I guess over the years I have been involved in climbing I have in a way become quite jaded with what people say and spray about routes. As a consequence I have developed a fairly robust filter for BS. I have sometimes gotten into trouble for calling someones bluff who on paper has a much more to lose than me.
If the pen is mightier than the sword it is often because the truth hurts. So when you cut close to the bone people will find it painful. A prime example in the climbing news at the moment is the whole Dave MacLoed new mixed routes on the Ben. Many have argued that it is the thin end of the wedge, Dave has made his point. As for myself I don’t care enough about Scottish Winter climbing to give two hoots.
Hoar or no hoar I just don’t get it. I did a route this winter and I had to brush hoar frost off a few holds. So technically it was in winter condition, but practically it was barely a minor inconvenience, a few days later I did route that hand been climbed a few times that week, and whilst there was hoar frost off the climbing line, on it I was essentially dry tolling as five ascents prior had swept the route clean. Surely as long as it frozen it counts?
The fact remains that BS fills forums, blogs and the interweb as a whole and I’d love to have the power that Carl Pilkington wants as I would love to be BS Man.
What I do love is when someone other than me cuts through the crap and is bold enough to be honest. I just watched a video of James Pearson on the Elder Statesman, in it James seemed to talk candidly about hard climbing, bold versus hard and why he had ignored the hard in favour of the bold in his early years. On top of that the moves on this route look incredibly complex, climbing as art? Enjoy.