[mrjonathanr]

Merci bien. I think it may require a level a little beyond elementary though...

[jwi]

My reasoning: No passe simple except être in third person (which can even be heard on radio), so it must be elementary. I'm likely to be wrong.

Anyway, fascinating about historic chipping in B. Also confirmed my suspicion that Edlinger headpointed his routes.

[spidermonkey09]

My reasoning: No passe simple except être in third person (which can even be heard on radio), so it must be elementary. I'm likely to be wrong.

Anyway, fascinating about historic chipping in B. Also confirmed my suspicion that Edlinger headpointed his routes.

Definitely not elementary! Good article though.

[mrjonathanr]

My reasoning: No passé simple except être in third person

  Impeccable reasoning, duly wadded for working that into a UKB thread.

Interesting article, his aesthetic really comes through in his language. Rose is really chipped isn't it, think there was a lot of 'dentelle de rocher ' to get through there... I've known Antoine in the past, amazing precision when he climbed. A bit like a thin man's John Dunne.

How suitably cultured that Bout du Monde was named after Céline (though some routes named after BDs, like Silence).

[Johnny Brown]

My french isn't very good, but does it tell you how to unsubscribe from his fucking 'lezards bleu' email list?

[remus]

https://www.theprojectmagazine.com/features/2018/6/28/rocklands-talk-of-the-crag

A bit heavy on the essay style but an interesting topic.

[mrjonathanr]

My french isn't very good, but does it tell you how to unsubscribe from his fucking 'lezards bleu' email list?

haha... try looking for ''se désinscrire''

[monkoffunk]

https://www.theprojectmagazine.com/features/2018/8/9/durdle-door

Excellent sounding route and awesome effort.

[jwi]

https://www.lucien-martinez.com/amuse-bouches/how-to-create-your-own-bait

Nine hypotheses as to why we want to send our project by the indomitable Lucien Martinez. [Quality, but in non-elementary French]

[jwi]

Nina Caprez writes about a meltdown on Tough Enough

Climbing has this ability of showing us what is really going on inside of us, of bringing our ego to the light, and that’s often painful. I was realizing that in the end I had not really faced this challenge as directly and bravely as I thought I had. I had, in fact, avoided the harder routes whenever I was not convinced deep inside that I would succeed. I had let myself go a little easier than I thought and not learned to deal with not reaching the top. My climbing achievements seemed to all have been called in advance and I had surfed on the satisfaction of sending pitches and making that top anchor clip.

https://blog.arcteryx.com/a-place-of-contrasts/

[cheque]

Enjoyed that.

[SA Chris]

http://www.climbing.co.za/2018/09/africa-amphitheatre-an-historic-big-wall-on-table-mountain/

Interesting history lesson, with a bit of "Long Hardish and Mostly Free" thrown in.

[jwi]

A list of the 24 hardest long routes in the world. Hardest individual pitch seems to have been the overarching principle, which explains the extremely haphazard look (Dawn Wall not #1, even though it is obviously the hardest long route in the world etc.) Some of the routes are not very long either.

Anyway, interesting list, as they go.

https://www.desnivel.com/escalada-roca/las-24-vias-largas-mas-duras-del-mundo/

[Teaboy]

Interesting article, I'm curious why you say "Dawn Wall not #1, even though it is obviously the hardest long route in the world etc."

I've no way of knowing but certainly in terms of the numbers it doesn't look cut and dried in favour of Dawn Wall (the opposite really). Its not like the logistics are simple in Getu cave, especially considering how practised someone like Tommy Caldwell is getting himself established on any part of El Cap to work pitches. Edu Marin is not without pedigree and it took him ages. Did Edu Marin do his route in one push, surely its physically more demanding to do a couple of successive days of continuous roof climbing than relatively slabby climbing - although I guess the sun takes a lot out of you on El Cap.

Not looking for an argument, obviously, just interested.

[teestub]

i guess Edu spends as much time on horizontal limestone as Tommy does on polished granite!

I think last time this came up Dawn Wall had the advantage in depth of hard pitches?

[jwi]

380m on bolts: feasible in a day if most pitches are within your onsight grade.
900m on mixed complicated shit + iffy gear: not feasible in a day even if most pitches are totally trivial difficulty wise.

Come on, this is not complicated, anyone who's done a reasonable amount of long routes knows this.

[Teaboy]

380m on bolts: feasible in a day if most pitches are within your onsight grade.
900m on mixed complicated shit + iffy gear: not feasible in a day even if most pitches are totally trivial difficulty wise.

There are a couple of things to say about this though...

Come on, this is not complicated, anyone who's done a reasonable amount of long routes knows this.

...but not sure I'm up for another patronising burn.

[jwi]

Maybe I'm missing something? If I just remove one full number grade from all pitches on both routes (so that the grades have some form of meaning to me), and factor in the length and the seriousness of the routes it seems obvious which one looks a lot easier on paper? Bon, repeats of Valhalla and further repeats of Dawn Wall are surely forthcoming and should give indications.

[Wood FT]

Can’t we just decide all this on which one looks better?

[joel182]

Can’t we just decide all this on which one looks better?

Valhalla is shite and vulgar, so that can't possibly be number 1

[spidermonkey09]

http://mikeowenfrance.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-yorkshire-triple-crown-probably.html

Enjoyed this from Mike Owen about the Yorkshire Triple Crown. I was planning to try and finish this off this summer...maybe next year!

Whats the gossip around Geoff Weigand and The Groove that he dances around?

[SA Chris]

From jwi's article I've decided the Ratikon triple crown onsight is the one I'm aiming for.

[SA Chris]

http://samountain.co.za/back-issues/

SA Mountain magazine are releasing all back issues online, if anyone wants some SIKE!

[mark20]

From Mick Ward, about British climbing in the 60s,
https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/the_vector_generation-12796

[andy popp]

From Mick Ward, about British climbing in the 60s,
https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/the_vector_generation-12796

That's pretty good. The sixties does seem to be regarded as a kind of lull between the 50s and the 70s. Mick does a good job of making the case here. There was a superb article by Les Holliwell, I think, called, I think, "Llech Ddu, Lawrie, and Me," in either Crags or Mountain, that gave me a great insight into this period. I would guess the Holliwells would be almost completely forgotten now.