21

power club / Re: Power Club 752 6 - 12 May 2024

« Last post by Adam Lincoln on Today at 09:05:17 am »

Planning to do more of the same the coming week. I’ll be down in Weston on Tuesday afternoon/evening to Thursday if anyone needs their rope holding or would like to do some trad. punting.

Bad timing Duncan I am back up North

22

news / Re: significant repeats

« Last post by SA Chris on Today at 08:40:23 am »

Just give her the Olympic Gold now, so she can stop wasting time doing comps and get on with real climbing. She absolutely paths it.

23

news / Re: Aurora

« Last post by SA Chris on Today at 08:38:42 am »

Anyone explain

I was "fortunate" to be out with my neighbour who is a full astro geek. I was trying to take in what he was saying between filling a memory card, but the stronger the storm the further down the planet it activates the gasses in the atmosphere, so the "donut" of activity around the planet is normally restricted to poles, but in intense storms the donut moves southwards (and northwards in the southern hemisphere) so it was either to the south of us (for a while) or directly overhead. We reluctantly packed up and went home at 1, as i had to get up to take son to DoE hike, but set my camera up in time lapse video mode in the back garden, pointing straight up in the sky, and it was still intense. The stats stayed high (KP 8/9) until about 6pm, then dropped. It may have been my imagination, or something else, but I was climbing down on the coast and I swear i cloud see very faint rays in the sky with sunglasses on.

Anyway, not sure we will get another like it for a while; perfect solar storm, clear skies, still proper dark (it won't be in about a month), almost no moon and not so cold you are freezing your hands off (like the last big one on Mother's Day 2016 where I was getting hot aches, batteries were dying at a high rate and it was snowing by the time I got home).     

24

for sale / wanted / Re: FS: Original 5.10 Dragons and Moccasyms size 7

« Last post by WillRobertson on Today at 08:21:26 am »

Usually an 8, I'd say the moccs probably come up half a size to a while size bigger than the dragons after wearing in.

25

news / Re: significant repeats

« Last post by Dingdong on Today at 08:18:36 am »

About time we had a Janjawad thread

26

news / Re: The inevitable E grade thread

« Last post by andy popp on Today at 08:03:47 am »

That they largely got right (once I was looking at the correct conversion table). 
ie: for well protected trad routes
7a+ - 7b routes would be E5
7b+ - 7c  routes would be E6
7c+ - 8a routes would be E7
8a+ - 8b routes would be E8
8b+ - 8c routes would be E9
8c+ - 9a routes would be E10
9a+ - 9b routes would be E11
9b+ - 9c routes would be E12

This table is pretty much spot on from E5 to E8

I hesitate to prolong this discussion, but here goes ...

I would see this set of conversions as spot on for only a rather small subset of absolutely bombproof single pitch routes. Outside of that very specific genre of routes the ranges are too high, too narrow, and don't overlap, as they do in reality.

If the aim is to construct a more 'linear' version of E grades then I think that is doomed. In my view, the whole point of E grades + technical grades is their flexibility, not their rigidity.

This is also all rather abstract when we actually use grades in context. Even if we simply have a picture with a line drawn on it and no description, when we are actually stood beneath a crag we take in a range of visual clues that help us make sense of a combination of letters and numbers on the page: does the rock look solid; does it look compact and hard to protect; how tall is the cliff; how steep; are the lines obvious or hard to read, etc. etc. Of course, having a guide book description adds even more information.

27

news / Re: The inevitable E grade thread

« Last post by andy moles on Today at 07:02:54 am »

For the most part E grades work absolutely fine up to about E6.

For harder routes that are predominantly headpointed, just go down the line of a French grade (or Font grade if more appropriate) and danger rating. Have an E grade in brackets if you must.

If you're going to inspect and top-rope it first anyway, the E grade doesn't really matter, because you're going to acquire all the information you need in a safe and controlled way, and the physical difficulty + danger grade is easily adequate to inform you of whether it's worth a look.

This would also help make a distinction between routes that are predominantly ground-upped and predominantly projected, and the wadsome foreigns will be less confused.

Obviously this won't happen because people can't stand inconsistency, and because then the climbing consumer of Britain can't jizz themselves over E11 7a, and sponsorship and advertising revenue and carabiner sales related to hard 'trad' will collapse.

28

news / Re: significant repeats

« Last post by IanP on Yesterday at 11:50:26 pm »

Absolutely pathed it - looks to be nowhere near her limit!

29

power club / Re: Power Club 752 6 - 12 May 2024

« Last post by Fultonius on Yesterday at 11:20:16 pm »

Kinda quiet week for me.

Monday - Wednesday pretty much nothing, been a bit run down and tired recently so just had a chill.
Thursday, - myopics buttress with Andy. Good session getting reaquinted with The Vibes f7c. One working go, managed most of the moves. 2 semi half arsed RPs, but powered out at the crux. Bailed and had a go on Andy's route, precious 7b+, managed all moves but was pretty trashed as they're both pretty bouldery. Keen to get back even if 7c is now a multi trip affair...

Saturday - The Big Top, E1 on Aonach Dubh with B. He was keen to get his trad head back on, but got spooked by the exposure so I did all 4 pitches, great fun!
Sunday. Minging hot TCA sesh. Dropped one white on the flash and got it 2nd go (7A apparently..) one green flags and repeated a few other 6c/7a things. Did some PE work on the 50 board.

30

news / Re: The inevitable E grade thread

« Last post by Fultonius on Yesterday at 11:10:21 pm »

I think one issue might be that there aren't *actually* that many E6+ trad climbers regularly on here. And it's very peak-centric.

I guess what really need to happen in the E7+ bracket is for someone to create a graded list database, where people who have actually climbed the routes can give a suggestion of E grade, French grade, font grade for crux etc. And then rank them in their own personal order of difficulty. Crunch all the numbers and, voila!