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General Climbing Discussion

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Pioneers of Tassie's Best Climbs 30-Sep-2016 At 8:34:08 AM Andy P

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On 20/09/2016 simey wrote:

>
>The irony of the British grading system is that routes are graded for
>ground-up ascents, yet the hardest routes rarely get done that way. I imagine
>when you repeated The Belles The Belles (E7) (Gogarth) in such style (ground
>up - no falls) that it would have been significant for the day. I bet if
>you had top-roped the route beforehand it would have been relatively straightforward
>for you (and you wouldn't have gone the wrong way!) in comparison to the
>the mind trip it turned out to be. By the way, how did Redhead approach
>the first ascent of The Belles? Did he establish it ground-up? Or did he
>rap inspect it first?
>
>Oops, missed this Simey, sorry.
JR rapped it, cleaned it and placed a very dubious peg but was never one for practising moves much. It wasn't on-sight but a magnificent achievement for 1980 in non-sticky boots. Two highly-accomplished Peak District climbers - E5/6 leaders, returned to Sheffield around '85 having had dreadful times apiece on a top rope recce. I recall they thought they'd seen a solitary, poor RP placement way up high and that the climbing was very hard, thin and snappy. Three of my friends (E7 trad leaders) from Llanberis abbed it to check it out and told me in The Padarn that night "No Way"!
The entire story is in 'Punk'. It really *was* completely & utterly harrowing. Has anyone else emitted an unpleasant odour from the pores of their skin when the danger level is that elevated?
Cheers,
Andy.