[Ally Smith]

McClure on Trigger Cut. Not a big number but it was the manner in which he did it. Got the first shotgun crimp and just locked it down and twisted and reached up to the shothole. Ridiculously duff beta but incredible bony fingers to lock that down like that.

Might have been the same day - watching McClure trying to link Rockatrocity into Trigger Cut via a hideous hand swap in the final 4-finger pocket. Bonkers finger strength. 

[T_B]

I spent the summer of ’93 in Llanberis whilst doing my ‘A’ Levels. Hung out, went climbing, was generally star struck meeting all the characters you might imagine.

One evening I’m up at Jerry’s Roof in the Pass. Big George is trying it. Adam Wainwright and a few others turn up with a quiet, slim chap who was dressed sorta ‘smart-casual’ in jeans and a shirt. He puts on a pair of Kendos, but doesn’t bother lacing them up and with no warm up floats across the problem with Adam pointing out the holds as he goes. I mean, it was totally smooth and effortless.

A 20-year old Elie Chevieux. About to become the best on-sight climber in the world, braving the Welsh sheep poo.

[shark]

Other instances on my list in approximate chronological order:

Seeing a chubby teenager shoot up Menopause. John Dunne before he got famous

Dougie Hall racing up three E5’s in the Leap. So unassuming, so good. Later on Steve Mayers similarly.

At Buoux in 88 sampling sport climbing for the first time and one evening seeing Anthoine Le Menestral doing the second ascent of Rage de Vivre. Suave Frenchmen turned to screaming lunatic when he got to the belay

Ed Morgan flashing the right arête at Broughton footless when I pointed it out as a LGP

Noted short arse Nic Kidd who normally not brave soloing Edge Lane. What if he got up there and found the crux was too reachy?

Andy Mitchell running it out for 40 feet on Skinhead Moonstromp

Bruno Clement at Fraguel up, down, up, down, up, down. Never seen endurance like it.

Thomas Huber who Id only met briefly stopping his car a few days later when I was walking along and jumped out to find out whether I’d done Astroman or not. How psyched must he be to that excited for me who he scarcely knew?

Tim Emmett laughing his head off each time he falls off on redpoint on the Oak. What a great attitude. Obviously never got the memo that climbing is a serious business

Megos onsight on the Oak - misses the crucial undercut and shakes out off the intermediate and gets the horn from it

Steve Mac. Privilege to climb with him regularly. Many examples of wadness but I’m so used to it that it’s “just Steve” and not as impressive as it should be any more

[gme]

Many examples of wadness but I’m so used to it that it’s “just Steve” and not as impressive as it should be any more

This kind of sums up the scene in the late 80s/90s. The climbing world was very small and mainly happening at a few crags so if you spent any time at Buoux, Malham or the Tor you will see the worlds best doing what they do and you get used to it. Just redpointing an 8c or 8c+ at the time wasnt impressive as you saw it happening regularly.

I saw Ondra do a 9b in Flatanger and whilst it looks a great route it was a pretty underwhelming experience.

[Johnny Brown]

Thomas Huber who I'd only met briefly stopping his car a few days later when I was walking along and jumped out to find out whether I’d done Astroman or not.

Please tell us you didn't disappoint him?

[shark]

Thomas Huber who I'd only met briefly stopping his car a few days later when I was walking along and jumped out to find out whether I’d done Astroman or not.

Please tell us you didn't disappoint him?

Unfortunately bailed at the base of the Harding slot. Did it clean a few days later though 

[fiveknuckle21]

Sharik Walker climbing the Staminaband/PUTP full link in the late 00s. Made Staminaband look about 1A. Remember he had to tether down his pile of pads as it was so windy. Still impressed thinking about it to this day.

[andy_e]

I once saw saltbeef do an entire boulder problem.

Seeing Monolith pulling onto a board crimping on some footholds (but not moving anywhere).

[Moo]

I saw with my own two eyes Dense, formerly of this parish, mono 1 to 4 on the small rungs on the works campus board.

[36chambers]

Watching 36C gracefully dance his way up The Hulk, flashing everything but the first move, was easily the most impressive bit of climbing I've ever witness. So much power, so much control. What a hunk.

Aw cheers Will

[Bradders]

I once saw saltbeef do an entire boulder problem.

If it was on the Depot 50 it doesn't count though...

[andy_e]

No, I should have added the qualifier "outside"

[Bradders]

I think we have a winner 

[Paul B]

Simpson flashing loads in the School first time I took him.

I've seen others suggest Rich wasn't all that strong on a board which is just utter nonsense. I can remember him cruising what was a project at a time when I was going fairly well, him muttering something about it not being all that hard, yet I was unable to move between the positions and TBH could barely hold them.

Ian Cummins (RIP) BITD being able to static almost everything. It's worth noting that Ian put a fair bit of time into Cypher before the first ascent and got a bit fed up when it was 'nicked by a Peakie'. He had a bit of a thing against Sheffield as someone had nicked a brand new pair of Pink Anasazi's from him at the Foundry.

Mark Katz not doing True North. I'm not taking delight in him not doing it I was just totally mesmerised by how well he climbed it. It looked as if he was using his power efficiently, bouncing between holds.

I arrived at a crag in Margalef (2007 ish) and was using the terrible topo of the day to try and work out exactly where I was. There was a really young girl climbing (I'm not good with age but perhaps 14 or so). I looked at my guide and worked out she was on an 8c but it didn't seem right as she just looked effortless. It was right. I later learnt that her surname had a certain pedigree attached (but I'm equally bad with names).

[Doylo]

Simpson flashing loads in the School first time I took him.

I've seen others suggest Rich wasn't all that strong on a board which is just utter nonsense. I can remember him cruising what was a project at a time when I was going fairly well, him muttering something about it not being all that hard, yet I was unable to move between the positions and TBH could barely hold them.

Ye. Thinking about it though Noble is the biggest beast I’ve seen on a board at the Nu School. He was absolutely obscene just doing tons of 8s.

[JJP]

Great thread and really enjoyed reading some of the stories.  Weirdly I cant think of that many outdoor.

Ones that spring to mind though are of Malc indoors.  I often went to the wall during the day due to night shifts and trained at the same time as him.  His strength and style on the board was amazing.  A funny memory though was when he came into the 45/ campus training area with old school leather walking boots on.  After some surprised looks it became apparent he was using them for bat hangs from underside of campus - training for his 8B+ at dumby, gutbuster.

Another Glasgow based climber I loved to watch when I was starting out was Craig Parnaby.  Amazing finger strength and ridiculous endurance.  Only person similar I have watched climb is Iain Small. 

[hongkongstuey]

Watching Gérôme Pouvreau flash the first ascent of an open project i'd bolted on Tung Lung Chau that the strong boys in HK hadn't even managed to do all the moves on yet (La Revanche des Chico's - F8b).

[mrjonathanr]

On a slightly different tack, possibly the most impressed that I have been was on a Font trip around ´85. Joe Healey managed la Beresina with a bit of a tussle. Mind-bogglingly difficult to me at the time. Back on the ground he declared that it hadn’t been in good in style and immediately reclimbed it, as smooth as you like. Class.

Belaying Bruno Clément trying Moutchiki extension at le Supermarché shrieking ‘I’m so pumped!´ whilst doing move after move up that overhanging prow. Stamina, redefined.

[Danny]

Here is a good one.

In Rocklands, roadside, just wrapping up one of my 1000's of Monkey wedding sessions. Out from the bushes, Barefoot Charles appears, wearing what I can only describe as a towel around his waist, some fucked tracksuit bottoms, a chalk bag and a book. Nothing else, no pad, no fan, no ladder, no Bluetooth speakers.

He has come to repeat Monkey Wedding for the camera. He proceeds to lay down his towel thing, I ask if he wants to borrow my pad, and he just looks at me, then sets off like some kind of lizard and climbs MW. Turns out he did it a further two times that day.

It also transpires, he couldn't afford to camp, so he slept under his towel, in the caves above the campground. Bonkers.

This is my favourite so far. Truly excellent.

[Danny]

Watching Solly Kemball-Dorey make a new 7C of mine look about 6A as he casually flashed it, and then watching him proceed to easily break down and almost do what became the 8A+ extension. I've never seen anyone so light and floaty on rancidly small holds. His first proper try is the third video along in this post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGZz5tHj8_p/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

As someone already said, when you know the moves and holds it's easier to understand what's happening.

[remus]

Here is a good one.

In Rocklands, roadside, just wrapping up one of my 1000's of Monkey wedding sessions. Out from the bushes, Barefoot Charles appears, wearing what I can only describe as a towel around his waist, some fucked tracksuit bottoms, a chalk bag and a book. Nothing else, no pad, no fan, no ladder, no Bluetooth speakers.

He has come to repeat Monkey Wedding for the camera. He proceeds to lay down his towel thing, I ask if he wants to borrow my pad, and he just looks at me, then sets off like some kind of lizard and climbs MW. Turns out he did it a further two times that day.

It also transpires, he couldn't afford to camp, so he slept under his towel, in the caves above the campground. Bonkers.

I was out in rocklands at the time and there were rumours of slack jawed mega wads (jweb, dwoods and co.) who couldn't believe he'd done MW. Some of their crew had seen him working it, which consisted of him looking at it contemplatively and feeling the occasional hold before pulling on and smashing it in.

I have also seen him in font, got to say in terms of pure talent and movement, he is hands down the most impressive person I have ever seen.

Im a total fanboy Vids of him climbing in font are just ace, he's got such a smooth, effortless style.

[Danny]

I guess many of us here might have experienced wads floating up our hard worked projects. It is impressive, but let's be honest, it's also a bit fucking dismaying

[Paul B]

I forgot another. When I was younger (~16), a friend and I went to Font. Having flown there on a budget airline we'd taken the bare minimum which included a bivvy bag ea., one pad ea., and food in the form of boil in the bag meals and power bars. We slept in the Cuvier campsite and I can remember waking up one morning with an outline for frost around me on the pad. Later that week we were accused of stealing someone else's pad which was amusing given everything we had was pretty obvious. Anyhow, we mostly climbed at Cuvier and Rempart for obvious reasons. A few strong people passed through that week including a young Markus Midtbo and a Keen Yoof. However, the main event was one day Steven Jeffrey arrived with a couple of Frenchmen. They were all pretty stoned I think and it was somebody's birthday (they were wearing little party hat/cones). SJ then proceeded to basically tick Cuvier's classics, one after the other. We were trying La Balance (which was completely fanciful at the time as we just weren't strong enough) and persuaded him to show us how it was done. He was unwilling to do so as he basically admitted to mauling it, which he then did. There wasn't any grace like the other ascents, it was just pure power.

[205Chris]

However, the main event was one day Steven Jeffrey arrived with a couple of Frenchmen. They were all pretty stoned I think and it was somebody's birthday (they were wearing little party hat/cones). SJ then proceeded to basically tick Cuvier's classics, one after the other. We were trying La Balance (which was completely fanciful at the time as we just weren't strong enough) and persuaded him to show us how it was done. He was unwilling to do so as he basically admitted to mauling it, which he then did. There wasn't any grace like the other ascents, it was just pure power.

Timely reminder of this vid:

[shark]

A couple of honourable mentions to Mrs Shark who climbed for a short while after we started going out.

On one of the very first trips out we went to LPT. She had learnt to belay with the OTC using a stitch plate or similar. I wanted to try La Boheme which I knew from a previous attempt could involve a big fall. Looking for some thing to tether her down the only suitable boulder was some way out from the base of the crag and quite a way out from the base of the crag and quite rounded. I took the big fall from high up and the sling slipped off and she shot up and toward crag about 15 feet but clung on to the rope throughout.  I immediately asked her to marry me and she said no.

She liked Castle Inn Quarry and did a few of the easier routes and worked Route 3 (6c). On redpoint she got through the hard bit at the start to a decent rest. A nasty sea squall came in that had me vainly trying to shelter at the base of the crag but she refused to come down and stayed at the rest till the squall past and then carried on waiting till the rest of the route dried and finished the route which remains her hardest redpoint.