things down a bit.

[cofe]

stamina problems should just be given an english tech grade - that way no one would do them and we could get cracking on real problems, i.e. 2 moves upwards. hell yeah.

[dave]

what about a scale in which you indicate how hard you found the problem to be, which a higher number indicating greater difficulty. i suggest using the integers 0-15+ (15 representing the current max). You could always prefix each number with a V to indicate that it is a low-lever peice of unroped climbing, relatively safe.

also you could use the numbers 0-8+ subdivided with a,b and c and then further subdivided using +.

[a dense loner]

good thought, but the hardest probs i have personally done haven't bin the highest grades i have done  :?

[a dense loner]

plus, i myself prefer to use an integer first followed by a choice of letters then sometimes an addition symbol  :wink:
simple  

[Doylo]

Back on the subject of Dai Koyamada you can check his full ticklist so far here:

http://www.australianbouldering.com/news.html#gramps50

Its fucked up, overgraded or not!  :shock:

[Doylo]

On the subject of aussie grades it seems Bonjoy did a bit of hardcore downgrading when he was over there   :

Sydney/Grampians news

Matt Tait (NZ) reports that Paul Westwood has added a V14? left hand sit-start into Groove Terminator at the Wind Cave.  Groove Terminator itself was repeated by Jon Fullwood (UK) and Aaron Liu suggesting a grade of V10/11 for the problem and it is downgraded accordingly.

[Bonjoy]

Tried to do my bit for global grade harmony, mostly it fell on deaf ears. Unsurprisingly people don't like it when you tell them they need to blanket downgrade all their problems over V8 by one or two grades.
 You know somethings not right when it takes you 13 years to bag your first V10 then two weeks to bag the next five :shock: .

[dave]

Back on the subject of Dai Koyamada you can check his full ticklist so far here:

http://www.australianbouldering.com/news.html#gramps50

Its fucked up, overgraded or not!  :shock:

i don't want to take anything away from the guy, but to do that many V14s and above in a short space of time is a superhuman effort, about on a par with parting the red sea, turning water into wine, walking on water etc. I say he's strong, but either he's the son of god, or some shit needs to get downgraded.

back to my armchair.

[Bonjoy]

There's a whole lot of link-ups on there covering the same ground with diffrent start/fins, all in a route/stamina stylee, if you've got the beans to do one you can do 10 'cos they're all made up of fairly easy moves. Still an awesome effort but not the same as doing that amount of power/hard move based stuff.

[Doylo]

I'm sure the aussies are going a bit nuts with the v-grades but you'd think the likes of nicole, loskott and koyamanda who have climbed loads in europe would downgrade a few things. The only people i've heard suggest the place is overgraded is Jon and Ben. Anyway i checked the news further down and found this dismaying report:

Visitting Brit, Jon Fullwood has been quietly ticking his way through lots of Australia's classic hard problems.  So far on his extended stay he's managed in the Grampians; Annagramma V9/10, Amniotic World V9, X-treme Cool V9/10, Caveman V9/10, Gastonia V9, Ogrethumb V9/10 and Crusty V9/10 and in Sydney he's managed; American Siege V10, Rocket Man V9, Paul's Present V10 and Mushi Brain V11.

Where i come from thats called tearing it up :!:  :!:  :!:

[cofe]

what's the secret then lovejoy?  broccoli? (i mean the legume not albert... :wink: )

[dave]

maybe theres lots of heel-toes to go at.

[Bonjoy]

 Cunning footwork went a long way.

 This prob was given V10 until i worked out the V7 feetfirst beta:
 

















 That and a small swarm of trained Bees poised to assist when the going gets rough :wink:

[dave]

..... feetfirst beta:

resoles?

[Doylo]

What do you reckon rockatrocity and jerry's roof would be over there then?

[Bonjoy]

Both would be given V10 probably. You should go there Chris you'd eat the place for breakfast.

[Doylo]

Probably will go in the next few years.  Ste mcclure reckons Jerry's Roof would be v11 in the gunks. Its interesting cos some people over here think its easy for v9. You should go back to oz yourself, you'd be bagging v12/13's now!

[dave]

this is the place innit?:

[Bonjoy]

Bugger that I'm going to the Gunks :wink: .
 This is why I get frustrated when untravelled boulderers keep trying to downgrade everything over here. Only in britain would Brad Pit be given 7c. I think grading in britain is very tough these days.

[Doylo]

Its looks completely awesome, wander if its as good as Parisellas?  :?
Lets face it the hollow mountain cave link up is just a poor mans big link!

[Bonjoy]

 The link starts from the light at the back.

[Doylo]

looks a bit on the burly side for me, might wait till i can do the greenheart connection on the minute before i go!

[dave]

its no Bell Hagg is it?

[unclesomebody]

talking big link ups, just saw this on 8a.nu;

Desnivel reports that Toni Lamprecht has managed to complete his project at Kochel, germany. Marla Singer combines Fightclub, 8B+, with two low percentage moves, linking it into the finish of Modula Oblingata, an 8A+ traverse. How hard? Well, Toni says he waits for someone to repeat it, but an educated guess would suggest it's at least 8C. 8C+ is probably more likely.


Once again, another monster power endurance link up, but perhaps not containing any mega hard moves??!?  I have no idea since I have never been there or tried it, and i would probably struggle to do 1 move on it!  Just thought it followed on to the debate about all 8C's being long...