GO HAZEL, GO HAZEL, GO HAZEL

[rydra_wong]

Breaking news: trad climber Hazel Findlay has sent Dave Birkett's E9 route Once Upon a Time in the South West:

UKBouldering thread
UKClimbing news item

This looks like it's the first female ascent of an E9*, as well as the third ever ascent of this route. And it's a Birkett E9; for context, Birkett doesn't believe in the existence of E10s, and Birkett routes tend to get very few repeats as they scare the fuck out of most people.

I've posted these before, but here's Findlay on Rainbow of Recalcitrance and making an attempt on the ridiculously stupid (and I mean that as a compliment) Gin Palace. Matt Segal and Johnny Dawes provide belaying and moral support.

{*It's almost impossible to compare it with trad routes abroad as this involves translating from the British trad grading system, which leads inexorably to wank. "It's very hard and dangerous" is the best I feel able to venture.}

Comments

[emperor]

Awesome stuff :)

[astridv]

Amazing. (The fall in that second clip looks pretty butterfly-inducing.)

which leads inexorably to wank.

Hah, it really seems like people will find it in them to wank about any topic... be it knitting yarn or fanfic or climbing grades.

[rydra_wong]

One of the hilarious things about the climbing community -- from my perspective -- is the many, many ways in which it's exactly like fandom.

The endless arguments over sport versus trad versus bouldering made so much more sense to me once I realized they're essentially shipping wars. *g*

[astridv]

The endless arguments over sport versus trad versus bouldering made so much more sense to me once I realized they're essentially shipping wars. *g*

I know, right! Sometimes I read the comments on Youtube climbing clips, to amuse myself... more often than not you'll have at least a few comments that go "indoor climbing, pffft, pulling plastic when you could climb a real mountain!" or "bouldering isn't *real* climbing!" or "toprope is for ninnies and doesn't count" or "buildering, how pointless, why would you want to do that!" Which is, so weird. If you can climb on it - cool, far as I'm concerned.

I'm always reminded of "fanfic writers aren't *real* writers".

[rydra_wong]

My OTP/form of climbing is much more real/valid/authentic than yours is!