UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => news => Topic started by: shark on April 16, 2020, 09:32:46 am
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Reported on Footless Crow FB page that he died last night.
Most probably know he’s been living with cancer for years though I don’t know if that was the cause.
Legend.
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A true inspiration.
RIP
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Sad news. That picture of him on the rasp in the old Froggatt guide with rope round his waist dangling uselessly to the ground...
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RIP. One of the true greats.
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What a hero. One of the all time greats.
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:wavecry: RIP
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtRBF96XEAAVjk9?format=jpg&name=small)
Going to watch the bit in Best Forgotten Art where he’s extremely grumpy with Johnny Dawes now.
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What a hero. One of the all time greats.
I was about to say arguably the greatest of all time in the UK. Moreover, he also seems to have been a deeply liked and respected man.
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Fuck, that's really hard.
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One of the true greats, what a legacy he's left behind.
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Legend.
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The king is dead.
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"How do you reach the holds, Joe?"
"I climb up to them."
RIP
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Joe's passing feels quite significant for some reason. When I first started climbing it was, for me, all about having an adventure and a laugh. Hearing about the Rock and Ice racing their motorbikes to North Wales and doing wet new routes on Cloggy and bivvying in barns etc was nectar and I lapped it up. The game has changed a bit now (but I'd like to think that adventure and having a laugh are still integral parts for me), and the passing of the post-war era's leading protagonist feels somehow like the closing of a book for that sort of climbing and lifestyle.
Obviously people will still be inspired by what he and his contemporaries did, but it will soon pass beyond living memory and be seen in the same way as Haskett-Smith sloshing up a wet gully might be - the preserve only of history.
I looked through the list of Joe's 3 star grit routes and was struck by how many had shut me down. Saul's Crack on my first or second day of trad climbing and falling off The Mincer while seconding spring to mind. It never ceases to amaze me that climbing could ever become established enough to then grow into something that could be an Olympic pursuit, given how perilously bold and serious it used to be.
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Obviously people will still be inspired by what he and his contemporaries did, but it will soon pass beyond living memory and be seen in the same way as Haskett-Smith sloshing up a wet gully might be - the preserve only of history.
Maybe but many of his routes will never be easy for a majority of UK climbers. In 50 years folk will still be standing on Great Slab looking down at the landing and thinking about asking for a top rope; pumping out somewhere near the top of The Rasp; or just unable to make the moves on Quietus. And maybe not all, but no doubt quite a few, will be wondering how he managed back then.
What a man, wish I could go out and climb some of his routes right now.
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I don’t tend to dwell on history - or do
any much trad :)
But the routes of his I have had the pleasure of leading (Cenotaph Corner especially) have always stuck in the mind - and a ‘Joe Brown’ route carries a deserved kudos. Pudding stone (I think) of grit stuck in there as a placement was still there when I did it (JB did it 68 years ago!!!!).
If my contribution to the world generates 1% of the pleasure, frustration and sense of achievement that he has given to others with his routes - then I’d be proud.
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A few amongst my first E grades on Cemetery Gates and so many nights bivi’d below it.
Pretty sure, there were almost exactly as many years between his first ascent of Cenotaph as there are between now and mine!
My Father wasn’t one for heroes, but I reckon Joe was pretty close, certainly a few mentions in my youth...
But, that legend will live on a while yet.
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In 50 years folk will still be standing on Great Slab looking down at the landing and thinking about asking for a top rope; pumping out somewhere near the top of The Rasp; or just unable to make the moves on Quietus. And maybe not all, but no doubt quite a few, will be wondering how he managed back then.
I don't see how you couldn't think that. In spite of advances in equipment, training, mentality and general approach to climbing, these are routes that can't be tamed by any of that. They are just plain hard.
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Indeed. I can't be the only bumbly quietly sn**gering when boulderers who are performing in the high 7s make a hash of Joe Brown style low extreme jamming and thruching.
RIP Jo and thanks for catapulting UK technical standards back up to the best elsewhere.
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A great obituary post by Jim Perrin in the Guardian 👏👏
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/joe-brown-obituary?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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Jim Perrin’s got more to thank Brown for than most- he’s practically made a career out of writing about him and his routes. I once spent three weeks laid up with a horrific chest infection and only a huge, new to me collection of old climbing magazines for entertainment. Every fourth or fifth instalment of Perrin’s months column in High Mountain Sports was basically an ever more florid description of the crux pitch of Vector- I had to keep checking that I hadn’t picked up the same magazine again. :lol:
His Hard Rock essays are brilliant though, the Right Unconquerable one in particular. I first read it when I was in the middle of “that golden age we all once knew when we first came to the hills” and it takes me back to that whenever I read it. Felt quite emotional when I came across it the other night.
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He did Right Eliminate at Curbar nearly 70 years ago. Think on that when you are grunting and sweating with fear halfway up that horrible offwidth. 70 years!
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He did Right Eliminate at Curbar nearly 70 years ago. Think on that when you are grunting and sweating with fear halfway up that horrible offwidth. 70 years!
At least he had a chock stone to pull on..... :worms:
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Thought it appropriate to share this here. Utter legend.
https://youtu.be/dmEz2GLo_wM
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He did Right Eliminate at Curbar nearly 70 years ago. Think on that when you are grunting and sweating with fear halfway up that horrible offwidth. 70 years!
At least he had a chock stone to pull on..... :worms:
No he didn’t.