The Nebit's outcrops

• Hop on, 6b
• Egg Shells, sit-start, 6b
• Suntrap Wall L2R Traverse, sit-start, 6c

• Maple Syrup, sit-start, 6a
• Pancake, 5
• Goats arête, 5
• Honnolding (goat slab), 5

Hummell Rocks (Gullane) - Get Lucky link

 

Get Lucky - Sit-start as per 'Dumb Luck' but instead of going up, continue to traverse on poorer holds to reach the lip of the 'Mini-roof'. Follow that line rightwards to bridge back to Neanderthal and climb down easily to finish. 6b-ish?

Aonarachd (overhang lip traverse extension)

With the sand at a higher level, it's been easier to work out hard moves at Hummell Rocks this summer. Yesterday I managed to stick to my traverse project.

Aonarachd, which is the Gaelic for 'isolation', is an extension of my existing Overhang Lip Traverse. 

Instead of deadpointing to the good hidden flatty, I continue leftwards to the slopers of An t-Sliseag ('the slice') and finish left into the big jug of An t-Sliseag Cop Out.

I thought it would be 7a+ but I have done it only once so far after weeks of trying. Being tall allows me to use the low plinth as a foothold but it is very sandy and it is very difficult not to sleep. I have also tried to do it footless but then, sticking to the slopers is even harder.

So I reckon the grade is probably more like 7b for small people - unless you get very dry and cold conditions, which does not happen often at Gullane.

Here's a photo of the problem:

 And here's a video of my original Overhand Lip Traverse:

Bouldering at Hummell rocks (IV)

Hummell wall - Gullane beach (near Edinburgh) 

Overhang lip traverse, 6c+ (ish...)

Bouldering at Agassiz rock, Agassize XL

Agassize XL

An undocumented L-R traverse that follows the line of least resistance of the entire crag.

Start at Rock-over (6a). 
Follow the High Traverse (aka Louie-Louie, 6b) until it runs out and move into the high groove (resting is cheating!).
Then follow a line of good crimps above the shield and settle on jugs. Make a long move to the crimps of Passing the prow (7a+, first crux). A technical sequence allows to drop onto a juggy shelf.
From the shelf, easier moves allow to step onto a big solid boss shield.
From the shield move around the corner and drop into an overhanging crimpy traverse (second crux) till you reach a big jug on the lip of the black slab. 
Match hands on the jug, rock on the slab and finish it up.

Grade is roughly f7b/+. 

Since it's roughly 70 moves, it's probably worth F8a-ish in sport climbing money but I don't do sport climbing so I wouldn't know :-)

Bouldering at Salisbury Crags - Devo Max Traverse

Devo Max Traverse, 7a

Undocumented Line - Eliminate of 'Non-Juggy Traverse'

Traverse left to right as per 'Non-Juggy Traverse' to reach the sloping boss (no jugs allowed). 

Stay on slopers and move over the lip of the small roof till you match a bore hole rail (small crimp, crux). 

A knee bar allows to reach the higher part of the sloppy arete up (no jugs allowed on either side).

Finish standing above in a groove corner.

7a+ without the knee bar? ;-)

Route or boulder traverse?

There's a thin line between a boulder problem and a route.

In 1995, when the hardest grade ever climbed was still 8c+, cheeky Fred Rouhling announced he had climbed a 9b line in Les Eaux claires. Called Akira, the line followed the roof of a cave and finished through a very steep section of overhang.

Most Americans dismissed the grade. At that time, the strongest of them were struggling on 5.14b - roughly 8c? European climbers were stronger anyway. That same year, Swiss climber Elie Chevieux sent the first 8b+ on-sight. But even the Europeans weren't too inclined to believe Rouhling. 

French man Jibé Tribout, who was competing with Ben Spoon and Gerry the Muppet for the unofficial title of world's top climber, was no particular friend of Rouhling. But he went on to try Akira. He said he found it to be a very dangerous line because "you hang at three or four meters off the ground and with some of the moves, you take the risk to land flat on your back". He thought it was a quick step from 8c+ to 9b, but reckoned that Akira was nevertheless much harder than anything that had been climbed before (read his interview in On the Edge n°102 if you can find it).

There was also an excellent article by Pete Ward and Tim Kemple in Climbing Magazine, featuring a discussion with Alexander Huber where he questions Rouhling's track record : 

Huber gestures with his hand: “If Rouhling’s level is here,” he says, holding his hand at chest level, “and then with Akira it is here” — he holds his hand at his forehead — “then there should be many other routes around here.” The hand is level with his nose. “Where is this track record?” Huber asks. The hand moves to the side of his head, palm up. “Why hasn’t he done many other hard routes soon after Akira?”

 Tim leans into the table and says, “Because he couldn’t climb for almost two years.”

 “Why is this?” Huber asks.

 “Because he had two kids, and his wife had brain surgery and almost died.”

Well since then, Rouhling has actually repeated a few other routes, including Fred Nicole's Bain de sang, 9a, though Dave Graham, who has also climbed it, thought it was easier than Wolfang Güllich's Action Directe (first established 9a). But Akira, on the other hand, hasn't been repeated ; neither by Huber, nor by anyone else.

What if Akira was a boulder problem?

What's interesting in all that debate is that everyone defines Akira as a route. But on the Youtube video, Rouhling uses no rope, no harness, no quickdraw. What if it was a boulder problem? 

Its 9b grade would correspond more or less to an 8c+ in bouldering money. What else is available at that grade? Tonino 78 (Meschia, Italy, 15 moves, FA Mauro Calibani 2004), The Wheel of Life (Grampians, Australia, 60 moves, FA Koyamada 2004), Terremer (Hueco Tanks, USA, 11 moves, FA Fred Nicole 2006)? 

The 60 moves of The Wheel of Life are actually considered to be a boulder line (the original grade being V16). What would make it harder than Akira then?

Grading traverses II

Bouldering grade maths - adding grades

So with Full Frontal sent, I'm scratching my head again with traverse grades.

The problem with traverses is their hybridal status. The number of moves is usually way beyond what's in your average boulder problem. Indeed, I've counted 24 hand moves for Full Frontal - 64 moves if I include foot placements.

The fontainebleau approach is to use sports grade for traverse, e.g. if the hardest move is 6c, the traverse would be worth 7a+. The problem with such system is that there is no difference between a 7a+ traverse of 10 moves and a 7a+ traverse of 40 moves, not to mention the fact that traverses are still boulder lines and their grades should not take into account any other factor than technique, which is not the case for sports routes.

Another solution is to break the traverse into boulder problems, then grade these problems and use a logical rule to add the grades. Here's the Australian Bouldering proposal for instance:

"The rule of thumb that we use at AB.C is this: the addition of two boulder problems of the same grade equates to one boulder problem of the grade +2. So a V9 into a V9 should produce a V11. Everything else works around that premise. The following examples (based on V9) should help convey the idea:

V9 + V6 = V9,
V9 + V7 = V10,
V9 + V8 = V10,
V9 + V9 = V11,
V9 + V10 = V11,
V9 + V11 = V12,
V9 + V12 = V12"

Whatever system I choose though, one may argue that I won't really be objective because I have been trying that line for nearly two years.

I had done the R-L and L-R traverses last year and started to try and link them during last summer. Back from Galicia in September, I had to rework the sequence because it had become much harder after I broke a key crimp. 

Then November arrived with its usual rainy days. Then came December with its unusual 40 cm of pow. Work picked up. Life got busy. I was close but I needed more time.

So when I finally sent it two weeks ago, I felt like if I had climbed something really hard for my standards. But none of the moves is harder than 6b+/c and when I try to be objective, I must admit that it is simply of matter of stamina.

This and the fact that I never really enjoyed this type of climbing - lots of moves on small edges on a nearly vertical rock - made me wonder about the grade. Should I actually knock down a couple of grades because it does not suit me?