Well it has been on the UKC forum for a while, the whole Mecca is falling down, we must fix it. I find it very funny and bemusing from this side of the offas dyke, and an even bigger distance in terms of talent to climb the previously require F8b+ *** Power endurance test piece that people seem to be thinking by emphasising will make it all that more impressive, and illustrate the importance of saving it from ……well the natural attrition.
So what, we loose one classic route that most people interested in climb spend their life obsessing over and falling off of. A few WAGS have probably breathed a sigh of relief, that they now have their partner back, no longer a Mecca widow. You look at recent ‘real’ news events and wonder how on earth we justify the importance we attach to our climbs, when compared to an airliner going do in the Atlantic, which is particular poignant to me as I was mid-Atlantic when this happen and flew through the same turbulence, not to mention the near daily attrition of out heroes in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, where whilst i might not agree with the government sending them there, I do support the fact that they are only doing what they have been commanded to do.
So where does that leave Mecca? In the latest post Steve McClure suggests that the starting block is beyond repair, and that the route may end up harder. As for the rest of the holds, who knows what the ad hoc repair committee will come up with. I have said it before and will no doubt say it again, gluing holds even on limestone where the practice is not so much ‘common’ but at least accepted by the elite, is not going to re-create the hold in the exact way it was before. So why bother, it is invariably messy, and people nowadays wouldn’t condone chipping or our methods of creating/enhancing holds that nature or quarrymen provided so why glue it?
The biggest argument against it is of course the proliferation of the act of gluing a route together down through the grades. I climb a lot in Llanberis Pass and other mountain crags and every spring you need to watch out for the holds loosened through freeze thaw. I climbed a *** VS last week and even that had loose holds on it. I didn’t see the ‘repair committee’ drawing up plans for that route!
My opinion will infuriate the ‘repair committee’ and the people that have dedicated the best years of their life to failing on the route, as well as the few lucky souls who reach the chains or Steve McClure who climbed past them. So maybe it was the first 8b+ in the UK, so what if it was the best *** Power endurance route of the grade. Nature has taken it back in a small way, we must find a new way to climb it in time, and have a group of legends who climbed it before it fell down and after! Long live the phrase:
“Well you should have climbed it when it was F8b+”