The most impressive piece of climbing you’ve witnessed?

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Re: The most impressive piece of climbing you’ve witnessed?

Great thread.

Watching Andy Earl on the old berghaus wall in Newcastle in the early 00's. Had just moved up for uni having so far thought that hard climbing was e1. Watching him was like watching a different sport.

One of the Dawson brothers, after absolutely thrashing himself on various sections of Brian all day long, again and again, then doing a casual lap on tuppence and making it look piss. Having spent the afternoon flailing on it, I have never fekt like such a punter.

My mate Nic doing hitchhikers sit start. Levitated up it with ruthless strength. Dawning realisation that we weren't on the same level.
 
spidermonkey09 said:
Watching Jim Pope flash RnP this summer is right up there for me. I'm sure Wood FT, filming, remembers my awestruck face. I'd been flailing on the bottom all day and he just casually minced it. The 'good' hold at the end of the roof is a one pad, slightly slopey crimp and as Jim inched onto it (its really reachy and requires a pull on a dire sloper) his whole body relaxed- it was like he knew he was back on casual ground for him. Sadly the vid below doesnt have the bottom but you can still hear me and WFT vocalising amazement in the background as he hangs on the holds for ages.

I forgot about that, very impressive display.
 
Technically I assume it was Alex Megos attempt on Bibliographie, when he fell off 4 moves before the top. But it was from far away, so he was just one stick insect among many on the biographie sector.

I always find it more impressive to watch great feats when I have direct knowledge of the holds. Like when hanging on a photographers rope above the crux of a hard route, or whenever other climbers onsights my projects.

That said, I saw Igor Koller well into his sixties climbing on his stomping grounds on the sandstone in Adrspach. True mastery.
 
I was there to see Marc do Brad Pit. It was pretty incredible. These days a high foot seems obvious but it was so visionary then, and he knew he was going to do it that way from the photos of Jason on it.

But that’s not the most incredible piece of climbing I’ve ever seen. That honour goes to Edu Marin at Santa Linya, on a RP burn of some 9a - I forget which one.

At about half height he’s in trouble, so skips a clip. And another, and another, and just keeps on going, ignoring each clip as he goes. At about 2/3rds the full height of the cave and in a definite deck out position, he lets out an almighty power scream and jumps to a mono for the right hand.

He stuck the jump. With a finger that had undergone surgery a month earlier.

His belayer flat out refused to let him have another go that day.
 
Here is a good one.

In Rocklands, roadside, just wrapping up one of my 1000's of Monkey wedding sessions. Out from the bushes, Barefoot Charles appears, wearing what I can only describe as a towel around his waist, some fucked tracksuit bottoms, a chalk bag and a book. Nothing else, no pad, no fan, no ladder, no Bluetooth speakers.

He has come to repeat Monkey Wedding for the camera. He proceeds to lay down his towel thing, I ask if he wants to borrow my pad, and he just looks at me, then sets off like some kind of lizard and climbs MW. Turns out he did it a further two times that day.

It also transpires, he couldn't afford to camp, so he slept under his towel, in the caves above the campground. Bonkers.

I have also seen him in font, got to say in terms of pure talent and movement, he is hands down the most impressive person I have ever seen.
 
Cool thread. Disappointingly, most of the things that spring to mind are watching people like Buster and Bosi indoors on a board...

As an honourable mention, the most simultaneously impressive/disappointing was probably giving Kai Lightner the beta as he went up Era Vella. Incredibly strong, fit and flexible, but bewilderingly bad at understanding beta and moves!
 
Smally on Nerve Damage at Ardmair - https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/ardmair_crags-298/nerve_damage-345339 the updated descriptions is mine from abbing and cleaning it for an onsight attempt that rapidly ground to a halt. I'm quite good at seeing the potential in stuff that is many grades beyond me, but this seemed really properly hard and he let out a rare power scream on a subsequent headpoint (which was the next day after I'd had an ace morning at Reiff and Smally seemed to mostly want to chill out and drink tea but I was quite keen to trot back to Ardmair and repay belaying, also had a great day at Mungasdale the next day with him onsighting an E6 and me finally doing Thelonious).
 
Ged said:
My mate Nic doing hitchhikers sit start. Levitated up it with ruthless strength. Dawning realisation that we weren't on the same level.
Nic the dentist? He was alarmingly strong - climbed with him a fair few times, mostly at Kilnsey. Is he still climbing? Haven’t seen him for years, but spotted his name appearing on Lakes fell race results a couple of years ago.
 
Maybe watching Johnny on the 1st ascent of Indian Face should feature. I didn't fully grasp the level at the time, but did get the seriousness and moved off to the side so he wouldn't land on me if he fell off the top.
 
Stabbsy said:
Ged said:
My mate Nic doing hitchhikers sit start. Levitated up it with ruthless strength. Dawning realisation that we weren't on the same level.
Nic the dentist? He was alarmingly strong - climbed with him a fair few times, mostly at Kilnsey. Is he still climbing? Haven’t seen him for years, but spotted his name appearing on Lakes fell race results a couple of years ago.

Yes. He mainly runs these days, but when he came down to see me last year he very nearly did cider soak in a session.
 
Great thread. Talk amongst yourself if you’ve heard this one before...

Corniceman and I spent fall 1981 in Camp 4, mostly on a site adjacent to the Columbia boulder. Only two people had climbed Midnight Lightning at that point, Ron Kauk and John Bachar, but it attracted daily attention from strong people of all nationalities. I can remember a group of Yorkshiremen including, if memory serves, Andy Brown (back like the proverbial condom stuffed with wallnuts, webbo?). A few people could hold the lightning bolt for a second or two but I never saw anyone get any further.

Every day, shortly before 5pm, a crowd would gather in anticipation of what was to follow. Bachar would appear, like clockwork, having nearly completed his camp four bouldering circuit. A brief chalk-up then he’d fire it, seemingly effortlessly, first go every time. He’d saunter off letting the rest of the mortals to resume their futile efforts.
 
The one that sticks in my mind would be ‘93/‘94, bunking off 6th form on a Wednesday morning so we had a full day out. Got the train to Grindleford and walked up to Froggatt. We stopped under Diamond Cracks, which I reckoned was doable with my meagre rack of 5 wires, 1 hex, 3 quickdraws and a sling.

We had two climbing books in the school library - Bill Birkett’s classic climbs of Northern England and Fawcett on Rock. Who should arrive and put his beer towel down - none other than Big Ron himself. He sets off along Oedipus (as I now know it to be), disappears round the arête then a few minutes later reappears and reverses back to the rest at the start. He gets a piece of chalk out of his chalk bag, puts a mark on the rock and then repeats the process I can’t remember how many times. When he got to the allotted number (or got bored), he stepped off, brushed off his chalk tally, wished us a good day and wandered off. In that time, I’d made it about three quarters of the way up Diamond Cracks.

Not the hardest piece of climbing I’ve seen, but it was just the effortlessness of it all.
 
Stu Littlefair said:
...
But that’s not the most incredible piece of climbing I’ve ever seen. That honour goes to Edu Marin at Santa Linya, on a RP burn of some 9a - I forget which one.
...

Great story! Made me remember something similar in Hourai in Japan, when I gave advice that could have killed a man.

I was hanging at the anchor on the lip of the route in the Haikara iwa sector. Haikara iwa is very steep and the routes stay quite close to the ground. A guy was trying an 8b+ to the right of me. He skipped a draw everyone skips, and couldn't clip the next because of pump. Decides to do another move to the jugs on the lip and clip the next draw from there. Despite him hanging from real jugs on the lip of the roof with what looked like a good heal hook, he couldn't let go of any of the hands. Looking increasingly desperate, a fall at this point would surely have been a ground fall, most likely terminal. Everyone at the crag had gone silent. I looked over and decided that the climbing up to the anchor looked trivial so after a while I told him in low voice: "keep climbing!". He shakily soloed the rest and managed to clip the anchor. Lowered to the ground and started crying.
 
duncan said:
Great thread. Talk amongst yourself if you’ve heard this one before...

Corniceman and I spent fall 1981 in Camp 4, mostly on a site adjacent to the Columbia boulder. Only two people had climbed Midnight Lightning at that point, Ron Kauk and John Bachar, but it attracted daily attention from strong people of all nationalities. I can remember a group of Yorkshiremen including, if memory serves, Andy Brown (back like the proverbial condom stuffed with wallnuts, webbo?). A few people could hold the lightning bolt for a second or two but I never saw anyone get any further.

Every day, shortly before 5pm, a crowd would gather in anticipation of what was to follow. Bachar would appear, like clockwork, having nearly completed his camp four bouldering circuit. A brief chalk-up then he’d fire it, seemingly effortlessly, first go every time. He’d saunter off letting the rest of the mortals to resume their futile efforts.
Yep I was there. I remember one of the scousers putting in to perspective though as Bacher rode off on his BMX. Saying “ What the riding round on a little kids bike about”
 
Jesse Dufton climbing teck crack at the roaches . Then he did an hvs, not hard but when you consider he can't see and he was trusting what I was telling him. Amazing!!!
 
One thing that sticks in my mind is in 94/5 watching Nick Sellers run up Cry Freedom. I was at the belay of New Dawn and watched the whole thing, it seemed to take him about 3 minutes, he didn't seem to stop moving from the ground to the belay. It was more like flowing over the rock than actual pulling on holds. Proper liquid movement.
 
Andy F said:
One thing that sticks in my mind is in 94/5 watching Nick Sellers run up Cry Freedom. I was at the belay of New Dawn and watched the whole thing, it seemed to take him about 3 minutes, he didn't seem to stop moving from the ground to the belay. It was more like flowing over the rock than actual pulling on holds. Proper liquid movement.

Nic is an amazing climber isn't he. The guidebook to Arapiles refers to his exploits there in almost religious tones.
 
mark s said:
Jesse Dufton climbing teck crack at the roaches . Then he did an hvs, not hard but when you consider he can't see and he was trusting what I was telling him. Amazing!!!

Good call. Jesse doing Blizzard Ridge at Rivelin with his partner who hadn't climbed it either guiding him fron the ground on a walkie-talkie. An awkward and precarious route with crucial and specific gear....
 
Fiend said:
mark s said:
Jesse Dufton climbing teck crack at the roaches . Then he did an hvs, not hard but when you consider he can't see and he was trusting what I was telling him. Amazing!!!

Good call. Jesse doing Blizzard Ridge at Rivelin with his partner who hadn't climbed it either guiding him fron the ground on a walkie-talkie. An awkward and precarious route with crucial and specific gear....
Actually Jesse cruising Forked Lightning (on video) was pretty darn impressive. He made it look pish. Which it's obviously not.
 
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