[Wellsy]

Yeah hope you recover quickly Will

[Bradders]

Shit, sorry to hear Will.

[edshakey]

That sucks, wish you a speedy recovery!

Are you able to explain any more what happened? Seems innocuous enough, can't quite picture how this ends in hospital 

[webbo]

Fucking hell that’s really unlucky Will. Having had numerous falls from various heights over many years and broken bones but nothing as serious as yours. I wish you a speedy recovery.

[andy popp]

Bloody hell Will! That's not good. Wishing you a swift and full recovery.

[Aussiegav]

That sucks, wish you a speedy recovery!

Are you able to explain any more what happened? Seems innocuous enough, can't quite picture how this ends in hospital 

I suspect it’s a crompressed vertebrae.

Speedy recovery Will. Hope you’re not in too much discomfort

[grimer]

WRT Crescent Arete, it is quite scary. I have seem people fall off it a little obliviously and just missing that sticky-out ledge at the bottom and felt the need to look away in horror.

Then I read this post by a US pro-style climber about his wife 'shattering her ankle' on that ledge

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzghOFwtGjz/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Scary

[SA Chris]

Or your spotter decides that you are high enough that the single slender Megagrip pad you are sharing won't make any difference if you fall anyway so drags it off in the direction of NTBTA. Nice one hongkongstuey.

[Fiend]

Goes back to this a bit....

I was looking at the "likely to get scared, unlikely to fall" scenario more which is hopefully the case for the grand example in question.

Which might well be the best approach for some of this nonsense (especially if it got a (undergraded) trad grade in the red Stanage guide).

Best wishes and speedy recovery @ Will

LOL @ SAChris and hongkongstuey.

[Wellsy]

Dunno how much I fancy Crescent Arete now tbh lads 

[SA Chris]

Couple of pads and a canny spotter or two and you are likely to be fine. It's a magnificent piece of rock that just begs to be climbed, and it goes exactly how you think it would.

[duncan]

However, I write this from Airedale hospital where I'm lying with a broken vertebrae having fallen from the move to the finishing jug of a new/unrecorded highball at Attermire.

  Fractured vertebrae are extremely variable in severity/seriousness, I hope yours is at the milder end of the scale and you make a full recovery. No neurological damage I hope?

Best case: I have a fractured vertebra that was spotted on an X-Ray for something else but had obviously happened years before. I had been completely unaware of it and didn't know when it had happened though it's likely it was from the big fall when I fractured my wrist and a rib or two; everything hurt a bit but my back was not worse than anything else. 40 years on i've had no further consequences other than that part of my back being a bit stiff. Obviously there are much worse versions.

[User deactivated.]

Damn, as others have said I hope it's not a bad one. I fractured a vertebrae when I was younger (bikes) and luckily it didn't take long to bounce back from.

Remember leg day if you're highballing! A 2x bodyweight squat can absorb a lot of impact!   

[SA Chris]

Like Duncan, I had a CAT scan on my back injury after a skiing accident and they picked up a compressed vertebrae in a completely different location to the ski trauma. They said so I do anything that might cause it, I said I did climbing / bouldering, surgeon rolled eyes and said that's probably it. I guess Vail hospital sees a few. 

[Bonjoy]

One very effective tactic that hasn't been mentioned is using a rope.
Sure, it will earn you disapproving looks from some quarters, but it will certainly help you get up whatever it is you abseil down, which in turn will help you ground up other things.

[Tom de Gay]

A somewhat sketchy tactic is to just hang from the top and even downclimb a move or two. Gets you used to the exposure whilst feeling in control. Not sure what the name for this style is, it's not really ground-up, but neither is it pre-practised. Dangle-point?

[Bonjoy]

That tactic worked for me on The Pride.
Another is to traverse in to practice the high bit from easy ground if that's an option. This worked for me me on WSS.

[spidermonkey09]

A somewhat sketchy tactic is to just hang from the top and even downclimb a move or two. Gets you used to the exposure whilst feeling in control. Not sure what the name for this style is, it's not really ground-up, but neither is it pre-practised. Dangle-point?

Byron Connelly downclimbed Right Unconquerable prior to Brown doing it I believe. Bet that was an engaging first move or two off that rounded top.

[seankenny]

Dunno how much I fancy Crescent Arete now tbh lads 

 

I’ve done it and I’m totally not a bold climber, think it might even have been pre-pad days, so it won’t be beyond you with the right approach.

Will - sorry to hear about your accident, hope you make a quick recovery.

[stone]

I know I said I was impressed by cat-like dismounts. I guess I was thinking of how I've seen Adam Long land on the couple of occasions I've seen him bouldering. But I was also impressed by Ross Cowie  (who I think also highballs a lot)  doing stunt-man style dismounts when doing loads of rapid laps on Rattle-and-Hump at the Tor. I don't know whether he was training for accidentally not landing on his feet, or saving his knees, or whether that is what he intentionally does if he falls off a highball. He sort of tumbled into the landing and ended up lying down each lap. He is legendary for having decked out when clipping high up on Boot Boys and then jumping back on and redpointing it straight away. So evidently what he does works.
There are You-Tube videos about stunt man falling methods

And best wishes for your recovery Will

[lagerstarfish]

I'd be happy to carry/add three pads to the UKB sea of foam for Wellsy if he decides that is what he would like.
Since smashing my ankle into lots of pieces,  I occasionally struggle with fear when bouldering more than a couple of moves up. I do still really enjoy being high up on easy ground or good holds or just when I am climbing well.
Being comfortable with the distance off the deck can feel really nice. If you don't have a lot of experience of that sensation, seek it out. It will probably be doing really easy stuff at first, but that nice feeling becomes reward and motivation once you find it.
Grades, lines, numbers, excitement, ego and all that are good in their own way, but the calm sub-thrill of being comfortable high up has less of a comedown and fewer side effects.

Edit - once you find something high that you like doing, do it lots of times and take time to reflect on the various physical and mental sensations. This might not necessarily make you climb harder, but it will help you enjoy your time more

[stone]

I'm a bit confused, my impression was that Wellsy's aspiration was to climb on classic 7B/+s with the same lack of inhibition as on a kilter board. I took that to mean stuff like Old King Cascade, Famous Grouse, Ram Air, Monochrome etc.

I'm not even sure whether this advice people are giving to wander around in the no fall zone has any view towards the original aim. It sounds as though it is straying into saying doing that is a nicer way to spend one's days than on try-hard bouldering. That is fair enough but it might as well be saying the same for soloing the N face of the Eiger, or going fell running, or golf, or gastronomy or whatever.

[lagerstarfish]

I'm a bit confused, my impression was that Wellsy's aspiration was to climb on classic 7B/+s with the same lack of inhibition as on a kilter board. I took that to mean stuff like Old King Cascade, Famous Grouse, Ram Air, Monochrome etc.

I'm not even sure whether this advice people are giving to wander around in the no fall zone has any view towards the original aim. It sounds as though it is straying into saying doing that is a nicer way to spend one's days than on try-hard bouldering. That is fair enough but it might as well be saying the same for soloing the N face of the Eiger, or going fell running, or golf, or gastronomy or whatever.

Is it not about getting up Crescent Arete as mentioned in the title?

[stone]

Is it not about getting up Crescent Arete as mentioned in the title?

I think Cresent Arete was Fiend's idea. Wellsy was saying:

I'm definitely open to getting out of my comfort zone and plan to do so this year but honestly I feel like at the moment something like that would be really stressful and make me just want to walk away more, not less!
Doing Crescent Arete isn't something I particularly desire but doing less high/sketch things but potentially more high than I am now with an eye towards performing better would be what I want. I could happily go my entire life never getting on, say, Pebble Arete but I'd build towards it if it meant getting to do things I do actually want to do, like T-Crack and so on.

[Fiend]

Actually CA was from the other thread, and chatting with Wellsy on FB. This thread is supposed to be a general one, hence posting it here rather than via messenger, but CA is maybe a good example of extrapolating bravery (into the "won't fall, but best don't fall" category, other forms of highballing are available).