The Final Count and What's Next?

Now that we've finally settled back into the dampness of England and unpacked 42kg of size 6 Friends, it's time for some deep reflection, pondering and musing.........

Right, who needs a big friend? Going cheap.....

IS IT 'ECK!

Let's get the tick list out (for the geeks amongst us) and then work out what's next?

63 Days in the Wide Wilderness
Below is a list of what Pete and I climbed during our trip to the States, which includes some boulder problems (some of which were actually longer than other routes at Vedauwoo!). I've written it down in grade order, as making it chronological would require some level of organisation. I've left the original grades of the routes on, rather than the new suggested grades, for the sake of diplomacy.
(B) Denotes boulder problem - long or short and whether I felt like I would pass out or not // (Sb) Denotes major sandbag - Scarpelli Style.

Century Crack                                                                    5.14b
Army of Darkness                                                               5.13d
Gabriel                                                                                5.13b
The Price of Evil                                                                  5.13b
Eight Ounces to Freedom (B)                                              5.13b
Simiantics (B)                                                                      5.13b
Angry Pirate Finish                                                              5.13a
Monsters Inc (B)                                                                 5.13a
Belly Full of Bad Berries                                                      5.13a
Lucille                                                                                 5.13a
Spatial Relations                                                                  5.13a
The Vag                                                                              5.13a
The Warden (B)                                                                  5.13a
Trench Warfare Extension                                                   5.13a
Witness The Wideness                                                        5.12d/5.13a
The Brad                                                                            5.12d/5.13a
Trench Warfare                                                                   5.12d
What the Big Boys Eat                                                        5.12c
On a Wing and a Prayer                                                      5.12c
New World Order (B)                                                         5.12c
World's Hardest (B)                                                            5.12b
Trip Master Monkey (Sb)                                                    5.12b
Squat                                                                                   5.12b
Brother from Another Planet                                                 5.12a/b
Big Baby                                                                              5.11b/c
Worm Drive (Sb)                                                                 5.11b
Big Pink (Sb)                                                                       5.11b
Torpedo Right (Sb)                                                              5.11a

There's probably a few I've forgotten there - and I'll have got a few of the grades wrong. It's all good though, because if anyone out there gets really psyched, all you need to do is print off this list, buy your self 7 pairs of shoes and 37metres of athletic tape!

It’s been a fantastic year for Wild Country and Red Chili and it’s also been a great year for our climbers who between them have managed to post a host of incredible ascents on the national and international scenes. 

So in case you missed any of the action we’ve compiled a bit of a ‘hitlist’ of some of these fantastic achievements (and for bit of fun put them in order) to make an end of year round up – and to toast everyone who climbs for us.

But after a lot of deliberation it ended up being too difficult to separate three outrageous ascents by some quite different climbers: so instead there’s a joint first place for three different but equally amazing and inspiring ascents. So here are our top 8 ascents from our Uk team in 2011....

# 1a. Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker for Century Crack 5.14b/8c/E10 6c? ‘They said it would never go free’ – well they didn’t say that exactly but it did seem a preposterous proposition, 100+ feet of horizontal offwidth, that can be seen on Google maps, which had repulsed ‘the best’, out in the desert a 4hr drive from anywhere....well the rest is history...

You can see the Century Crack video - here: http://vimeo.com/31873646

And there's a Wideboyz Interview here: http://vimeo.com/34089389

One of the ascents of the year - James Pearson on Muy Caliente E10 7a, Pembroke.

#1b. James Pearson for Muy Caliente, E10 6c, Pembroke, Wales, UK. One of the Uk’s most talented climbers went away, thought about it, trained like a demon and applied his new found skills to upsetting the applecart again with a skin of the teeth failure to flash a UK E10 route. Once again pointing the way forward as he has since the age of 17 James has used the adversity of some grading ‘setbacks’ to make him a stronger climber once again. See the Muy Caliente video – here: http://vimeo.com/25140891

#1c. James McHaffie - Big Bang, 9a, Lower Pen Trwyn, North Wales, UK. In some people’s minds the strangest conversion since St Paul on the road to Damsacus was James McHaffie becoming one of a very small number of Brits who’ve climbed 9A as well as getting the second ascent after 15 years of this ‘rat crimp’ nasty. However, to those who have watched his career for many years this is a guy who simply doesn’t know limits and constantly invents new ways to surpass himself on rock.

See the Big Bang video - http://vimeo.com/28107941

#2. Ed Hamer – 2nd place at the World Youth Cup Imst, Austria as well as a second in his last ever European Youth Cup. And I know these aren’t strictly ascents but it seems worth celebrating a first podium finish for a Brit in a leading championship for a very long time as well celebrating the fact that Ed’ll be as the fact that Ed will be around for a very long time to come.

Read more here: http://bit.ly/skHYQR and here http://bit.ly/u0eofk

See Ed Hamer interview video here: http://vimeo.com/26593785

#3. Hazel Findlay – Golden Gate, 5.13a, El Capitan, Yosemite, USA. In becoming the first British woman to free El Cap Hazel simply cements her status as an amazing talent and maybe just theone to watch in 2012 for something truly special.

Read more here - http://bit.ly/rrTHCr Hazel video here - http://vimeo.com/26106509

#4. – Jordan Buys - 2nd ascent Loaded E8 7A, Ilkey, Uk. after a very long time. No video but a great spread in Climb magazine in Jan 2012. Jordan’s had a great year and his ascent of the very hard and not often repeated sports route Controversy 8b+at Malham earlier this year was simply the precursor to some more hardcore grit action from this Lancashire hotshot. I predict more amazing things this winter.

You can see more about Jordan here - Other Jordan videos - http://vimeo.com/16885645

#5. Ned Fehally - Samson E9 7A, Burbage South, Peak District, UK. Now this is probably not Ned’s hardest ascent this year, the man is a veritable machine, but by ground up highballing this classic Jerry Moffatt ‘route’ Ned seems to have caught the zeitgeist by showing how some amazing climbers are changing the game on gritstone by blurring the lines between routes and boulders. We’re expecting great things in 2012.

Samson video here - http://vimeo.com/33103583

#6. Adam Hocking – Return Of The King E9 7a 2nd ascent, East Buttress, Scafell. Following his first ascent of ‘The Keswickian’ E8 7a, in April (http://vimeo.com/25808567) Adam does the unlikely and becomes the first person to repeat one of Dave Birkett’s many E9’s – and it’s a big one, taking an impressive line up the very overhanging east Butress of Scafell. All caught on film it’s a very impressive bit of climbing from a very underrated climber.

Return Of The King is the middle part of the film ‘Islands’ – see it here - http://vimeo.com/33813853

Anyway thanks to everyone who’s pulled on a Wild Country t shirt this year and stuffed our gear in cracks or clipped up a route and to those wearing Red Chili shoes as well – A BIG THANKS. See you all in 2012!!

And here's some footage of Tom and Pete on the amazing Century Crack...

Well it happened after two years of work and a lot of amazing ascents the 'Wide Boyz' (Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker) finally realised their dream and sent their project....Tom Randall takes up the story...

Tom Randall:

Yesterday, Pete and I completed a 2 year long journey – a mission to make the first ascent of Stevie Haston's infamous Century Crack project in the Utah Desert. This route has been touted over the years as the ultimate wide crack monster and the potential first free ascensionist would grasp a prize beyond their wildest dreams.

Tom Randall on Century Crack © Alex Ekins - No reproduction on other media without permission

Century Crack was first located and climbed by 'Desert Rat' Crusher Bartlett in 2001 when on the way to climb a new desert tower. He aided across this monumental roof crack solo, employing a back rope only for the final barrel and lip turn. This in itself was a considerable achievement considering the committing nature of the area and the horrendous exposure on the final section. Crusher gave the aid line the name of Chocolate Starfish, A1.

Some years later, Stevie Haston (a climbing partner of Crusher's) started the odyssey that Pete and I hoped to complete. With his partner Laurence Gouault he started work on freeing the 120ft roof crack and at the same time coming up with the working project title of 'Century Crack.' After a number of days attempting this line over successive trips, he'd still not found success, but was kind enough to write about his endeavours in On The Edge Magazine. Stevie talked of abs of steel, dodgy cams in sandy rock and of course immense levels of difficulty. His estimation on grade at the time was 9a or harder...

As Stevie's focus shifted elsewhere over recent years it opened up a door for others to try this line. Whilst Pete and I were slowly shuffling our way through Europe's hardest offwidths, the well publicised Pamela Pack was ticking off and establishing many of the USA's hardest wide cracks (UKC News item). Only this year both US and UK teams started to really focus in on Century and for Pete and I stuck back in the UK doing endless laps in my cellar offwidth, the wait was unbearable.

Pete Whittaker hanging around on Century Crack © Alex Ekins - No reproduction on other media without permission

This week however, Pete, myself, Crusher, Alex Ekins, and Chris Alstrin (film maker covering our trip in the US) headed down to the White Rim in the monument basin to start work on the project. We had just 2 days in the area, so we set to work immediately. After only the first day we had all the moves completed and some good sections climbed in one. What really stood out from that day was how this route was almost an exact copy of my cellar – we'd absolutely hit the jackpot and in fact it almost felt like we'd been working on the route for 2 years already!

On the second day with threatening clouds in the sky and with the clock ticking we both ticked the route on our first go – OH MY GOD!!! We honestly couldn't believe it. We just wondered about in a daze for ages afterwards just shaking our heads... how on earth had we managed that? How perfect could it be that we'd both climbed it within an hour of each other and both of us had pulled off the effort of our lives.

On the style

We both climbed the route on preplaced friend 5s and 6s we'd put in our working attempts. Whilst it would be ideal to have placed the gear on lead during each of our attempts, the practicalities of it made it almost impossible. The mere cleaning of the route would waste one person so much that they'd have to sacrifice a whole day's high level climbing, which wasn't possible as we were down there for only 2 days. If we had more than 2 days down there I'm 100% certain we'd do it in that style too.

In addition, we found the pre-placing of friends actually somewhat balanced out the difficulties of the climbing, as each one presented a new crux as climbing round the cam was so tricky. It's always difficult to say conclusively how different it all is, but I'm certain we've taken no short cut here!

The Grade

So, the big question on many peoples' lips will be "how hard it is?" Stevie Haston, the legend that we all know and love made his guess at around 9a and thought that it might be the most attractive route in the world. We're not quite sure about the grade at the moment, so Pete and I have decided to spend a little more time climbing in the States and perhaps make a more informed opinion in a couple of weeks. What we do know is that it's massively harder and bigger than anything else we've ever done before and that Stevie was no punter...

Tom Randall finishing off Century Crack in Utah © Alex Ekins - No reproduction on other media without permission	Pete Whittaker on Century Crack © Alex Ekins - No reproduction on other media without permission
Tom and Pete stare on in awe at Century Crack. © Tom Randall / Pete Whittaker	Chris Alstrin filming the ascent © Tom R

Loving Lucille

I remember seeing a guidebook topo for Lucille about 2 and a half years ago and I didn’t know what the scale of the route was. I thought it was an upside down shuffle with your feet inverted above you and your bum on the wall below...how wrong I was. The next photo I saw of this big bad offwidth was a picture of Craig Luebben making the second ascent and first onsight of the route. I couldn’t believe how small he looked turning the lip compared to the rest of the route and couldn’t work out how he had got through that massive 40ft roof.

One Scary MoFo - Lucille

It was then 2 and a half years later that I somehow found myself taping up on the slabs below trying to convince myself that the roof wasn’t that big and everything in Britain was way more intimidating. It’s not just the line that is intimidating it is the history behind the route; the tale from the first ascentionist, the onsights that have followed, the stories of failures, epics and puking on route. Everything about this route had built up in my mind and it felt like a big deal to me.

When Tom and I got to the belay I already knew I was up first as we had flipped a coin the night before to see who it would be. Unfortunately I lost out and had to go first.

The rack for Lucille

I was so nervous at the beginning of the route I could barely pull off finger lock moves of about 5.8 difficulty. However I got to a ledge filled with greasy bird poo and it made me feel like I was back in England and I soon realised I was even more at home as my head and upper body were stuck in a massive crack. With all nerves completely settled I found the sequence to conquer the 40ft roof and got myself into a “side winder position”. I got into such a rhythm of advancing chicken wings and armbars that when I started to turn the bulge I forgot to move my last Friend #6 with me and didn’t place my #5. Suddenly I found the chicken wings became a lot less secure and I had to really do some hip scumming to get to the secure knee lock. With a mild amount of swearing, thankfully the knee lock appeared (knee lock and hand stack combined = belay), I then knew I wasn’t falling out of there and punched it out to the top, fortunately without my rope getting stuck behind the lobe of my last Friend miles beneath.

Pete finally reaching easier ground on his onsight

I got back down the belay cave and found Tom shaking away, I told him not to worry and that this puppy would warm him up. He told me he wasn’t cold but nervous. I had actually never seen him this nervous before a route so reassured him that it was his style of climbing, (even though I knew we had done nothing like this before) and that because he looked after chickens he was really good at chicken winging. Tom put in a solid effort on his first go but got stopped by a massive flapper on his palm and the full body exhaustion. However an hour later he sent that wide crack in super style. Quickly, efficiently and without any swearing and made it look about E2. Well good!!!

So what about the grading? There is no trick to this route like many of the other offwidths in Vedauwoo, which is why I believe it has been onsighted a few times and some of the easier graded ones haven’t. To climb the route you’ve got to build a threshold to sickness, seat a chicken wing and get moving. The grade of the route comes through its continuity not the difficultly of a few single moves that are hard to read, like on some of the other wide ones out here. Awesome route Jay.

Pete showing off his chicken wing on 8oz

It's only 3 weeks until Pete Whittaker and I head off to the States to get munched by a load of hard offwidths. We set ourselves an "ultimate training project" which last week (thankfully!) we did!

The full story and pics can be found on our blog at http://wideboyz.blogspot.com/2011/08/8c-offwidth-surely-not.html