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Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac (Read 5926 times)

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Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 13, 2021, 08:47:00 pm


8a climbing with the risk of a 15m fall climbing the belay ledge, hard 8b to climb up, place the crucial nest of marginal  RP 0s, skyhooks and peckers and downclimb to the ledge, etc etc.

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#1 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 13, 2021, 09:41:55 pm
Looks like benchmark E9 6c to me. What’s with all this foreign grading malarkey?!

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#2 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 13, 2021, 10:13:00 pm
Oooo that's an amazing bit of wall.  Nice work Dave. That must have been eyed up and tried by a few folks?

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#3 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 13, 2021, 10:39:29 pm
I'll second that, great work by Dave keeping it together in that remote location. According to the vid, the line was discovered by Ste Mac relatively recently so the chances of it having been tried before Dave and Iain Small are quite low I would say. Also, seems like f*ck all ppl are even trying that kind of thing on TR up on the Ben, never mind actually leading it.

The downclimbing seems a bit contrived but I think I can get my head around it. Seems fair game if the lead has to be done the same session as the downclimb. So if you sleep inbetween the downclimb and the lead then you have to do it again. Mad that you have to do an 8b downclimb to tick an 8a route! I wonder how much 'bounce testing' of the gear they did from the safety of the ground to really jam those microwires in or maybe the screamers precluded this?

I guess other than toproping there is realistically no other way these blank walls will ever be climbed without bolts and it is environmentally friendly to boot as no rusting ironmongery is left behind in the rock.


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#4 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 13, 2021, 10:44:22 pm
Cheers for th link Fiend, cool looking climb. Doing your own camera work, changing camera angles mid climb, dedicated to making a good viddy! Enjoyed the film a lot though, so fair play!
Got me psyched to try and climb on the Ben in summer yet again  :bounce: (one day!), probably not that particular route though....

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#5 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 13, 2021, 11:06:36 pm
According to the vid, the line was discovered by Ste Mac relatively recently so the chances of it having been tried before Dave and Iain Small are quite low I would say.

Yeah that surprised me. It's the line you ab down for all the climbs on that wall. And a good belay to set up a line (even if you have to rope solo titans wall...). Maybe the redpointing approach for these big mountain walls is more recent than I'm thinking. It has to be one of the walls in the country though, and with great history already. Dave must be feeling chuffed with this one.

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#6 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 12:50:06 am
Yes, great vid.

And another silly name  ;D

Splendid piece of climbing. Looks really enticing.

Down climbing after placing your top runners isn't unusual, and the debate about "sleeping between sessions" has gone on for decades.

There's an interesting trend here, with different people fighting over content/bandwidth etc on social media - it's the climbing equivalent of the plethora of videos of people resto-ing old Porsches/Ferraris.

Would be great to have some footage of Gresham's route too  :thumbsup:

Edit: personal preference would be an E grade, maybe with the sport in brackets.

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#7 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 06:19:40 am
Yep, really enjoyed. I liked just his whole attitude to the thing.

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#8 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 07:29:38 am

There's an interesting trend here, with different people fighting over content/bandwidth etc on social media - it's the climbing equivalent of the plethora of videos of people resto-ing old Porsches/Ferraris.

This is happening in literally every sport, hobby or pastime you can think of. Fortunately Dave Mac doesn't go too far down the path of clickbaity shite and his 'content' is generally quality.

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#9 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 08:19:19 am

And another silly name  ;D


Had to look it up due to my lack of classical education, but choosing the name of a titaness for your route on Titan Wall seems appropriate?

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#10 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 08:30:54 am
It's not a word in my lexicon though! :)

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#11 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 08:50:30 am
This is happening in literally every sport, hobby or pastime you can think of. Fortunately Dave Mac doesn't go too far down the path of a video thumbnail with an E9 grade so large you can see it from orbit and his 'content' is generally quality.

Looks like benchmark E9 6c to me. What’s with all this foreign grading malarkey?!
:lol: well it's fundamentally important to British climbing to firstly reinforce just how rubbish our climbers/climbing is that we dare to think that the lowly grade of F8a/b - which is barely a passmark in French primary school outdoor education, and wouldn't even be a solo warm-up for Team America - is remotely newsworthy, and secondly provide exact and correct grading information for all the hordes of foreign sport climbers who will be ebiking up to the Ben for a swift repeat after a 5 minute lesson in how to place skyhooks.

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#12 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 09:05:53 am

The downclimbing seems a bit contrived but I think I can get my head around it. Seems fair game if the lead has to be done the same session as the downclimb. So if you sleep inbetween the downclimb and the lead then you have to do it again.
The alternatives to this would be that you'd have to place the gear on abseil on subsequent visits, or leave it in situ between visits.
The former would clearly be cheating in an instance like this as the fiddly marginal gear would likely to be less well placed on lead than it would be on abseil.
The latter would be problematic up in the mountains, where another conditions window might not arise in a season. Not to mention the dubious precedent of leaving gear insitu on trad routes.

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#13 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 09:11:47 am
Thumbs up for the informative comments from Dave in the vid, it was so incredibly detailed, I think it would pass over the heads of all bar the most geeky trad heads.  ::)

I thought the myth of Team America had been dispelled in the Lexicon thread?  :-\

I agree with Bonjoy's assessment of the practicalities of leaving in situ gear. Playing devils advocate for a moment, would it be acceptable to come back the next day if the forecast was mint and you were camping at the CIC hut, simply to leave the toprope and runners in overnight, come back the next morning and yo yo back up to the high point? Is the 'no sleep between attempts' a hard and fast rule?

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#14 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 09:24:28 am
Is the 'no sleep between attempts' a hard and fast rule?

Surely you can take a nap between goes on the same day? More seriously, I thought it was well established long ago that you should begin again from scratch each day - even if that is sometimes more honoured in the breach.

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#15 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 09:26:38 am
Enjoyable vid, as Dave's always are, and impressive effort doing all his own camerawork.

However a route where most of the difficulty comes from fiddling in marginal gear and downclimbing doesn't seem very attractive...it's a kind of ad absurdum of the rule of leading being the only style of legitimate ascent. Be much better on a toppy wouldn't it?  ;)

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#16 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 09:28:10 am
Is the 'no sleep between attempts' a hard and fast rule?

Surely you can take a nap between goes on the same day? More seriously, I thought it was well established long ago that you should begin again from scratch each day - even if that is sometimes more honoured in the breach.

Yes I agree, it is established for me. If you came back the next day, you'd have to begin all over again. The only reason I ask is that Dave seemed to suggest that a debate has been going on. If so then what are the arguments?

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#17 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 09:45:43 am
It seems an arbitrary rule to me. Leaving the gear in for an attempt the next day doesn't violate any of the logical principles of a ground up ascent. But then again trad gets increasingly arbitrary the harder it gets. What's one more line in the sand? Are we allowed to leave the gear in if we stay awake until the next attempt? Or is it defined by the sun setting? How does this hold up in northern latitudes where the sun doesn't set in summer? You'd be gutted it there was a total eclipse between your attempts!

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#18 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 09:47:43 am
https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,31380.0.html etc

Generally with these things it's better to consider the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law, and the overall quality and feel of the experience.

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#19 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:07:30 am
What's the craic if you fall off on the down climb?

Do you leave the rope in, "top rope" back to the gear, take it out, count to 3, replace it, and then attempt to down climb to the ground again?

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#20 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:08:07 am
https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,31380.0.html etc

Generally with these things it's better to consider the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law, and the overall quality and feel of the experience.
Depends. Better for who/what? Sounds like making things nice and neat for the spectators (us) at the expense of the ascensionists.
On the 'spirit of the law', leaving gear in overnight, say after being rained off during an attempt, to return the next day, seems well within it to me.

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#21 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:10:42 am
So. That's what a one-star E9 looks like, huh?

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#22 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:11:06 am
What's the craic if you fall off on the down climb?

Do you leave the rope in, "top rope" back to the gear, take it out, count to 3, replace it, and then attempt to down climb to the ground again?
Strip on abseil and reclimb with it on your harness, otherwise you haven't carried the gear up as part of the ascent (or set of attempts included in the downclimb-ascent combo).

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#23 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:26:21 am
So. That's what a one-star E9 looks like, huh?

Don't be silly. Everything above E7 gets *** by default.

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#24 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:36:12 am
It seems an arbitrary rule to me. Leaving the gear in for an attempt the next day doesn't violate any of the logical principles of a ground up ascent. But then again trad gets increasingly arbitrary the harder it gets. What's one more line in the sand? Are we allowed to leave the gear in if we stay awake until the next attempt? Or is it defined by the sun setting? How does this hold up in northern latitudes where the sun doesn't set in summer? You'd be gutted it there was a total eclipse between your attempts!

Exactly this. Surely the most black and white 'rule' is you place your gear on lead and don't weight the rope? Then you can go up and down, take as long as you like. I'd have thought when people start looking at things like Rhapsody ground up, there'll be some huge down climbs on that, gradually 'banking' the top gear, ready for endless burns for the top. Much better to do that than leave gear in place after falling each time and lowering to the ground imo

Edit: and good effort Dave obviously.  Looks hard and scary!

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#25 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:41:17 am
So. That's what a one-star E9 looks like, huh?

 :lol: Pretty much what I was thinking.

Perhaps someone extremely bold with low regard for the health of their ankles will come along and think it more logical to just go for it without all sky-hooks-and-downclimbing malarky. In the mindset of, if they fail on the crux they'd try to jump out to clear the belay ledge and taking a monstrous whipper most of the way back down Titan's Wall. E10 (8a)? And more 'pure'..
Franco?

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#26 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:49:13 am
I don't think it would be more pure like that. What Dave's done is the purest form of headpoint ascent I reckon and i don't think it detracts from the quality of the route. I actually think most really hard/dangerous headpoints in the future will involve down climbing. You're probably doing something wrong if you're fiddling in skyhooks on the way to committing to death 7a or whatever.

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#27 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:58:46 am
I meant working the route on toppy then just going for it on headpoint without the 8b skyhooks-downclimbing. Not onsighting.

I'd not be massively surprised if in the next 5-10 years someone does it on axes in winter after a look on a rope, though Titans Wall hardly ever gets rimed.

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#28 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 11:02:42 am
Hard to tell from the weird video angle but is there a danger of the belayer being taken out if he falls off? If so does Robbie get a few E points? (I didn’t watch all the vid so maybe I missed him chatting about this?)

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#29 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 11:03:14 am
Yeh, I mean down climbing doesn't affect the purity of ascent. We are woodlice slithering through these grand challenges by the grace of God, not trotting about on exhibition ponies performing some cute-to-look-at dressage.

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#30 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 11:05:23 am
Speak for yourself

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#31 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 11:07:06 am
The climbing scene has far more than it's fair share of show ponies!

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#32 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 11:20:07 am
A cynic might conclude that many of the supposed rules are invented and policed by these guys =>  :popcorn: . Armchair pundits with no skin in the game.

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#33 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 14, 2021, 10:53:18 pm
From a sport climber's perspective, would there be any worth in pinkpointing this on pre-placed gear? Seems like a reasonable compromise given that many may be turned off by the high faff factor and weirdness of the downclimbing ethic. At least you could get to enjoy the climbing, which looks great, if not in perfect safety, at least with a reasonable margin for those operating at that level.

Just a thought! I don't care if no E grade was merited and it would be better than toproping

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#34 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 15, 2021, 01:21:55 am
Re the down-climbing, seems that everyone has forgotten that even in sport climbing, the ethic used to be that you could have your rope pre-clipped to any gear you haven't weighted - and you could come back thereafter, with the higher bolts pre-clipped, if you've down-climbed from that point.

Arguments started when people used mats to jump onto from a higher point. Seems an odd thing to imagine now, as it only seems to be crag consensus that determines what is accepted re pre-clipped runners.

I think everyone's amusing arguments for leaving the gear in-situ make sense.
A major part of the art/struggle is making the ascent viable.
Yo-yo-ing used to be accepted more readily, before the practice of hanging/resting on your top gear to "have a look" became a too common form of cheating.

Redpointing became established as a way of rationalising an acceptable ascent. I like the way that - although very unlikely - Dave's ascent leaves something that could be improved upon.

I think it's that engagement with the cliff that we risk losing.

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#35 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 15, 2021, 06:37:41 am
From a sport climber's perspective, would there be any worth in pinkpointing this on pre-placed gear?

I don't care if no E grade was merited and it would be better than toproping

I think you've sort of answered your own question here, i.e. pinkpointing would obviously be easier than placing gear on lead, but harder than top-roping.

Hard to say regarding 'worth' - worth to you, or worth in the view of the wider community? Not that those are discrete, because unless you're impressively self-possessed the consensus view will affect your own. Wouldn't most of us quite like to move towards caring less though?

It's hard to imagine a pinkpoint ascent of something like this would feel 'worthless', anyway. I'd imagine it would be quite memorable up there.

I wasn't being entirely facetious when I suggested this sort of thing might be 'better' on a top rope.


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#36 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 15, 2021, 07:51:27 am

I think you've sort of answered your own question here, i.e. pinkpointing would obviously be easier than placing gear on lead, but harder than top-roping.

Hard to say regarding 'worth' - worth to you, or worth in the view of the wider community? Not that those are discrete, because unless you're impressively self-possessed the consensus view will affect your own. Wouldn't most of us quite like to move towards caring less though?

It's hard to imagine a pinkpoint ascent of something like this would feel 'worthless', anyway. I'd imagine it would be quite memorable up there.

I wasn't being entirely facetious when I suggested this sort of thing might be 'better' on a top rope.

I agree, I suppose worth would relate to the climber and the wider community as well to a certain extent as I guess that has some bearing as you say. I can think of other examples of pinkpoint ascents on preplaced gear but they don't seem to be satisfactory to anybody really as they would be easier than placing gear on lead. I guess if you're going to all that trouble to get up there you may as well do it properly!

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#37 Re: Mnemosyne, F8a/8b (R+/X) for Dave Mac
September 15, 2021, 09:30:13 am
It's such a funny business on these hard head points. It almost seems that by following 'the rules' Dave has almost made it look like an impressive and difficult, but ultimately unappealing route.
I will clarify that I think its a great looking bit of wall, rock and moves. I also have huge respect for Dave and find him so inspiring.
Back in the late 80's/early 90's you would probably have just pre-placed the kit and and head pointed it like that. I sort of find it funny that the arbitrary 'rules' of head pointing such as down climbing so as to not weight the gear are done in a way to replicate a close experience to what an on sight attempt would have to do.
But the fact that you have the specific rack and know how to place the highly specific gear and the fact that you know all the sequences already take this away anyway.
Back when On Sight film came out I found Neil D's comment about head pointing being rubbish and easy a bit shortsighted. Fair enough if you don't want to do it but saying it is easy seemed to miss the point. He was pushing on sighting standards, but could have found a suitably hard head point challenge for him.
Similarly, it would be great to see Dave M do a head point (pink point) of something even harder and bolder on pre placed kit. This would be a good way of pushing the standard and setting a marker for the future. I wonder if he draws a line for his own head points that he will only do it if he can place the gear, and if he can't he won't do it at all, as oppose to doing it in the best form of a lead for himself?
I personally have dabbled with all of the options in the past. Head points with kit pre placed, placing all kit on lead, placing and then down climbing etc. My biggest regret has been opportunities to not lead a route on pre placed kit because I have felt I should come back and do it placing the kit to satisfy 'the rules".
I wish I had cared less and taken a desert island approach of thinking, "If nobody was ever going to find out about this, what would I do now for fun on this route?"
I'm nowadays more inclined, like Andy Moles said, to just enjoy a top rope on something and enjoy the climbing rather than turning it into a weird rehearsal that could end up getting nailed, and missing a load of climbing.
Each to their own though, and it's great that Dave still loves this so much and keeps driving it.

 

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