[a dense loner]

Razzle?

[chris j]

Toby D makes a good point on the other channel. The sport crags round here (also coastal) tend to gop out as it gets dark. There's no way you could climb something hard on LPT at 10 pm. Maybe it's different in the southern climate 

On Friday night I was talking to a friend I hadn't seen for a while down at the local wall and he said he's had a fair few evening lamp-light bouldering sessions at Ansteys through the winter and conditions have been generally been excellent.

[Ged]

I've been down ansteys at night a fair bit recently and conditions have been mint.

[Doylo]

Fairy muff. I didn't consider the difference between summer and winter. He should defo video something hard to shut everyone up though.

[Ged]

I know what you mean about it happening in the summer though.  This cold snap has made it sticky as anything down there.

Agreed that a vid would be nice though

[Will Hunt]

He should defo video something hard to shut everyone up though.

Why do I get the feeling that if and when this happens there will still be doubts?

"That's obviously Adam Ondra wearing a blondey brown wig and a pair of headphones"
"It's amazing what you can achieve with stop motion nowadays"
etc etc etc

[Ged]

I disagree.  I think one unedited film of something would be enough for most people

[T_B]

When I was at Anstey's one day in August 2014 Ellis was basically lapping all the hard routes on Ferocity Wall as a 'work out'. I like to think I have the experience to say he looked like an 8c+ climber and that was 18 months ago. The word "Machine" sprung to mind.

I didn't witness him doing his new F8c, but 8c is really not very hard thesedays and F8c on your home crag is definitely not that hard.

His belayer has vouched for him FFS.

Clearly there are doubts over his boulder claims (8B+ is hard), but all this sh*t about Iridescence seems very petty to me. Next time he claims a 8B+ then sure, ask for the video evidence, but I suspect 8c for Ellis is a cake walk (though he's likely following in Palmer's footsteps and not grading softly).

[Fiend]

Good post.

That's not concrete evidence but that is strong anecdotal evidence by an independent and highly experienced strong climber, which counts for enough IMO.

[Doylo]

Sounds like a beast. So basically this has come from him claiming a bust Fatman and its snowballed? He seems to have a fair few people on UKC doubting him.

[i_a_coops]

Disclaimer: I've not bothered to watch through all the shaking out for sneaky edits. Looks like send footage though.

[ali k]

I've also been at Ansteys's last winter when Ellis was there lapping hard routes and making links on Brian before he did(?) it. There's no doubt that he's an exceptional climber and I personally wouldn't doubt this FA alone; seeing him climb I think it's well within his capabilities.

But I've also been at Cheddar and saw him on Heaven Sent and the direct (E7) with his girlfriend. Again this is well within his capabilities but what I found strange was that he had a long chain of quickdraws linking from a bolt on the adjacent sport route to one of the pegs below the crux. If that's what he felt safer doing then fair enough, but given that he wrote a blog post about it and made no mention of the style I wasn't surprised when I heard the rumours about dodgy ascents. Being honest about small but important details like this is important if you want to gain credibility IMO.

[Will Hunt]

A lot of that seemed to be locals and I think their most cited evidence is Fatman, not knowing the gear for tricky trad routes, and local FAs that turned out to be comparatively piss when compared to the given grades.
The latter to me is very understandable, particularly if Ellis hasn't done many new things before. It's all too tempting to look at a piece of new rock and try and climb it in the way you want it to climb rather than how it should actually be climbed the easiest way. This is especially problematic since he's so strong and will have the power to despatch a problem regardless of a crap sequence; whereas when I try a crap but cool sequence I generally get sent home to think up something easier/less eliminate!

[Kingy]

Disclaimer: I've not bothered to watch through all the shaking out for sneaky edits. Looks like send footage though.

What an animal! I remember that day watching Chimera go down (you can hear my voice in the background) and thinking I was watching something special. Clearly after the destruction of this link, which is probably nearer 8c to be honest, Bryan was on the cards for the following spring.

[a dense loner]

I don't care about his ascents he climbs wearing headphones

[bedrock]

All this debate for that?!?!?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[a dense loner]

To be fair they were big headphones!

[petejh]

Everyone else on ukb has said something so I thought I'd better chip in lest my account gets cancelled -
don't really care tbh unless he start's claiming new Welsh winter routes. All I'd point out is you don't get seagulls in the background in Ondra's vids (more usually some idiot squawking); love the sound of a herring gull!

[Doylo]

He looks decent there. Why has everyone been saying there's no footage then?

[petejh]

Could it be


course the only thing to do really is go to malham/kilnsey/the tor and rub every cunt's nose in it. Or not, whichever the case may be.

[Kingy]

I didn't even know this existed. It had only had 81 views an hour ago before I put it on UKC. I guess nobody bothered to check Ellis's youtube channel. I think this is actually pretty valuable footage as its not that much less difficult than Bryan as the Hapney finish of Brian is pretty easy (7b? after a massive rest at the last bolt of Tuppence) so the only major way it differs from Brian is that it starts up Fishermans rather than Poppy.

8b+ my arse, makes Mecca look like a cakewalk!

[Doylo]

Everyone knows Meccas 8b now though, eh PeteJh 

[petejh]

Like Walking Mussel? No hope is there!

[Luke Owens]

What's he ever done at Dinbren?!