To extend on what Rich Draws said; this is what i think, right or wrong its just an opinion and i'm bored at work. Sorry if this is old ground..
With regard to the Promise i thought the issue was really the font grade of the route, not the E grade as this was bound to be different due to the pads and faith in the gear.
Font 8a to 7b+. 'Conditions dependent' of course it is but he must have had some good conditions on one of the 10 days he tried the route. I suppose this comes down to being shit at grading. Fair enough.
walk of life E12; I just think James was incredibly nieve and perhaps, and dare i say it a little arrogant even if he didn't mean to be(i'm sure he didn't). Before you who know him well shoot me down all i mean is he didn't seem to place his route into context with other hard non gritstone routes such as Birkets If six was nine, confirmed at E9, Fr8a+ climbing with an unthinkable fall. I really dont think relating the difficulty of WOL to his hard grit routes is relevant simply because the style of the route is so different; big long pitch on edges, if anything, more akin to slate than grit perhaps. Perhaps James just isn't used to this sort of climbing(relatively speaking) and not as good at it as the Grit and bouldering. Of course thats ok, i am just suprised in view of this that he wasn't a little more conservative with the grading. It seems to me that Dave Mac is simply more qualified to grade it accurately just as James would be if Dave Mac did a super new route on the grit. I'm not sure if this post actually went anywhere, so appologies in advance.
This ain't an anonomous dig at james, i am just discussing the issue. The biggest shame is of course that all this has overshadowed the obviously awesome route and i'm sure everyone(esp James) is gettin a little tired of it now.
thats me lot, i will probably regret being bored at work and getting sucked in.....ah well
Jon ratcliffe