[Johnny Brown]

Were they Sheffield based during the 90s? I'm just surprised I never met them, I was climbing on grit often enough.

It was a fairly short period, 98-02 roughly. I bumped into them a lot.

[andy popp]

Were they Sheffield based during the 90s? I'm just surprised I never met them, I was climbing on grit often enough.

It was a fairly short period, 98-02 roughly. I bumped into them a lot.

That explains it, I left Sheffield in the Spring of 98 and started climbing primarily in Cheshire.

[Will Hunt]

The angst doesn't necessarily come from climbing well and not being recognised, but probably more from climbing well and not being recognised when there are other clearly inferior climbers who are being recognised. This is commonplace today (see the Climbing Today thread ad nauseum).

[dunnyg]

Today I would argue that everyone knows who is an instacunt or, if they have half a brain, can work it out fairly swiftly.

[Will Hunt]

Today I would argue that everyone knows who is an instacunt or, if they have half a brain, can work it out fairly swiftly.

Thinking about the conversations I've had with relatively new climbers, I'd beg to differ.

[Fiend]

So you've managed to fool them Will

[nik at work]

Dan is in the States, Tom works in London. Dan still climbs a fair bit, Tom less so I think but they're both still quite handy. I climbed with them in the South West a couple of years ago.

Dan was an intense personality, Tom more chilled. I climbed with them at the start of their headpointing onslaught, but missed the end of it (when I think they climbed with slightly bigger group Si Moore, JB?, Huffy, Scut and others??). I never really felt any of the suggested "want to be on the scene/fuck the scene/want to be famous/anti-publicity" complex psychology vibe. From my point of view they were just a couple of people who wanted to headpoint all the grit routes/do some new routes in peace and quiet. This was certainly clearly the case with Tom I think, with Dan it was perhaps a more confused picture (or could certainly appear that way) due to his unique personality (that's not a criticism, I think the guy is brilliant, but he's one of a kind).

I suspect even now Dan has possibly/probably the most complete grit E6 and above ticklist ever.

Having said all that, he did make some films so maybe there was a bit of fame-hunger, or maybe he just liked doing it?? Maybe things were different later on when I wasn't on the scene, maybe that was when you saw him more JB (I don't remember meeting you out and about particularly. Anyway climbing with them was brilliant.

[Doylo]

Scut! What became of him??

[nik at work]

Scut is one of the guys behind a hold/matting company (can't remember the name sorry)

[dunnyg]

Sorry, I meant every reasonably experienced climber rather than someone who has seconded a few vs and seen a a video of some climb in Yosemite. Not sure what point I was trying to make.

[Doylo]

Scut is one of the guys behind a hold/matting company (can't remember the name sorry)

He was the strongest of the bunch. Beast.

[Johnny Brown]

He's still about, I bump into him now and then at the crag.

Tom went to uni in Leeds at the same time as BB, climbed with him a fair bit in that scene too. I never found him bothered about the publicity thing (his Gaia ascent got a load early on) that was Dan and Ross as far as I could gather.

[grimer]

Remember how nobody was allowed to know Ross had done Unfamiliar :-)

[Johnny Brown]

Shh, ffs. He was still sending me angry emails about that a few years back.

[nik at work]

Ross came along after the time when I was climbing with Dan and Tom. I don't know the guy at all, although I think I might have met him.

Also I didn't mean to imply that they were especially secretive about their climbs, rather I didn't feel like they actively sought attention/publicity. Depending on his mood on a given day I imagine Dan could have bwen awkward or effusive if asked about his climbing. I'd imagine Tom would have been polite and modest but still open if asked.

[lagerstarfish]

I think Dan came round to our house a couple of times when Chris Jones (cool Australian dude, not the one with dreads)  was staying with us (late 90s?). If it was him, I remember being impressed by his tactic of watching skateboarding videos to build psyche and resilience just before going out on grit.

[andy popp]

Whatever the intentions the end result has been quite a bit of mystique and notoriety. I expect the films played a part in that.

[Tom de Gay]

Dan is currently very active in Hueco and New Mexico, following stints in California, Oz, Tasmania, and Grimsby.
https://www.mountainproject.com/user/107782382/crimper-e6/contributions
I potter around occasionally… 


Scut is the mastermind behind Core Climbing holds. I was in Japan recently and the wall in Yokohama had a whole board devoted exclusively to Core holds – nice work.


Fun times climbing with Dan! Back then he had a healthy(?) disregard for authority which manifested itself in various ways both in and out of climbing: winding-up the people at the mags, top-roping routes you were 'supposed' to save for the onsight, boulder trundling… even just getting to the crag would likely turn into some kind of escapade.


We were both motivated by the idea of doing all the E6 and above on grit (except the Paul Mitchell ones). The approach was: maximum number in a day, by any means necessary – though we did get up some of the easier E6s like Kaluza Klein from the deck, and Dan is a secret onsighter when he’s not on the grit. As for my small part in this, I was frequently climbing on my own, with others, or further afield, so the routes on the vid are just a random sample of stuff I did at the time.


Digital video was new back then and Dan just wanted to document it all, so if you were going climbing with him you were going to get filmed. Pretty awesome that genuinely hard stuff like Fagus Sylvatica was caught on camera. He didn’t set out with any particular aim of making a release but then just got really into the editing, music and hidden tracks.


Oh, and I was basically fine after falling off Weather Report. I’m just a bit of a wimp so it looked bad.

[highrepute]

Dan is currently very active in Hueco and New Mexico, following stints in California, Oz, Tasmania, and Grimsby.
https://www.mountainproject.com/user/107782382/crimper-e6/contributions
I potter around occasionally… 


Scut is the mastermind behind Core Climbing holds. I was in Japan recently and the wall in Yokohama had a whole board devoted exclusively to Core holds – nice work.


Fun times climbing with Dan! Back then he had a healthy(?) disregard for authority which manifested itself in various ways both in and out of climbing: winding-up the people at the mags, top-roping routes you were 'supposed' to save for the onsight, boulder trundling… even just getting to the crag would likely turn into some kind of escapade.


We were both motivated by the idea of doing all the E6 and above on grit (except the Paul Mitchell ones). The approach was: maximum number in a day, by any means necessary – though we did get up some of the easier E6s like Kaluza Klein from the deck, and Dan is a secret onsighter when he’s not on the grit. As for my small part in this, I was frequently climbing on my own, with others, or further afield, so the routes on the vid are just a random sample of stuff I did at the time.


Digital video was new back then and Dan just wanted to document it all, so if you were going climbing with him you were going to get filmed. Pretty awesome that genuinely hard stuff like Fagus Sylvatica was caught on camera. He didn’t set out with any particular aim of making a release but then just got really into the editing, music and hidden tracks.


Oh, and I was basically fine after falling off Weather Report. I’m just a bit of a wimp so it looked bad.

There goes the mystery!

[Fiend]

I met and climbed once with Ross at Arbroath. I was crushingly disappointed to find out that the Anti-Headpointing Consortium was not a real organisation and no I couldn't apply for membership  He does quite a lot of winter climbing these days IIRC.

[mrjonathanr]

I met and climbed once with Ross at Arbroath. I was crushingly disappointed to find out that the Anti-Headpointing Consortium was not a real organisation and no I couldn't apply for membership 

Well we could always start one...

[GazM]

Awesome, this is exactly the fact, fiction and folklore I was hoping for.

[Jono_Bell]

Cheers for preposting that Nan! It’s been tertaining reading people’s tales of the lads too, it’s awesome to see the vid hit home with a lot of others as well.