[Paz]

It's that on-sighting E7 and above on grit must be incredibly hard.

I don't agree, its just not fashionable.

My punter's opinion is that even if the routes were bolted they'd be hard to onsight - you'd basically be going at them like you're trying to flash a boulder problem.  It's just because they're short and technical style routes, you get a lot of grade in not very much space or length of time. 

If you look at most of the routes of E7, or even E6 (though I don;t know what Ross etc. have done) and above that get onsighted, they're long, often stamina, routes, Dove Crag, Pembroke, Gogarth, Sron.  Macleod's done an E7 or two recently hasn't he?  If you're on ground at your stamina limit, as well as the likelihood of gear and `safe' runouts you're more likely to be able to faff your way up, sorry use craft and cunning.  Where as you can be as strong as you liek on natural grit, if you use a duff sequence, the `wrong' smear or pebble, you're off, cos you probably also have to climb in a committing fluid way.  Add to that conditions and weirdness and you see that you can't buy talent.

[Jaspersharpe]

I agree with parts of what you're all saying (grimer, JB, Paz). The reasons I think that there aren't many people onsighting E7 and upward on grit are partly that the routes are quite hard, partly that even if they're not that hard they're easy to fluff and partly that there aren't that many capable people interested in pushing the standard forward.

Grimer - no offence taken at all. I didn't do anything remotely hard on grit partly because I didn't reckon I was that good on it, partly because yeah the routes are tough to onsight but mainly because I wasn't really interested.

You have to remember this was before the headpointing 'explosion' and nobody I was climbing with was interested in climbing hard grit. People like Malcolm, Smythe, Cupboard, Gaskins and even Gresham back then were all just into training, bouldering and going to Buoux. Gritstone was nice for a day out bouldering and soloing easy stuff but the cut off was E4/E5 for me because anything harder would have taken proper commitment instead of being fun.

Perhaps if I'd not stopped when I did I would have done more but I doubt it as top roping stuff and then leading it never really appealed to me. Onsighting was always what I enjoyed on grit but the level of commitment you're talking about with most E7s was certainly not. I think I got scaring myself out of my system by the time I was 14.

[fatdoc]

That's a really good point, the historical context of what was done when to regard to what was the *in* thing at the time has a bearing on all of this grit acsent style for sure.

Certainly for me i got into sport climbing rather late. I was into the pre-practice and then ascent style on grit for a few years before I discovered bolts, and loved it. At the time I have to say it really wasnt in vogue, most of the hard grit routes / crags were deserted.

The only true sheff devotees at that time that i knew were into the same sort of repeats were mike lea, shaun huston and  nige prestige... no doubt there were others.

For the history books: before mobiles and the tinterweb some early ascents were much prized and often who did what when was rather obscure... I remember well cleaning the chalk mark tick and "mike" written next to the starting holds of adam smiths before i led it!!!