Ideas represent potential, and often it takes a good number of ideas before one of sufficient quality comes along that it’s worth developing. Interestingly, ideas and the freedom to develop them represent a fundamental of western society. And it just so happens that the less relevant ideas are rejected by consensus in an almost Darwinian manner. This is something that we all experience but seldom appreciate. It also happens to be the best social model we have, at the moment.
Some people have lots of ideas, that’s a good thing and realistically you can’t assume that they’re all going to be good. Nonetheless, some ideas happen to be so good that they become a part of our social fabric. If we were to consider the climbing community, 8a.nu might pass as an example. But before I digress, the breadth of ideas, another good thing, is a result of our acceptance of freedom of speech. When used within our social framework this concept serves us well to weed out those less than savory ideas that will always spring up along the road. The criteria being that we abide by a Darwinian model with imposed moral bounds.
So what am I getting at… Say what you will, but attempt to be constructive and advance ideas and concepts, if they don’t meet the test they will naturally go the way of the Dodo. Which brings me to the topic of 8a.nu. …
Jens Larssen has a great wealth of ideas and knowledge when it comes to climbing and, quite naturally, not all of these will pass the test of group consensus. So be it, ideas are how we grow as a community, if you disagree, help shape them or present alternatives, it’s called being constructive. The fact of the matter is that you have already, unknowingly, acknowledged this if you happen to have dropped by www.8a.nu. The converse being that should you wholeheartedly disagree, abstain, as I do from time to time. It’s really your only options for provoking change, should that be what you desire.
While on the topic of democracy and the will of the majority it suffices to say that only fascist or the ignorant consider preventing the freedom to voice ideas and opinions. The deconstruction of ideas without suggesting viable alternatives only debases the very fundamental the critic is relying on. One can only hope that the likes of Charles Graham and Jon Smedsaas can provide more constructive input toward improving 8a.nu, and other aspects of our climbing community, in the future. And that Mr. Larssen will listen to their suggestions.
There are, of course, many other climbing related issues that should be considered within our accepted social constructs, such as the ethics behind first ascents, grades and the use of bolts but I’ll save those considerations for another day…
Sending to the world...
"The Send" can now be viewed at Climbing:
http://www.climbing.com/photo-video/av/the_send_-_trailer/
and Urban Climber:
http://www.urbanclimbermag.com/photo-video/videos/the_send_-_trailer/
Await the hordes, I hear Granitgrottan is the best place to climb in the winter...
http://www.climbing.com/photo-video/av/the_send_-_trailer/
and Urban Climber:
http://www.urbanclimbermag.com/photo-video/videos/the_send_-_trailer/
Await the hordes, I hear Granitgrottan is the best place to climb in the winter...
Committed II Reviewed
Climbing, in it's purest form is about embracing the unknown. It's unclear if this has been realized on the British Isles. That was my preconception before watching yet another headpointing film, Committed II, and this time in series format, no less.Well, the mostly unknown. You know it, but you don’t, sort of.... Get it? Apparently, there are some subtleties to climbing and Dave and Paul of Hot Aches are meticulous in portraying the essence of a climb and the whole mystical journey a climber goes through as their life flashes before their shoddy gear a rather long way below them. The old adage of “DON’T FALL” is well alive and kicking in Britain.
It’s those very subtleties that keep popping up that’s the genius of Committed II. One moment you're watching Tony af Siurana talking about the beauty of Dave McCloud’s climbing and the next thing you know the Scot is down climbing PERFECTLY good bolts, five of them, in fact, just because he’s so versed in the fine school of hard British trad. It is a well known fact that the Brits wore long johns in Hawaii, because that’s what the military code said their attire should be. I digress, but may one day clearer heads prevail…
Anyway, somehow this all fits together and you’re left wondering why that woman belaying Dave doesn’t look at all like Claire. Sure enough the boys at Hot Aches have enough wit to take an occasional poke at classics like E11. This time it’s James Pearson in the closet and his girl seems to be so used to it that after putting her bike helmet away she promptly closes the door on him. Nonetheless, they do have a real talent for telling the story of a single climb. Throughout the film, and it takes the better portion of an evening, you get to see a handful of climbs, but the climbs and the characters invite you into their relatively sketchy world and hold you there, enthralled. That said, I have no immediate plans to go climbing in Britain, I’ll ask Tony just how many bolts he thinks it’s alright to pre-clip long before it comes to that.
But back to the subtleties, the presence of Dave weighs heavily on the film. Dave is the polished kind, almost like a scaled up version of our beloved Wulfie, and as such, we are forced to revisit Rhapsody. This time with Steve McClure, and he’s climbing on preplaced gear and talking about how it’s a really safe route and if it were at all scary he wouldn’t be there. Then he takes a 40 footer. Talk about fodder for the E-debate and how about that for subtlety? Hats off…
About now I should warn you that if you’ve a stateside adrenaline junkie, sit down, shift gears and give it a try, we all know variation is the spice of life. Right? Right, that’s the Walk of Life and it’s just stunning, and it’s a long, long way down and the striations all face the wrong way and I’m not even going to mention the grade or the ethics behind it, it’s simply stunning. It’s climbing that keeps you honest and James comes across as exactly that and then it starts raining….
It’s not often that a film lives up to the marketing behind it but Committed II is in fact five fantastic climbing stories. It’s weaknesses only enhances it’s strengths and leaves me wondering if for all that’s lacking in the British game that they might just hold a subtle key to what the essence of climbing is.
The Committed II DVD is available from http://www.tielma.com/ for 295 kr.
The Send
"The Send" documents Björn Strömberg's project Leroy 8c at Granitgrottan in Bohuslån. Björn spent 28 days and more than 120 attempts before finally sending...
The Sharp End Reviewed
There aren’t a lot of climbing films that I watch the day I receive them, generally I like to sit down with friends to see the latest adventure and sometimes they arrive in the middle of the week. But not this time, I had high expectations and every intention of watching the Sharp End as soon as I had it in hand.The ante in the climbing film genre has definitely been raised, though without doubt, it will fan the flames of peoples’ preconceptions of climbing. The Sharp End captures in detail, the perception of how non climbers view climbing; dangerous, on the edge of the void. This is simply a different realm of climbing. It’s not a film that gets your palms sweaty, that happens when you can relate to what you’re watching, in the spirit of good porn. Instead, for an hour your heart gets to pump considerably faster as you are immersed in riskier and riskier climbing, or?
Well, at least the stakes get higher, that is, the level of control the climbers display increases with the magnitude of the ascent. You are not left, as climbing films tend to, with the feeling that you too could do this, unless you are already familiar with the possibility of certain death. In that sense, this film reaches to a much larger audience, beyond just climbers and to adrenaline junkies of all varieties. It’s this cross over that Peter Mortimer executes flawlessly as he guides you from one rush to the next with the stakes increasing at each step. How else do you relate to pulling your b.a.s.e rig after a botched free solo? Or the soloist calmly recounting that before this paradigm shift a mistake meant death while now it means flying.
The Sharp End definitely lives up to it’s name in a broad sweep of vibrant characters living on the edge yet it only alludes to the secret of thrill seekers of all stripes, the search for that infinitesimal moment of clarity, focus, stillness. Instead, you are repeatedly brought back from the edge by the voice of a jacked up American thrill seeker. Dude, the visual magnitude belies the need for any SoCal connotations. That said, it’s unlikely that the Sharp End will inspire, that requires a desire to emulate. However, it will amaze and sets a new standard for climbing films.
The Sharp End DVD is available from http://www.tielma.com/ for 295 kr.
The Sharp End definitely lives up to it’s name in a broad sweep of vibrant characters living on the edge yet it only alludes to the secret of thrill seekers of all stripes, the search for that infinitesimal moment of clarity, focus, stillness. Instead, you are repeatedly brought back from the edge by the voice of a jacked up American thrill seeker. Dude, the visual magnitude belies the need for any SoCal connotations. That said, it’s unlikely that the Sharp End will inspire, that requires a desire to emulate. However, it will amaze and sets a new standard for climbing films.
The Sharp End DVD is available from http://www.tielma.com/ for 295 kr.
Focksta Firsts
Take a journey to Focksta with Dylan Smith...
See it at the Crimper Klätterfilmfestival 2008.11.08...
The Send
"The Send" documents Björn Strömberg's project Leroy at Granitgrottan in Bohuslån. Björn spent 28 days and more than 120 attempts before finally sending...
See it at the Crimper Klätterfilmfestival 2008.11.08...
Attempted Theft
Most nights I work on the film to around midnight, that is, if I’m not out climbing or filming. The last couple of weeks I’ve had vacation from my real job, so there was a week full of filming on the west coast and then a week in the mountains. I’d climbed just two routes and a boulder over that time and not a single mountain. I could feel the itch in the fingers and the need to get out and up there.
With Sweden shut down due to vacation and the beautifully warm weather, my usual climbing buddies were, well, they weren’t climbing anyway. Half the morning on the phone didn’t get the job done, so I was determined to aid if that’s what it came to. Besides, diversity is key and aiding is as about as intense as it gets. Don’t think so? Go find a sketchy couple of placements and then let’s talk. Given, it’s slow, fairly monotonous, fails miserably when it comes to acrobatic entertainment, but, there is that mental edge. And I needed a climb.
As luck would have it a couple of friends had a few spare hours in the afternoon before BBQ time so we headed to the closest alternative, a scrappy little crag in Uppsala that has one surprisingly stunning line. It’s a mixed line, starting with a crack and then moving on to a face that is unprotectable unless you’re British, and then with the crux at the top, if things went wrong, well, that’s why they have such good insurance.
We started on the other line, then attempted to steal our way up the face above the crack. It could have gone better… I’ve aided “Stöldförsök” many times previously, technically its aid anyway, and even managed to send it free clipping the bolts and rusty pitons on the face; but with BBQ time already here, my friends were off and I was left to rack up for a real aiding.
For me there’s a certain serenity to aiding, you have to trust yourself, there’s no “don’t fall now”, you get to know each placement intimately, that’s just how slow aiding can be. Nearing the top of the crack I was feeling pretty good, alone in the forest with a nice rhythm going, place, test, move up, clip and repeat. All that gear, and then just a simple trail of carabineers, there’s a certain esthetic.
About the time I was feeling pretty good I was nearing the top of the crack and well aware that the transition onto the face would be the crux. Now, if you’re free climbing it’s a pretty routine move, but standing in those aiders it’s a bit of a different story. And then I made a mistake. Normally you’d try and get as high in your aiders as you can and I’d just placed a #6 Walnut at the top of the crack before it’s crossed by a horizontal crack at the beginning of the face. So, I stepped up on the second step and could reach onto the face and the flared diagonal crack. Unfortunately, this crack flares outward. I figured, since I was high and standing well that I’d neglect the usual placement in the horizontal crack when you climb it as a mixed route.
So I stood up and it didn’t look good, I couldn’t reach as high as I wanted but there was the sketchy flare before the next sketchy flare. So a #3 Walnut set edgewise and flush to the rock. And this is the great bit about aiding, now you’ve got to test it, there’s no “I’ll just hold on…” Now, you throw down the dice and ease over into the aiders and if you’re still there, test it a little bit before you get brave and give it a little jump and then there’s that faint smile that you’re still there, a good feeling. So, into the other aider as well, and gingerly step up. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to put any force on the placement other than directly down and that left me desperately clawing at the diagonal side pulls you’d normally layback; but shifting my weight would mean changing the direction of force and I really didn’t want to do that. The routine free move was suddenly very touchy. There’s not much choice, the piece held a jump so I was going to move up, what else is there to do? So I struggled for a rather intense minute trying, hoping to move up without changing the balance.
It comes quick, you know before it happens but it comes quick and there I was laid out horizontally just two meters off the rocky deck with a #3 whizzing by my face. I’d had a long fall ending up close to the ground a month or so ago, for me there’s no fear, how could you move up with that burden? Instead there’s the need to get back up there, the system works, there’s knowledge gained and a new opportunity. Take it, a trip to the dark side and the ensuing questions of what could have been aren’t going to do you much good.
So I thought I’d have a quick drink of water and get back to it, except some jogger had just been running by in the forest and seen what’d happened and now he was just standing there watching. He didn’t say anything. I asked if he’d ever climbed, he said “No”. So I took my drink and clipped the jumars into the daisies, put the lowest piece back in that had popped, this time setting it to hold the upward force. And he just stood there. I clipped the jumars to the rope and headed back up explaining that there are other forms of climbing where you don’t hang on the protection. He might have said something but mostly he just stood there, watching, almost like filmmaking, but without a camera, for another 15 minutes. Maybe he wanted to see what would happen or be there just in case?
I topped out around sunset and cleaned in the dark. The blown flare is a little wider and the #6 took a good 5 minutes to get out. My wife’s voice on the phone was good, the air was crisp and now there wasn’t any water left.
The author flashing that one problem.
With Sweden shut down due to vacation and the beautifully warm weather, my usual climbing buddies were, well, they weren’t climbing anyway. Half the morning on the phone didn’t get the job done, so I was determined to aid if that’s what it came to. Besides, diversity is key and aiding is as about as intense as it gets. Don’t think so? Go find a sketchy couple of placements and then let’s talk. Given, it’s slow, fairly monotonous, fails miserably when it comes to acrobatic entertainment, but, there is that mental edge. And I needed a climb.
As luck would have it a couple of friends had a few spare hours in the afternoon before BBQ time so we headed to the closest alternative, a scrappy little crag in Uppsala that has one surprisingly stunning line. It’s a mixed line, starting with a crack and then moving on to a face that is unprotectable unless you’re British, and then with the crux at the top, if things went wrong, well, that’s why they have such good insurance.
We started on the other line, then attempted to steal our way up the face above the crack. It could have gone better… I’ve aided “Stöldförsök” many times previously, technically its aid anyway, and even managed to send it free clipping the bolts and rusty pitons on the face; but with BBQ time already here, my friends were off and I was left to rack up for a real aiding.
For me there’s a certain serenity to aiding, you have to trust yourself, there’s no “don’t fall now”, you get to know each placement intimately, that’s just how slow aiding can be. Nearing the top of the crack I was feeling pretty good, alone in the forest with a nice rhythm going, place, test, move up, clip and repeat. All that gear, and then just a simple trail of carabineers, there’s a certain esthetic.
About the time I was feeling pretty good I was nearing the top of the crack and well aware that the transition onto the face would be the crux. Now, if you’re free climbing it’s a pretty routine move, but standing in those aiders it’s a bit of a different story. And then I made a mistake. Normally you’d try and get as high in your aiders as you can and I’d just placed a #6 Walnut at the top of the crack before it’s crossed by a horizontal crack at the beginning of the face. So, I stepped up on the second step and could reach onto the face and the flared diagonal crack. Unfortunately, this crack flares outward. I figured, since I was high and standing well that I’d neglect the usual placement in the horizontal crack when you climb it as a mixed route.
So I stood up and it didn’t look good, I couldn’t reach as high as I wanted but there was the sketchy flare before the next sketchy flare. So a #3 Walnut set edgewise and flush to the rock. And this is the great bit about aiding, now you’ve got to test it, there’s no “I’ll just hold on…” Now, you throw down the dice and ease over into the aiders and if you’re still there, test it a little bit before you get brave and give it a little jump and then there’s that faint smile that you’re still there, a good feeling. So, into the other aider as well, and gingerly step up. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to put any force on the placement other than directly down and that left me desperately clawing at the diagonal side pulls you’d normally layback; but shifting my weight would mean changing the direction of force and I really didn’t want to do that. The routine free move was suddenly very touchy. There’s not much choice, the piece held a jump so I was going to move up, what else is there to do? So I struggled for a rather intense minute trying, hoping to move up without changing the balance.
It comes quick, you know before it happens but it comes quick and there I was laid out horizontally just two meters off the rocky deck with a #3 whizzing by my face. I’d had a long fall ending up close to the ground a month or so ago, for me there’s no fear, how could you move up with that burden? Instead there’s the need to get back up there, the system works, there’s knowledge gained and a new opportunity. Take it, a trip to the dark side and the ensuing questions of what could have been aren’t going to do you much good.
So I thought I’d have a quick drink of water and get back to it, except some jogger had just been running by in the forest and seen what’d happened and now he was just standing there watching. He didn’t say anything. I asked if he’d ever climbed, he said “No”. So I took my drink and clipped the jumars into the daisies, put the lowest piece back in that had popped, this time setting it to hold the upward force. And he just stood there. I clipped the jumars to the rope and headed back up explaining that there are other forms of climbing where you don’t hang on the protection. He might have said something but mostly he just stood there, watching, almost like filmmaking, but without a camera, for another 15 minutes. Maybe he wanted to see what would happen or be there just in case?
I topped out around sunset and cleaned in the dark. The blown flare is a little wider and the #6 took a good 5 minutes to get out. My wife’s voice on the phone was good, the air was crisp and now there wasn’t any water left.
The author flashing that one problem.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)