Happy days training Stoney quarry, learning from the master Ron.

mattbee – Member

Inspiring stuff, my leaning is more towards the likes of Dawes and Fawcett than Ondra though.

Some friends of the eldest from Salford Uni Climbing Club were climbing at Stanage a month or so ago when they were approached by a middle aged bloke who started chatting to them and showing them a few lines.

After a brief chat he opened his holdall and tried to sell them a few copies of his autobiography!
I’m ashamed to say not one of them had recognised Mr Dawes in his natural environment. 😀

So rusty spanner, who are you ? Must ask an acquaintance who’s in the Salford club.

I’m Heather B’s mum’s partner.
Friend of Dan O’B (who told me the above story), Graham H, Tim etc.

Meet up with them now and then at Ty Powdyr in Llanberis, Evilstock and a few other places.

Lovely bunch of people.
We’ve managed to persuade a few more of them to join the Karabiner, bringing down the average age considerably 😀

Was at Graham’s whisky tasting meet there a couple of weeks ago.
I’m trying to find that spoof silent black and white climbing vid they did on youtube, but my memory is failing me.

Mmm Llanberis

Last SFU trip taken by my little one.

Ride of the Valkyries ?

Ah, that’s the one – two idiots on a tandem.

Saw it a couple of weeks ago, very funny indeed. 😀

This is the one that makes me laugh:

[video]http://vimeo.com/59011088[/video]

Have we met btw?

Small world 🙂

Love this:
[video]http://vimeo.com/24093221[/video]

As time progressed and life got in the way I moved on to sport a bit like going to a trailcentre instead of a big mountain ride

Funny that, I moved on to sport when I realised that most trad climbing was rubbish and the best routes were the bolted ones on limestone. Topping out on a supposed lakeland classic and crapping myself on the choss and vertical mud was one of the last nails in the coffin. First visit to Boux and I never placed a piece of protection ever again. Always more inspired by the physical side of climbing rather than some of the cliche spiritual stuff that people go on about.

It’s funny, I had almost precisely the opposite impression. Nearly all the sport crags in my neck of the woods (Peak) were chossy and many routes were poorly bolted. Certainly then, the UK lacked more than a handful of top quality sport crags – no Portland etc at that time. I still think that’s the case to a certain extent, at least compared with the continent.

‘Most trad climbing was rubbish’ – really? I can understand someone who just not liking trad climbing, but the UK has some of the finest trad venues anywhere in the world.

Which Lakes route? I’m trying to work it out by your description…my guess for £10 – Extol…

Trad rubbish ? Rubbish

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PP1AK1Aqis[/video]

do love a nice bit of chilled out bouldering…..I love the fact it’s serious play and for me the most addictive form of climbing as you can always find a big cave with decent rock even it the weather is gash.

That’s it.

I’ve another day off tomorrow.

I’m off to piss about on the Bridestones for an hour or so, if it stops raining.
I can usually scare myself stupid two feet off the ground up there.

9b my arse.

Which Lakes route? I’m trying to work it out by your description…my guess for £10 – Extol…

Footless Crow.

I would tend to agree about the peak. Luckily a lot of my UK sport climbing was done in the Yorkshire Dales as my parents lived near Bradford: Malham, Goredale and Kilnsey are pretty good sport venues! World class even.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECkvgR1JWF0[/video]

Not bad for an eleven year old…

Footless Crow.

Dammit! That was my second choice! Supposedly very neglected and overgrown over there at the moment, certainly not a good benchmark for top UK trad. Lakes is notorious for extra vegetables with your climbing though.

I was probably a bit too lazy and untalented to get to the required grade to make UK sport worthwhile.

Have you climbed at places like Gogarth or Pembroke, or does it just not appeal?

Have you climbed at places like Gogarth or Pembroke, or does it just not appeal?

Gogarth never appealed and Pembroke would have meant a missed a trip to France or Spain or somewhere else sunny (and bolted) 🙂 .

This is where it’s at for me E11 / E10 hard core Grit Stone Bites Back !!!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-OdxfCrXe4[/video]

I’ve never seen any sport climbing in Britain that has remotely inspired me.
There are some great trad routes in the Lakes; the ones that were dug out of the hillside in the ’70s are now fairly overgrown and horrible.
If you don’t think there are any quality trad climbs in Britain, that’s because you’ve never climbed on Mingulay/Pabbay, The Ben, The Shelterstone, Creag an Dubh Loch or Slime Wall in the ‘Coe.
There might be a slight Scottish bias here, mainly due to having done most of my climbing up here (plus neither grit nor Gogarth really float my boat!)

I’ve never seen any sport climbing in Britain that has remotely inspired me.

You have obviously not seen malham, gordale or kilnsey.

I’ve climbed in all these places. The latter two are impressive but scruffy though the climbing is good. I dislike the whole experience of climbing at Malham (I did mess about on The Groove about 20 years ago and admit the quality of that is more akin to the limestone one gets abroad), probably ‘cos the climbing doesn’t suit me and I don’t like rock that I can see my face reflected in!
Anyway I’ve wasted far to much of my life arguing with people about trad versus sport..I really don’t care any more!!

ianv – Member

I’ve never seen any sport climbing in Britain that has remotely inspired me.

You have obviously not seen malham, gordale or kilnsey.

Yes have you tired the cave routes, or even the trad routes of gordale. Malham has some excellent bolted stuff and some top notch Trad, Slender Loris springs to mind.
Now as for Kilnsey well I never liked it as I was always pumped by the time I hit the roof, still got to go back and finish 50 for 5 as I could never get the last foot of climbing.

Blue scarr what about blue ?

look no helmet! and no grey hair!

Nice picture, used to visit high tor 80s & 90s. Whatever happened to handwag boots. All this trad verses sport is a throw back and makes realise what I don’t miss about climbing and why it’s so similar to cycling. It’s all climbing or cycling it just that some areas of the sport are more appealing than others to certain of us. You could be missing out though. What I would say though having been a ledge lizard back in the day, sport climbing appeals to posers, like roadies who like Rapha (was once complimented on my choice Lycra tights by John Dunn while at Malham, sad really git that I am I was pleased) As I am now a bit past it I understand that “doing it and being there” is what its about and what I remember most (others can disagree) It’s great to push yourself physically with the safety of those little metal men (as we sometimes called bolts, i loved them even those that were badly placed) but theres more to climbing than gymnastics, just being there whatever the route in beautiful places is now more important to me. I get that being there fix from a bike ride in the Dales of a shamble on a set of boulders in the peaks.
My 4 am ramble is no over, apologies.

Gogarth never appealed and Pembroke would have meant a missed a trip to France or Spain or somewhere else sunny (and bolted) .

I’ve worked out who you are now, thanks to the photo thread. I used to have a copy of The Power of Climbing knocking about somewhere…

At your standard, it has to be sport climbing. Trad routes with that kind of difficulty are few and far between, and usually death on a stick.

The slippy stuff and look no helmet, grey hair or ropes 🙂

Must go find my cover piccie from a few years earlier

I used to have those Hanwags. Stiffest thing on earth and not very sticky. Great for Pex Hill and good enough for Big Ron 🙂

realised posted pic of the hanwags in the wrong climbing thread!

bizarrely had car stolen and got everything back except those Hanwags

I never had Hanwags and I’ve never been on a magazine cover (unless the MUMC Journal counts).

I still can’t quite believe all the muttering about how it’s not trad whenever Ondra does another big route or problem, especially over on ukc. Ondra is so talented it is really scary. He’s probably comparable to Usain Bolt and Marianne Vos for being so far ahead of pretty much everyone else.

It’s quite telling that it’s almost bigger news when he doesn’t make something look piss.

Right, I’m off to ukb to see if ian has started a thread entitled “Now this is what biking is all about” and make curmugeonly comments if he has.

I had a pair f hanwags once, managed to get up Ulysses in them so they can’t have been that bad.

Totally agree with the Bolt comparison, Ondra is a machine and you only have to see what he has done at Font, how he happily skips bolts on the redpoint and how hard he climbs to know he would desimate any trad route if he could be bothered with that style of climbing. However, I suspect he will never be bothered with it as the moves are too easy.

Timb the mutterings will be because people aren’t inspired by what he does. That’s not taking anything away from the achievement but he’s raised the bar so high that people can’t relate to it. It’s so far from their frame of reference that it doesn’t inspire. Is also reminiscent of the infamous Arlie Anderson quote in OTE ‘it’s not the climb that counts its the grade’ (although people that knew her said that quote was taken out of context).

Also worrying I had my car stolen and the only thing that was missing when I got it back was an ice axe. Ondra is in a different league for sure.