[Denbob99]

It just keeps going! The Red River Gorge looks amazing, definitely on the hit list.

[Fiend]

For petejh:

 

[fatdoc]

am I, as usual, late to the party, or did this guy just do whatever he wanted all over the eastern grit in what iirc was 20 degrees at least, on his own, and climbed near every day and looked like he was having the time of his life?? incredible effort, wonderful film. I presume he is a name.

[Denbob99]

am I, as usual, late to the party, or did this guy just do whatever he wanted all over the eastern grit in what iirc was 20 degrees at least, on his own, and climbed near every day and looked like he was having the time of his life?? incredible effort, wonderful film. I presume he is a name.

If i'm right with the bits and pieces of info I've seen, I think that Wataru Nakajima is the brother of Toru Nakajima, who you might remember came over to the grit at one point and cruised everything he was pointed at

[mrjonathanr]

A nice finale there with White Wand, solo, on sight, as the rain begins to fall. Extraordinary.

[petejh]

For petejh:

 

Holy shit great looking route, slate-like moves on granite. But not a slab!? Don't think my bicep could handle that much abuse but the slabs in the backround at the end of the vid look nice..

[Fiend]

Yeah I tried to find some Pedriza slab videos but they are generally rubbish quality

[mrjonathanr]

Is late October generally decent for La Pedriza Fiend?

Thanks.

[Fiend]

But I will try...




(Not Pedriza but Cavallers is also ace, I'd love to go back)


Shows the style a bit.


As does this. I'm pretty sure I started up this one on an amazing bone dry zero humidity zero degrees centrigrade day....just as a hail blizzard hit.

FWIW the top slab of that F6c+ at Penmaenbach would be 6a in Pedriza, maybe 6a+.

P.S. Late October should be cool enough if it's dry. Look up weather for Manzanares El Real.

[petejh]

Cheers Matt.. I think 

I'm just going to assume there's a black hole in the grade band between French 6c and 8b+, i.e. all 7s and low 8s aren't any harder than the 6cs - which are nearly impossible - until it suddenly jumps to actually impossible for 99.9999 of people at 8b+.

Otherwise, like a fifth dimension I can't fathom what 8b+ granite slab means.

[jwi]

I met a Pedriza local in Taghia. He said no one goes there and climb anywhere near their grade. Except Arnaud Petit. He onsighed some low 8s straight away.

[petejh]

Being Arnaud Petit is cheating though.

[jwi]

yeah, but it would help in many situations in the mountains

[shurt]

That grit video is something else...

So many great routes (and beta!) and yes enjoyed the finale. Its made me want to climb White Wand even more now...

[Fiend]

  indeed. I found the grades were approx as follows:

 F6a = F6b
 F6a+ = F6b+
 F6b =F6c
 F6b+ = F6c
 F6c = F6c
 F6c+ = F6c+
 F7a = F7a??

Above that seems pretty much like the 5th dimension, yeah.

[SA Chris]

Yeah, Toru's older brother, according to Alex Ekins.
http://alexekins.co.uk/toru-nakajima/

Little bro went on holiday elsewhere

http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=69990

[duncan]

Jorg Verhoeven climbs The Nose of El Cap. free. Very nicely done. This really needs a British ascent, the hard bits are only short, so would suit a boulderer...

[jwi]

  Very nice vid. The difficulties seems to be concentrated to a few meters.

[Tommy]

Given that he seemed to be in conversation Tommy and Lynn, I wonder why he thought it was ok to have all his gear pre-placed on the hard pitches. I might be being harsh here, but I'm sure all other hard free ascents on the El Cap have placed all (or the majority) on lead? Even the Hubers who are euros do that - although I think they sometimes have draws on some of the pegs/bolts.

Edit: Amazing film though. Watched it on a big screen last night and even my wife was captivated. Impressive video considering it's not some REEL Rock/BigUP/Sender etc blockbuster production.

[Footwork]

Angelo clearly the hero of the story

[jwi]

Fixed gear is fixed gear. Any ascent with fixed gear in is already tainted, might as well clip a draw on it. That's at least my defence for having draws in on sport redpoints.

[duncan]

I was a bit disappointed at the amount of fixed junk on The Nose last year (4 months before this ascent). Both hard bits, the Great Roof and Changing Corners, could have been free climbed without placing any gear. I might have used a couple of small aliens as aid but these wouldn't be necessary if you were doing it properly. It's quite possible Verhoeven didn't pre-place any of his own gear. Certainly the fixed junk on the Great Roof traverse looked the much same as it had earlier that year.

The number of stuck cams on the easier pitches was also a surprise. They must make things a little more convenient for speed teams who can take mainly quickdraws and just clip the insitu gear.

[jwi]

Interesting! I've never had the chance to go to Yosemite yet, but already ten years ago a friend told me that you only need a few cams, half a set of nuts and a bunch of quickdraws to do the regular route on Half dome (different now... I know...).

Would you say that someone who'd be reasonably comfortable on mandatory 6b/c-slabs and 5.11-cracks could do the nose with one set of friends, one set of nuts and clipping fixed junk for the rest?

[Tommy]

Fixed gear is fixed gear. Any ascent with fixed gear in is already tainted, might as well clip a draw on it. That's at least my defence for having draws in on sport redpoints.

Do you know Angelo as well? Really cool guy with one of those lives that you kinda wish you'd been able to live a little of too.

[jwi]

alas, I never met the man