On 6/09/2011 spicelab wrote:
>Agreed. Absolutely stunning.
>
Yes, it was well filmed, and a fine climbing achievement.
>Knowing how delicate and intense some of the 7a-7c facey routes can be
>at Ceuse, it puts the achievement in perspective.
>
>The modesty is refreshing too.
This is not a dig at you spicelab, but I disagree somewhat, as I thought he talked it up quite a bit for dramatic effect, and found myself thinking I was totally immersed in a commercial.
The climbing spoke for itself and was more than sufficient for my appreciation, however the runouts he did bypassed plenty of protection options along the way (unjustifiably assumes the strength/endurance to hang around and place the gear).
The thought that kept coming to me while watching, is that the bloke is more a sport climber than a tradster. Doubling up on gear but with only single points of connection does not equal true redundancy. Clipping karabiner to karabiner (even if screwgates), is also less than optimal safety practice, but obviously met his need, given he had other gear nearby.
I also agree with ajfclark that the sling arrangement at 8 mins is dodgy, as he has girth hitched one to two others together. I reckon a 15m fall onto girth hitched slings would be asking for trouble with them cheesewiring themselves. Interesting that the orange karabiner he used to rack them became the clipping krab, but he would have been safer having an extra krab to connect those two pieces, ie leaving it there, and use another one on the extension to clip the rope too.
I don't know if the whipper at the end was done for the stunt of it, but I would have liked to been able to eyeball the placements and sling arrangements after that fall.
I'm not super impressed with people retro-tradding sport routes which they have completely wired. The runouts clearly aren't a huge issue for this dude as he was never going to fall off. Very nicely filmed though, how did they do that?
On 6/09/2011 One Day Hero wrote:
>I'm not super impressed with people retro-tradding sport routes which they
>have completely wired. The runouts clearly aren't a huge issue for this
>dude as he was never going to fall off. Very nicely filmed though, how
>did they do that?
Did you see the bit in the credits at the end? He falls off.
On 6/09/2011 nmonteith wrote:
>That video certainly makes headpoint grit climbing look like contrived
>bouldering.
Did anyone else see a photo in recent Rock and Ice of the 8m boulder they turned into a 2 pitch route?
I also think this is pretty contrived. Ditto that guy doing the same thing on a 5.14 in the New. Rapping and checking out the gear, having it all racked up, draws on, in order on your harness ... Ok, so he's a strong climber. But really, "i've long been inspired to climb at Ceuse on trad"??? And it was like a commercial. His sponsors certainly couldn't complain about the coverage they got. Still, good looking route. I could understand why people rave about Ceuse in the 8s from that. I continue to profess it's a crap crag if you climb in the 6s though and sadly, not much better these days if you cilmb 7s.