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xanx
Jul 13, 2003, 4:52 PM
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i wouldn't doubt that he did the climb... it would be way low if he claimed to do it but didn't actually redpoint it.... i think the big question is the grade. others have mistakenly pointed to his ascent of Orujo as proof that he can climb so hard, but (lol) the problem is, he is in the same boat with Orujo as with this - no one has repeated Orujo or confirmed the grade, so you can't excalty say "well, he did Orujo, and he said this is harder, so he is obviously strong enough that it could be a .15c..."
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junkie
Jul 14, 2003, 4:48 AM
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L'Autre Cote De La Ciel is a 9a put up by Rouhling in '97 in Eaux Claires.
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dnruss
Jul 14, 2003, 4:52 AM
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5.15c is so ridiculously hard i dont want to think about it.....
ahh it hurts to think about 5.15.STOP SSTTOOPP!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOO...
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maohaihuang
Jul 14, 2003, 8:03 PM
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i think what Alex Huber wanted to say is just that -- sufficiently document
it or face the consequences that had happened in the past. His talk
about flashing 9 is about the things people could think of, hence
showing parallels between the last 9b claim and this one.
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melekzek
Jul 14, 2003, 8:15 PM
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In reply to: if it took you 3 years to dial the moves of a route
I guess it took three years to get to the level of the climb. It is not only dialing the moves, you see...
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akd
Jul 14, 2003, 9:40 PM
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First, I want to state clear that this following opinion is completely mine and totally hypothetical, since I didn't see nor (obviously) redpointed chilam -balam... (I wish, jeje).
Part of the anger of Alex Huber, in a very arrogant and kind of "daddy" position towards the other climber (Fernandez), is that it may have took Fernandez a lot to redpoint Chilam, but that's not good enough to proposed the grade 5.15c since he, for example, had to work a lot to do OM (lost 10 pounds, trained a lot specifically for it, etc..., when he returned for the photos he couldn't do it again) and that's "only" 9a, 5.14d.
The level of Fernandez climbing should be in no discussion (8a at 14, 8c at 17, firts, and confirmed 8c+ of Spain...), but, nevertheless, the proposed grade of 9b+ could sound out of bounds, since he didn't do any other 9a, 9a+, or 9b, than his own Orujo. As I said in another post, had he tried Realization or OM (both long routes, not like Action Directe), he may have had a harder time than in Orujo, thus giving to them a grade (or half grade) more than his previous hardest, Orujo (9a+), but that's is just plain speculations...
I admire Huber for his accomplishments in the sport area, but this letter is not something of what he should feel proud of it, since there are mistakes (redpointing a 9b+ after 3 years doesn't mean that you have to onsight a 9a...) and charge with an attitude that should never exist between fellow climbers.
Time and tries will tell if it's "only" 9a, 9a+ or, who knows, 9b+; but it's obviously pretty damn hard.
ps: how do I post a photo here?
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akd
Jul 14, 2003, 9:48 PM
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I want to post two photos of the route mentioned before (dé l'autre cote du ciel), so everyone can take a look at it
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xanx
Jul 14, 2003, 10:21 PM
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also when someone says "It took him 3 years to do..." as evidence of its difficulty... well, how often did he work it during those 3 years? every day? even every week? or was it like "I tried it a bunch of times over the course of 3 years"?? A friend of mine (who boulders v11) recently sent the Illustrious Buddah in the Gunks, a v8. He has flashed v8. he first tried Illustrious over a year ago. so, do you say it took him over a year to do Illustrious? of course not. he only actually got on it about 20 times. But technically, it did "take" him over a year.
Maybe Huber could have been a bit less harsh, but some of his points are very valid. First off, the guy should at least have a number of 9a's under his belt (and/or an attempt at Realization...) before proposing 9b+ (or 9a+....). also, huber makes a good point - if you can redpoint 9b+, you should at least be able to redpoint 9a in less than a day. Think about Sharma and Realization - 9a+ redpoint and he has onsighted stuff as hard as 8c+ (5.14a right?) or harder (Biotop is a 5.14a - he onsighted it). I would be very surprised if he could just tick off Action Directe, OM, Intermezzo, Vakuumgeist, The Fly, Kryptonite, Biographie, Livin Astro ect... all in under a day each (and hopefully flashing at least one).
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akd
Jul 15, 2003, 12:07 AM
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First of all, 5.14a is 8b+, not 8c+ (not criticizing). Second, according to Huber's logic, Graham, that sent Passion (8c+) in 4 tries, should definitely be able to redpoint Realization (he has already tried it like 25 times in the last couple of years, without success so far)...Or Ramonet, that took 5 tries to redpoint Kinematrix, won't have much trouble in other 9a's....
As stated in this thread before, some people fit just better to one kind of difficulty than other. The Fly is a crimpy short route. Vakuumgeist and Intermezzo (almost vertical the last one) are not very long also, while OM and Open Air are much longer ones, for instance. Orujo is very steep and long (it's in Archidona, in a cave, and it's 140 feet), so it's Chilam Balam (obviously longer), so both routes CAN be compared...
Another thing about Huber, I also would like to see a video and/or photos of Bernabé sending this mounstrous route, but not because he "owes" it to the "climbing community"..., just because it would be freak me out! (where's the video of OM??)
Lastly, not everyone is so in-loved of the photographs as Alex Huber is, so if Bernabé Fernández doesn't give a sh*** of taking photos of himself in the route for getting more money from sponsorships as Huber does, it's no reason to criticize him as if he owes it to "us" (the "climbing community"ż?).
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melekzek
Jul 15, 2003, 1:00 AM
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In reply to: I want to post two photos of the route mentioned before (dé l'autre cote du ciel), so everyone can take a look at it
you can either submit the photo in this site, or put somewhere on the web, then simply put this :
(img)http://freecrappywebserver.com/somecrazyusername/therouteeverybodyistalkingabout.jpg(/img)
using "[" instead of "(" and "]" for ")"
there you go
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akd
Jul 15, 2003, 2:26 AM
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Thanx
Since the phto I've got is from a french magazine (the pic is great), I think that maybe there'll be a problem to submit it to rc.com, and the I tried the freewebserver option but it was soooo long that i quit, so I'll post a link to a british site that has a photo of it (not too good though):
http://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.html?id=721
Credits to dan evans and ukclimbing
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vertical_reality
Jul 15, 2003, 1:02 PM
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For anyone interested the following is an article from 8a.nu.
"After three years of work, on July 4th, Bernabé Fernández finally managed to redpoint his mega project at Villanueva del Rosario near Málaga, Spain. The route is more than 80(!) meters long, has almost 400 moves and is, you guessed it, super steep. According to Fernandez Chilam Balam weighs in at the never before proposed grade of - 9b+ and is entirely natural. We haven't heard much about Barnabč has been up to for the last couple of years, I guess we now know why...
The Andalusian's hardest before this was his own, unrepeated, Orujo, 9a+, at Archidona.
Now for the million dollar question: Could this route really be 9b+? In order to make his claim credible it's now up to Fernadez to offer the climbing world some kind of proof, showing he's really miles ahead of everyone else. Normally a climber should be able to onsight routes around three grades easier than his redpoint level. Considering the amount of work he's put in on this route, in Fernandez case four grades is maybe more fair, but still, no one has been even remotely close to onsighting 8c+... Can he do it?" - 8a.nu
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rockprodigy
Jul 15, 2003, 2:47 PM
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I have to agree with Huber and the last post. "Most" sport climbers can on sight about 3-4 letter grades below their redpoint level...depending on indidvidual strengths, and how much you put into redpointing a route. Think about your own climbing...how many 12a redpointers have never on-sighted an 11a? The same principles should transfer to the higher grades. If it's really 15c, then 14c should be pretty easy for this guy...he should be able to on-sight at leaste one.
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kalcario
Jul 15, 2003, 3:17 PM
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I think Huber kind of shoots his mouth off a little bit with the blanket assertion that you should be able to onsight 3 letter grades below your redpoint level, just looking through the scorecards on 8a.nu you see many people who've done 14a yet have not onsighted 13a, there is a lot of muscle memory that goes into a hard redpoint that does not necessarily carry over to other routes. He should be patting this Fernandez guy on the back for sticking with his project so long and not altering it as he apparently has done in the past with other routes, and who cares, really, about the grade. Maybe Fernandez is playing head games, grading it to motivate others to repeat it and get an ego boost for debunking an inflated grade.
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maohaihuang
Jul 15, 2003, 8:31 PM
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Only because Huber wrote it in English doesn't mean you should
read it between the lines. Some of you guys apparently never know
how Germans talk (in any language).
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djmeat
Jul 15, 2003, 8:58 PM
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In reply to: To quote from the translation: "I have the made blue legs and the knees in alive meat".
alive meat???
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sticky_fingers
Jul 15, 2003, 9:53 PM
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I took that from the webpage Kalcario posted to translate the original story of the ascent from Spanish into English. I, along with most of the people who posted on page 1 of this thread, found the translation(s) funny.
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bigdan
Jul 16, 2003, 4:24 AM
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chris hasn't onsighted .14b yet. so much for that.
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xanx
Jul 16, 2003, 4:35 AM
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ok, so maybe sharma has only onsighted up to 5.14a, so say u sould be able to onsight say, 4 to 5 grades below your redpoint. in any case, someone who can redpoint 5.15c should have no trouble onsighting 5.14b and should be able to onsight 5.14c. So i think Fernandez should give Biographie or Livin Astro or some other 5.14c a try.... so how long it takes him... he can do Realization while he is at it...
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rockprodigy
Jul 16, 2003, 3:28 PM
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I think Huber gives the benefit of the doubt. He doesn't just say outright, that he must be able to on-sight at certain level...he also says that he should be able to do 14c in a couple tries, or 14d in a day, etc., etc.. Huber suggests several scenarios in which Fernandez could prove his ability establish the 9b+ rating besides just on-sighting.
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vertical_reality
Jul 16, 2003, 4:10 PM
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By the sound of the letter, Huber is just trying to help Fernandez protect his credibility.
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igcuesta
Jul 16, 2003, 5:09 PM
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In reply to: By the sound of the letter, Huber is just trying to help Fernandez protect his credibility.
By the sound of the letter, Huber seems arrogant and fatherly. He may be right, though.
March, 1996 (Desnivel mag #136). Alex Huber, talking about B. Moon attacks over the first 9a's proposals (including Huber's), stated on an interview:
"(...)First ascenders definitely never know their own creation grade. Thus, they should give a suggestion that MUST be respected until the route is repeated for the first time(...)"
Live to see...
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joshy8200
Jul 16, 2003, 5:33 PM
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You know I have a hard time understanding how Sharma, Graham, Loskot, Julien can begin to grade their routes. But to me it would seem that if it takes me two or three tries to redpoint 5.10d...then for it to take two years or even not be able to redpoint 5.11a there is something wrong with that.
This being the case with Dave Graham...the guy has sent two solid 5.14d (and from seeing and hearing about his routes in Rumney...those things are sick). For Realization to just be the "next step" at 5.15a?!?! Doesn't that seem a bit of an understatement.
In the words of Dave Graham..."look at the holds on this V13...they're buckets...it can get a lot harder." With a rational like that I don't question that routes can progress through the 5.15 grade.
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hasbeen
Jul 16, 2003, 5:42 PM
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Huber makes a fair number of good points, however the rules he cites to validate the grade are ludicrous. With specific training for one route only it's easily possible to skip many grades on subsequent ascents. His points may be valid for someone that travels and climbs full time, but someone that climbs only specific routes with one goal in mind has no reason to amass such a list of accomplishments first. On sight climbing is almost a whole other dicipline and the said climber may never even attempt to push their on sight limits. If, say, they found a route requiring a series of moves far harder than anything they've attempted or seen, specific training, and not climbing, may be the only way for them to succeed (like Gullich on Action Direct). Therefore, all other climbing requirements get thrown out the window when speaking of one hard ascent.
But, rating something so much harder than anything else certainly takes some huevos and a brazen attitude. He's got to know that the climbing world is going to cry foul and that only but subsequent attempts by other top climbers will this grade become validated. Until then, it will be universally doubted. Therefore, if he calls it 15c and it gets quickly repeated he's going to have a bit of egg on his face. Historically, there have been countless examples of this. Conversely, Chris took no risk with Realization by not grading it, or purposefully dismissing its difficulty. My guess is that Realization very hard indeed, maybe the hardest yet. My guess is that this route may not be quite as hard as advertised, though I hope it's not because I like the idea of someone on the fringe establishing a futuristic climb. But my guess is irrelevant and time will tell. I do find it interesting the Akira has held up over time as it was generally dismissed when first established.
However the grade settles out, the climb itself sounds very very cool and I'm sure will end up as some sort of classic, no matter what.
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tonydevo
Jul 17, 2003, 4:19 AM
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here's a quick list of the hardest sport routes around just to get the facts out:
Chilam Bilam 9b+
Akira 9b
La Rambla 9a+
Realization 9a+ (speculated grade, not stated by FA)
Flex Luthor 9a+ (speculated grade, not stated by FA)
Orujo 9a+
L'autre cote du ciel 9a/9a+ (Yuji says harder than Hugh 9a)
Action Direct 9a baseline grade
Fred Rouhling has a "le projet" in Charente he thinks may be 9b+ but then again everybody has a project.
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