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Jam Crack (Read 78178 times)

SA Chris

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#250 Re: Jam Crack
June 10, 2022, 07:39:31 am
Just get a Bosi / Aiden bandwagon on a mission to do a load of the probs. Between them they can form a consensus.

Thanks for writing this Dan.

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#251 Re: Jam Crack
June 10, 2022, 08:40:34 am
Re grades and @ cowboyhat and others. i'll do my best to see if i can wrap this sucker up once and for all. any future "whys Dan a bit shit " or "why do people struggle to climb hard in the county once they've done working class, the bitch, blood sport and monks Qs etc can just be redirected here...

basically I don't want my problems regraded until theyre repeated ideally as that seems the most ethical thing to do. i was honestly grading them at the time, its only with hindsight it looks different. There's loads of talent about there are second ascents of old problems every year now. eg Si whelan just did the impressionist after 12 years and its been tried by a lot of good climbers, only 8A but its subtle and punishing on details, if as a communtiy we decide to value subtle moves higher it could be harder but in terms of physcial difficulty 8A is probs kind of fair imo, would be interesting to hear Si's thoughts on that or say Adam watsons repeat of Semantron liedown which i thought was hard but still had a cack wrist on from breaking it so plumped for 8A+, it took Adam a while so maybe it is worth 8B, then again on  that one i think shorties will get on with it much better, hardly an exact science this stuff.

In grimers podcast i was simply trying to explain what it was like growing up from say 2008 when i did zerberus (one of the worlds first 8Bs) in the jura and put up serendipity etc but came home to do my dissertation in kentmere and got shutdown on loads from 8A to 8B+ of Si O' and Johns. in 2008 Si O had just finished establishing the only other hard things above 8B+ in the uk aside from John. This is a total fucking shambles reading it back now! what a "sport"

fast forward to 2013 and no one was really that much wiser on the G post Jura-gate until John did his interview thanks to Shark on here who asked some of my questions which swang me off the fence and firmly into the sceptic pile. By this time though im 100ish font 8 FA's on the admin pile from around the UK but only really had monklife and voyager sit for reference in the clear cut 8B+ zone in England (ive done monks but only voyager stand)
. Mike Adams's 8B+s came in 2015 onwards and i think the only other problems to try were Malcs Gutbuster link up from 2008 and Dave Macs Natural method (which i had a really good session on with Dave soon after he did it)
 
So in 2013 am i going to change my grades because i think johns answers are a bit dodge? No because thats a big/weird call and it doesnt seem that important and tbh nobody really knows for definite what he did and didnt climb, also i dont have loads of uk context for where the 8C threshold is. I still dont have a clue. Back then i'd had a Jura trip in 2010 and almost done gossip which is the only 8C i'd tried up to that point. but i left empty handed and it got more banned hey ho. I was still a G fanboy too so kind of thought of it as not a real hard thing

Fast forward to 2020 and Aidan has got pretty handy and i've got a good local buddy who i've been climbing with in the lakes for 8 years rapidly working his way up the 8's as a teen/ tween. Both him and I have had fruitful trips abroad by then and Aidans mopped up 8Cs in SA and USA. He does loads of hard things in the lakes that summer and it seems very much a sensible time to grade the progress accordingly, as aidan pulled his finger out for a month and smashed loads of new 8B+-8C+ new things in the lakes which need seperated between themselves let alone other older problems. What we did do is discuss it and i think this is probably around the time when most people on here mightve also started to take shadowplay etc less seriously and things like superpowers more seriously. One being done infront of a camera and multiple witnesses on a nice summers day and the other not being successfully pulled on to by the FAist the week after climbing it on his own and described in detail after 4 years of effort as "a series of layaways" despite being 30+ years ahead of its time.

Until that point i dont think anyone in cumbria or northumberland had done a new 8B+ or harder excluding me since malc on monklife in 2003, so 17 years is a bit of a lonely stint up here chaps. Climbing is still very amateur and with so little crossover and activity. I'd done bombadil by then and the rail, crescendo flipnic, marratime blah blah and had somewhere in the region of 180ish 8th grade FA to consider the admin on and TBH i really cant be arsed trying to go back to each one and assess whether i felt good and was on a tear or if i maybe did just use a crap sequence there's too much parallax in the memory to accurately regrade stuff. Hence the grading method i explained in the podcast featuring heavily for public comms. The lack of repeats of the busy venue things several years on for things like crescendo and the rail point towards that i was going ok back then but god i wish my main point that i was trying to make sunk in with a few more people.

Once i realised that grades vary enough problem to problem and area to area body size to hand size. I became much happier just pursuing personal excellence on different rocks and styles of gap be it a hard slab, mantle, crimp fest, compression fest etc the grade doesnt matter, its the clarity of a good challenge and knowing what your capable of when reading rock that ultimately circumnavigates the need for them in bouldering. i train hard around my family and work and try and do my best but im not an athlete. I feel lucky to have found a few things that really inspire me to give something athlete level dedication but i've never been an athlete, ive not had a professional or coached imperative to be excellent and as such i can also afford to be a bit more lax on the shit communication to the public, i do also feel pretty cheated regarding Johns part in the formation of upper 8th grades in the UK, i wish he was a truthful sporting role model and it'd be amazing if he was. But in reality its likely that the hole Malc and moon left as they moved on from hard bouldering development was filled by Tyler (when he was in the uk) Ned Micky P and Peckitt and myself for a bit. Malc famously said there's loads of room in 8B+ regarding dreamtime when he repeated it, i'd like to think i've filled that room nicely over the years with a good amount of rock furniture everyone can get lovely and cosy in there now, and its not so bloody spartan.
Anyway forgive me for not jumping at the chance of valiantly steering northern british hard "grading" to smoother waters. Ned is very much as guilty in some ways in the peak having flashed abroad as hard as he's established problems back here, things in his style like ned zep are likely incredibly different numbers to the real effort required by most climbers it was just a sign of the times. 

 it makes no sense but its part of the history of upper end bouldering in this country. It used to be a big deal when one or two problems above 8B got put up by a climber in their whole career. Thats like a shit week at the office for the top bods nowadays. They'll all get repeated eventually and stuff always gets regraded correctly, just look at things like The realist in font. votes from 7C+ to 8B+ and its settled down at 8A+ish or Tajine + bleau sacre which have crept up to 8B over the years. Tristan chen flashed l'insoutable in font this winter now that is SUCH a harder flash than elephunk at 8B words cant describe the complexity of flashing both the crimps and the mantle section on that, now its not even news nowadays.

For me the most important part of writing these thing up is trying to communicate the amount of quality rock and challenges in the north of the UK. Hopefully that inspires poeple and they can look past the grades of things maybe being slightly out on one or two things. I do try and get out and keep things fresh for myself and friends up here and nowadays there are actually a bunch of good climbers in the area bouldering 8B-8C+ and i use them as the yardstick and bounce opinions off i'm not stuck in my ways. I think if i somehow found an 8C in the lakes that i selfishly managed to keep aidan off i'd probably give it 8C but a lot has changed since 2020 (most of which puts climbing in perspective)

Honestly i think the level of talent in bouldering is going to skyrocket in the next 20 years and i'd imagine my problems at busier crags will get done lots and settle up or down if they need to, Will mooted flipnic as 8B+ which jack and Dan also complained about so just upgrade it if thats the consensus now! Fat lady went down. swings roundabouts. If you look on flickr theres some shots of Aidan on a simonside proj that we just about got the moves on that is super hard, i tried a proj earlier this year at east yardhope that so far feels like something i'll have to giveaway too but its one of the most unique highball lines i've seen in the UK. So hopefully my problems in all areas will just fade and fall into place as a foundation for other harder stuff to grow off whilst the next gen stuff gets done. the >8B part is more a slight G shaped bump 2005-2019 rather than a current policy. I dont really do it anymore since Aidans problems came along. EG Eagle huntress should be a pretty doable 8B that would compare to say Tajine abroad which is a similar angle and compression based. i'd have likely given it 8A+ in the past as i improved my beta on the session i did it.

Oh and to answer another Q. Highball moves are often a bit easier for the grade than say a lowball but pushing through the fear can be really hard. This is mirrored in font and i think its a fair system as the overall effort experience adds up to the same complexity. the hardest part on bombadil for me was having no highball reserve hence why all my falls are spinning out of control and i don't land on my feet much. Its not something you ever do when headpointing and its definitely a small niche. I wasnt in absolute top shape haven broken my wrist the year before but thats part of what made it all special as anyone coming back from a decent hospital visit injury will know

Anyhoo, best be off, got to go melt myself into a pot of wax.
There you go remus, just stick that in the grade column for all of Dan's problems on climbing-history.org  :2thumbsup:

Wellsy

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#252 Re: Jam Crack
June 10, 2022, 09:15:42 am
Just going to have to go and get to 8C and try em all myself I guess! Right off to the Beastmaker

Will Hunt

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#253 Re: Jam Crack
June 10, 2022, 10:43:29 am
Is all your new stuff written up anywhere, Dan? There's a list on Climbing History but it's quite slim. If a young try-hard was to want to go and try all your 8s, where would they find the info? Or is it one of those "if you're good enough then you already know" sort of things?

I can't say that I've looked for it as it's out of my geographical range (not to mention league), but I've got visions of acres and acres of rock in Kielder that's only written up in your own head. A shame if that legacy was lost in the event you get knocked down by a Tesla.

remus

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#254 Re: Jam Crack
June 10, 2022, 01:56:55 pm
Nice one Dan, appreciate you taking the time to write down your thoughts. Good to know the grades you've given to stuff were your honest opinions at the time (I got a different impression from the podcast, glad to be corrected).

I guess you're probably not that bothered but I've put Bombadil and The Rail back to 8B+ on climbing-history.org.

Now, back to scrolling through your flickr for more gems like that Bombadil vid.

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#255 Re: Jam Crack
July 11, 2022, 05:12:36 pm
Enjoyed the latest one with our very own Doylo99, cheers both. Sometimes it makes a nice change to hear from 'one of us' rather than a pro, going through the same challenges of work, injuries, parenting etc. Obviously a lifer, can really relate to that, and the passion shone through.

Gutting to hear about the injuries, sounds brutal. Best of luck for the recovery, hope you can mend up and get back to climbing again.

Bonjoy

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#256 Re: Jam Crack
July 11, 2022, 05:15:53 pm
I really enjoyed this one. Absolute legend.

Will Hunt

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#257 Re: Jam Crack
July 11, 2022, 05:24:20 pm
I liked hearing all the stuff that didn't make it into West Coast Gimps etc. And reminders of Doylo's early YouTube work. This is my favourite:




I've seen it before but I couldn't refind the one of the old man saying he'd had anal sex in the Cave though  :(

Luke Owens

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#258 Re: Jam Crack
July 11, 2022, 06:13:27 pm
Great to hear from the Dudno Deviant, quality.

I've seen it before but I couldn't refind the one of the old man saying he'd had anal sex in the Cave though  :(

Its at the end of this:



Doylo

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#259 Re: Jam Crack
July 12, 2022, 11:23:32 am
Nice one. I’d rather be a punter than a cyclist…

My throat had a shocker that day, terrible timing. Completely lost my voice an hour later and didn’t come back for 1.5 days which wasn’t all bad. Goddam furballs.

Will Hunt

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#260 Re: Jam Crack
July 12, 2022, 12:15:28 pm
Great to hear from the Dudno Deviant, quality.

I've seen it before but I couldn't refind the one of the old man saying he'd had anal sex in the Cave though  :(

Its at the end of this:


I thought I'd watch just the end bit but ended up watching it all. What a triumph of a film.

The old boy clip isn't actually the one I remember. I was thinking of a clip of an old boy rambling through a car window. Never mind, just me getting my Orme Oddities mixed up.

Doylo

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#261 Re: Jam Crack
July 12, 2022, 12:45:32 pm
I did see the OldBoy from that vid again and chatted to Him through the car window trying to get something Handsome out of Him but didn’t get anywhere.  You can’t artificially prise out such genius , it’s spontaneous and organic. There have been others ..
« Last Edit: July 12, 2022, 12:52:03 pm by Doylo »

SA Chris

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#262 Re: Jam Crack
November 10, 2022, 11:45:48 am
I was reluctant to listen to the Dave Bowes one, but actually found his story fascinating as I knew nothing about him. Good Job Grimey.

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#263 Re: Jam Crack
November 10, 2022, 02:36:07 pm
Thanks Chris, glad you liked it :-)

"Grimey"? I beg your pardon?

SA Chris

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#264 Re: Jam Crack
November 10, 2022, 02:38:42 pm
sorry, obscure reference to Frank Grimes character from the Simpsons.

grimer

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#265 Re: Jam Crack
November 10, 2022, 04:17:15 pm
i know it

northern yob

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#266 Re: Jam Crack
June 27, 2023, 09:52:24 am
I thought the latest two episodes deserved a bump. For me they are the best yet ( closely followed by Gus reading the Right Thing)
  They are essential listening for anyone with even a passing interest in Yosemite climbing and the various scenes which have evolved around it. They feature Dean Fidelman talking about the stone masters and one of the leading stone monkeys Dean Potter. Dean (Fidelman) is literally a cross between the pied piper and a tribal elder/shaman when it comes to the valley’s scenes. Not only is he an amazing storyteller, he’s incredibly insightful and real. I wish there were more people talking and writing about climbing and the community around it in the way that Dean does. It’s much more about the soul and the characters rather than the moves and the numbers.

remus

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#267 Re: Jam Crack
June 27, 2023, 11:53:45 am
 :agree:

He's an incredible character, and just the right nudges from Grimer to keep it going in an interesting direction.

SA Chris

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#268 Re: Jam Crack
June 29, 2023, 03:00:30 pm
It’s much more about the soul and the characters rather than the moves and the numbers.

Plus you get namechecked :)

Loving it.

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#269 Re: Jam Crack
June 29, 2023, 09:37:50 pm
Just finished these today and was about to post about them...Jam Crack at its best, a brilliant storyteller telling some beautiful stories. It would be easy as an interviewer to keep interrupting and asking questions (as too many do), Grimer does a great job at letter Dean get into his flow. Even if you don't know who Dean is or know much about the Yosemite scene you'll have a great time regardless.

Will Hunt

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#270 Re: Jam Crack
July 21, 2023, 11:01:13 am
The Dean Fidelman episodes have got to be among the very best. An incredible raconteur. It made me think that something essential has been stripped out of modern climbing.

grimer

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#271 Re: Jam Crack
July 21, 2023, 11:22:56 am
Thanks all, it was beautiful to chat with Dean. Glad you enjoyed too x

remus

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#272 Re: Jam Crack
July 21, 2023, 11:42:28 am
It made me think that something essential has been stripped out of modern climbing.

It's a common refrain but Im not sure how much truth there is to it. I seem to bump in to plenty of great characters, and Im sure their stories will grow in the telling so future generations will look back with similarly rose tinted specs.

andy moles

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#273 Re: Jam Crack
July 21, 2023, 12:18:25 pm
It made me think that something essential has been stripped out of modern climbing.

It's a common refrain but Im not sure how much truth there is to it. I seem to bump in to plenty of great characters, and Im sure their stories will grow in the telling so future generations will look back with similarly rose tinted specs.

That and Dean Fidelman has in spades that uniquely American mastery of speaking in bons mots!

Niall says it in the intro about that era - there's real magic, but at the same time there's a lot of good PR...

mr chaz

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#274 Re: Jam Crack
July 21, 2023, 12:36:59 pm
Think Grimer has said this before in a preamble once but its true, common trait of the best jam crackers for me is talking overwhelmingly about other people. Loved Dean's, did them both in a single hit

 

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