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The most impressive piece of climbing you’ve witnessed? (Read 30452 times)

shark

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Only found out when we saw a picture in a mag or on a poster who it was.

And....who was it?

nai

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Only found out when we saw a picture in a mag or on a poster who it was.

And....who was it?

Oh yeah...  Jerry

Rob F

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One of = Jerry in the Office early 90's when he was going strong.

(Upstairs bit at the Foundry, not just sat on a computer having a cup of tea)

andy_e

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Ah yes, on this sort of level, my friend Emma doing The Storm at Ash Head

Harris?  :strongbench:

shark

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I'm gonna nominate UKB's Plattsy... for a dyno at Conies Dale (think Shark had it on film)

On one of the 7A+'s that had a big move left we were all stuck on. Up steps the big man - presses launch and flies across to grab the jug. Superb - and totally unexpected (to the rest of us at least!)

Here you go


SA Chris

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I was hanging out with a mate at Area 51 at Joe's Valley punting our way up the V3s and failing on other stuff and some random bloke turned up, looking like a dirty broom, heavily suntanned, filthy, mop of messy hair and as much meat on him as a greyhound. One finger so strapped up it could barely bend. Got straight on (like to think he'd been somewhere earlier and not got on it cold) Resident Evil, did it in about 3 goes, then started trying the bottom bit of Black Lung, and managing the first few moves to hitting but not holding the big pocket, before asking us if we had any beta on the move! No idea if he did it or not.

Climbed once or twice with a guy called Paul Every in SA. Never seen such a natural climber, was doing the hardest routes in SA before he left school. He did the first South African one day ascent of The Nose, basically existing on a diet of porridge and pancake mix before an untimely death in the Alps. Just made everything look effortless.

a13c

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I saw Mark Katz do the first ascent of the caseg sit, (2000 ish?) me and my mate had managed to do the stand and were feeling very pleased with ourselves. I clearly remember him matching on the slopiest bit of slopey hold and just reaching up into the stand. My memory is generally pretty bad but this has stuck with me!
Since then I've been lucky enough to be in the cave when Jack Pal has been on fire, I saw him do a new v14 link and I wasn't even giving him my full attention as he had looked so solid for the several hours earlier I didn't realise it was a "real" burn

nai

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I'm gonna nominate UKB's Plattsy... for a dyno at Conies Dale (think Shark had it on film)

On one of the 7A+'s that had a big move left we were all stuck on. Up steps the big man - presses launch and flies across to grab the jug. Superb - and totally unexpected (to the rest of us at least!)

Here you go



I mean maybe if he engaged his shoulder upon catching it...

webbo

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At Almscliff one evening back in the day. Stood under the Virgin Boulder, when up walks Ken Wood. He puts his towel on the ground under Opus and just glides up it for the second ascent. As he pulls over the top he says” That will piss the thug off”

Johnny Brown

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Menestrel onsighting Deliverance high foot method with the direct start. We gave him all the beta for the traverse and the dyno, but having watched me fail he said 'I think like you I am too small' and proceeded to waltz up direct. Not wanting to look like a groupie I didn't follow him over to Brad Pit, doh.

 

Bradders

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Ah yes, on this sort of level, my friend Emma doing The Storm at Ash Head

Harris?  :strongbench:

Aye

Bradders

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I saw Mark Katz do the first ascent of the caseg sit, (2000 ish?) me and my mate had managed to do the stand and were feeling very pleased with ourselves. I clearly remember him matching on the slopiest bit of slopey hold and just reaching up into the stand. My memory is generally pretty bad but this has stuck with me!

Have a memory long ago of seeing Katzy campussing up and down the small rungs on the campus board at the Pudsey Depot. This was before Instagram made that sort of thing very common to see. Just remember being completely awestruck that someone could do that.

Oldmanmatt

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As a teen, we would stop in Boux on the way back from a summer trip, for a few days before going to Font for the last week before school started.
Watching the Wads there, working this, that and the other was pretty cool, but nothing stands out these many years later.

But, there was a stupid incident and my mate Mike Halsey (just incase others know him), climbed The Runnel in Cairngorm, half blind, missing teeth and severely concussed; in a white out, in complete darkness.
Long story short, we’d driven up from Cornwall and arrived in the carpark at 14:30 ish. Young and dumb, we raced over to check the connies, for tomorrow and decided we had a half hour of light to race up The Runnel (it’s only a II or III iirc, with a long easy snow gully and a short mixed or ice pitch to the top). So we soled quickly up to the last but one pitch, then it started to snow, so we roped up and he went to lead up to the foot of the crux. There had been a couple ahead of us, on the last crux pitch, and in the snow, we’d assumed they’d finished and gone. They hadn’t, in the white out we got too close, they dislodged a hefty dinner plate of ice, Mike copped it in the mush at a serious rate of knots.
Anyway, by the time I got to him, made safe and did the first aid thing; it was almost dark. He was slipping in and out of consciousness and I figured trying to lower him multiple pitches wasn’t going to fly, because he wasn’t going to be able to make himself safe etc. So I lead out to the top with some half baked plan to haul him out, or tie off, making him safe, and running like a twat to get help (no mobile phones in those days).
Anyway, luck was in, the guys ahead had dropped a camera and were waiting to see if we’d picked it up. Mike responded to rope signals and he climbed most of the way, never completely lost it and we were only half hauling for the last ten feet.
We had to carry him down, mostly unconscious, and that was an epic, but a whole other story.

Wood FT

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Megos onsighting 9a, Estado Critico in Siurana, it felt like  the whole valley stopped to watch and clapped him as he lowered off. Suddenly realised it was the milky bar kid who was camped next to us.

Nige on Dynamics of Change. I couldn’t touch the camera as I was shaking too much but he slinked his way through the moves and a spell was broken.

Mark Rankine on White Water. Everyone was udging out the mantle, cheeks  to grit, and Mark just flicked through with confidence and momentum. Later at a film night, Dawes told Mark that’s how he’d done it.

spidermonkey09

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Watching Jim Pope flash RnP this summer is right up there for me. I'm sure Wood FT, filming, remembers my awestruck face. I'd been flailing on the bottom all day and he just casually minced it. The 'good' hold at the end of the roof is a one pad, slightly slopey crimp and as Jim inched onto it (its really reachy and requires a pull on a dire sloper) his whole body relaxed- it was like he knew he was back on casual ground for him. Sadly the vid below doesnt have the bottom but you can still hear me and WFT vocalising amazement in the background as he hangs on the holds for ages.



Pete Dawson doing Rainshadow in greenhouse conditions also a contender. It was so utterly appalling it hadn't even occurred to me that redpointing would be possible. I glanced up to see him above the bulge and presumed he had just pulled on. It was only as he began to make noises on the last bolt or two I realised he was on the link and that he had climbed through the bulge without so much as a sound!

Ged

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Great thread.

Watching Andy Earl on the old berghaus wall in Newcastle in the early 00's. Had just moved up for uni having so far thought that hard climbing was e1. Watching him was like watching a different sport.

One of the Dawson brothers, after absolutely thrashing himself on various sections of Brian all day long, again and again, then doing a casual lap on tuppence and making it look piss. Having spent the afternoon flailing on it, I have never fekt like such a punter.

My mate Nic doing hitchhikers sit start. Levitated up it with ruthless strength. Dawning realisation that we weren't on the same level.


Wood FT

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Watching Jim Pope flash RnP this summer is right up there for me. I'm sure Wood FT, filming, remembers my awestruck face. I'd been flailing on the bottom all day and he just casually minced it. The 'good' hold at the end of the roof is a one pad, slightly slopey crimp and as Jim inched onto it (its really reachy and requires a pull on a dire sloper) his whole body relaxed- it was like he knew he was back on casual ground for him. Sadly the vid below doesnt have the bottom but you can still hear me and WFT vocalising amazement in the background as he hangs on the holds for ages.


I forgot about that, very impressive display.

jwi

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Technically I assume it was Alex Megos attempt on Bibliographie, when he fell off 4 moves before the top. But it was from far away, so he was just one stick insect among many on the biographie sector.

I always find it more impressive to watch great feats when I have direct knowledge of the holds. Like when hanging on a photographers rope above the crux of a hard route, or whenever other climbers onsights my projects.

That said, I saw Igor Koller well into his sixties climbing on his stomping grounds on the sandstone in Adrspach. True mastery.

Stu Littlefair

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I was there to see Marc do Brad Pit. It was pretty incredible. These days a high foot seems obvious but it was so visionary then, and he knew he was going to do it that way from the photos of Jason on it.

But that’s not the most incredible piece of climbing I’ve ever seen. That honour goes to Edu Marin at Santa Linya, on a RP burn of some 9a - I forget which one.

At about half height he’s in trouble, so skips a clip. And another, and another, and just keeps on going, ignoring each clip as he goes. At about 2/3rds the full height of the cave and in a definite deck out position, he lets out an almighty power scream and jumps to a mono for the right hand.

He stuck the jump. With a finger that had undergone surgery a month earlier.

His belayer flat out refused to let him have another go that day.

turnipturned

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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 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.

abarro81

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Cool thread. Disappointingly, most of the things that spring to mind are watching people like Buster and Bosi indoors on a board...

As an honourable mention, the most simultaneously impressive/disappointing was probably giving Kai Lightner the beta as he went up Era Vella. Incredibly strong, fit and flexible, but bewilderingly bad at understanding beta and moves!

Fiend

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Smally on Nerve Damage at Ardmair - https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/ardmair_crags-298/nerve_damage-345339 the updated descriptions is mine from abbing and cleaning it for an onsight attempt that rapidly ground to a halt. I'm quite good at seeing the potential in stuff that is many grades beyond me, but this seemed really properly hard and he let out a rare power scream on a subsequent headpoint (which was the next day after I'd had an ace morning at Reiff and Smally seemed to mostly want to chill out and drink tea but I was quite keen to trot back to Ardmair and repay belaying, also had a great day at Mungasdale the next day with him onsighting an E6 and me finally doing Thelonious).

Stabbsy

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My mate Nic doing hitchhikers sit start. Levitated up it with ruthless strength. Dawning realisation that we weren't on the same level.
Nic the dentist? He was alarmingly strong - climbed with him a fair few times, mostly at Kilnsey. Is he still climbing? Haven’t seen him for years, but spotted his name appearing on Lakes fell race results a couple of years ago.

mrjonathanr

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Maybe watching Johnny on the 1st ascent of Indian Face should feature. I didn't fully grasp the level at the time, but did get the seriousness and moved off to the side so he wouldn't land on me if he fell off the top.

Ged

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My mate Nic doing hitchhikers sit start. Levitated up it with ruthless strength. Dawning realisation that we weren't on the same level.
Nic the dentist? He was alarmingly strong - climbed with him a fair few times, mostly at Kilnsey. Is he still climbing? Haven’t seen him for years, but spotted his name appearing on Lakes fell race results a couple of years ago.

Yes. He mainly runs these days, but when he came down to see me last year he very nearly did cider soak in a session.

 

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