[SA Chris]

Partage! Thanks you. Just spent 20 mins trawling bleau.info trying to find it.

I know it sounds a bit MAARGRET, but there was a vid a few hears back of El Mocho climbing a great looking arete at Font too. Pretty high (length of prob, not him).

[36chambers]

Partage! Thanks you. Just spent 20 mins trawling bleau.info trying to find it.

I know it sounds a bit MAARGRET, but there was a vid a few hears back of El Mocho climbing a great looking arete at Font too. Pretty high (length of prob, not him).

Misericorde 7C+?

[Droyd]

Curveball suggestions, but I stood below these two the first time I ever went bouldering outside and was pretty gobsmacked.



The arete to the left of the gap is Alla vill till himmelen, men ingen vill dö, which goes at 7C+ or 8A depending on who you talk to. To the right of the gap is Caspersens arete, 7A+.

In Kjugekull (south-east Sweden), which is one of the places I've bouldered that I'd least recommend due to the sharpness of the rock, but these two have always stuck with me for how good they looked on that first day out, and still look now.

[SA Chris]

Misericorde 7C+?

That's the viper. Thank you. Actually looks almost doable compared to Partage and Merveille.

[Johnny Brown]

I'm going with Careless for grit boulders. I haven't seen a better line in Font either, although agree with Misericorde and Partage are pretty damn inspiring.

Tsunami has a grade that somehow is supposed to translate to 7b+. I can do that. However, later I saw a video of Ondra power-screaming and sketching between bolts on the only onsight of the thirthy year old route

Memory is pretty sketchy, but didn't Leo H do it twenty years ago? Think there was a video, but google not throwing it up.

[User deactivated.]

No idea about best, but my all time favourite line is Reservoir Dogs E8 7a at Widdop

I'm psyched to try that one! Have you been on it? 

[User deactivated.]

Not quite as good as some already posted, but this is a very striking arete I came across recently. No Picnics 7C+, Val Bavona.

[Bradders]

Careless Torque isn't even the most striking standalone arete at Stanage!

Literally just opinion innit. Not sure why everyone has to be so combative  on here all the time ffs  what’s your suggestion then Nick?

Relax man, wasn't meant to be combative, sorry you took it so.

At Stanage I think Unfamiliar is incredibly inspiring.



And the obvious



Would second Reservoir Dogs.

Wow!!

[Wellsy]

I remember when I started bouldering and I was looking into the hardest things in the world, just curious as to what the limits of the discipline were, and I saw the Sisu Project

https://images.app.goo.gl/kTKpN6LEXsBKGoLy9

It really does look quite beautiful to me. The mysterious future of bouldering? Impossible? Who knows. But its undoubtedly a line, up that big overhanging rounded groove

[jakaitch]

I think Careless Torque gets my vote, the most striking standalone arête in Europe surely. God what a beautiful piece of rock, I never get tired of seeing it.

The Arete, seawalls in the Avon. Lung full of car fumes, cant hear yourself think and a hand full off crumbly crystals. Does it get better? 

[hansmaro]

Biased but Electric Avenue, Skälefjell Bohuslän

https://www.thecrag.com/photo/2879553303

[Tony S]

For longer routes, I imagine that something in the Dolomites has the best line?

I’m gonna do something very unusual for me and disagree with jwi.

I find that limestone very, very seldom has the most aesthetic lines (tufas excepted) combined with good quality rock and atmosphere/view. Amazing routes in the Ratikon and Wendenstocke but the lines I’ve seen, while logical, are not particularly aesthetic.

I’d have thought the “best” long routes in Europe would be on granite. The traverse of the Cham Aiguilles is a good looking line but that’s prob cheating.

Probably the most impressive pure lines, in my mind, would be some of the stunning couloir and ice lines on the granite mountainsides in the Mt Blanc massif.

[stone]

Probably the most impressive pure lines, in my mind, would be some of the stunning couloir and ice lines on the granite mountainsides in the Mt Blanc massif.

I can't think of a more aesthetic line in the Mt Blanc massif than the Walker spur. You climb the easiest/safest way up that region of the face (the tallest  bit too) and pop your head over the top at the summit.

By comparison, to me, the couloir lines seem more like sneaking around the side (I'm not saying they aren't awesome though).

PS I feel bad enthusing about Alpine climbing. Alpine climbing is bad. It kills people.

[Fiend]

PS I feel bad enthusing about Alpine climbing. Alpine climbing is bad. It kills people.

But at least it's just what LH89 was after, along with link-ups at The Tor 

[Tony S]

I can't think of a more aesthetic line in the Mt Blanc massif than the Walker spur.

There’s a lot of sneaking around on the Walker and the rock is, in places, terrible. But it’s certainly an immaculate feature.

I’d say the West Ridge of the Salbitjen is a high quality line, feature and the rock impeccable. But, I wouldn’t say it’s the best line though i can’t quite put my finger on why.

PS I feel bad enthusing about Alpine climbing. Alpine climbing is bad. It kills people.

Ageing kills people.

[Tom de Gay]

Brid Klina, 350m 7c arete, Anica Kuk, Croatia

[stone]

There’s a lot of sneaking around on the Walker and the rock is, in places, terrible. But it’s certainly an immaculate feature.

I remember Kristian complaining that the rock on the upper section of The Cruxifiction at the Tor was really chossy and me saying that it enhanced the situation up there much like on the upper sections of the Walker Spur.

I guess nowadays climate change means that what were mixed sections may now be exposed as abject rubble though (on Grandes Jorasses not the Tor).

[User deactivated.]

PS I feel bad enthusing about Alpine climbing. Alpine climbing is bad. It kills people.

But at least it's just what LH89 was after, along with link-ups at The Tor 

You say that jokingly, but the alpine ones are definitely the sort of thing this thread was intended for! Tor link-ups not so much.

[spidermonkey09]

I remember Kristian complaining that the rock on the upper section of The Cruxifiction at the Tor was really chossy and me saying that it enhanced the situation up there much like on the upper sections of the Walker Spur.

My god, is this a parody. Truly there is no discussion topic where the Tor can't be shoehorned in

[Fiend]

It's the routes equivalent of when most bouldering threads deteriorate into Leeds-Bingley circle-jerk about rules / grade hair-splitting on some particulary localised lowball green morpho scrittle-fest on Yorkshire grit 

[Dingdong]

If routes are in too, let me also suggest this absolute classic https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/marmolada-2645/attraverso_il_pesce-187792#overview

[Tom de Gay]

A few UK trad ideas:
Devil’s Slide, Cenotaph Corner obviously, America pitch 2, The Cullinan, Rainbow of Recalcitrance, Dalriada, Appointment With Fear, Requiem, ‘The Great Escape’ pitch 2, Divided Years, any corner/arete in the big quarry at Nesscliffe… and the Cuillin Ridge traverse (easiest on the list, but also the hardest).

Don't know much European trad. Prinzip Hoffnung looks alright, not going to get lost on that one.

[36chambers]

No idea about best, but my all time favourite line is Reservoir Dogs E8 7a at Widdop

I'm psyched to try that one! Have you been on it?

Nah, thought about it in the past, but I'm concerned that if I do have a properly look, it might set off a chain of events in which I suddenly find myself half way up it on the sharp end

[Tom de Gay]

No idea about best, but my all time favourite line is Reservoir Dogs E8 7a at Widdop

I'm psyched to try that one! Have you been on it?

Nah, thought about it in the past, but I'm concerned that if I do have a properly look, it might set off a chain of events in which I suddenly find myself half way up it on the sharp end

Fairly steady to the gear, maybe E5/E6. Then a very hard boulder problem, 7C/+?

[Fultonius]

Brid Klina, 350m 7c arete, Anica Kuk, Croatia

This may have just become a new life goal.... The low 7s and high 6s at Paklenica are savagely graded, how bad is this one?