Dawn Wall is now available on Netflix

That is all


That’s my Friday night sorted...
[Runs off to get beer...]

Yeh, its ace

Free Solo is being shown on National Geographic this week. Just won an Oscar for best documentary.

Brilliant

Watched Free Solo at our local cinema this week; brilliant on the big screen.
Was on for 2 screenings, played to full house both nights
[Small local cinema I used to go to Saturday Matinees at as a child, oooh, 55 years ago! Closed for a long time and re-opened about 10 years ago. Ticket price all films... £3.50 !! Great local facility].

I spent 5 months camping in Yosemite. What a place!

The last climbing film that made the big time was Touching the Void, if it's as good as that then it'll be good. I saw TtV on the iMax at Bradford photo museum, packed house for every showing.

Really Enjoyed that, thanks for the PSA.

Oh I'll watch dawn wall later thanks

Trying to find a cinema for free solo near work. Hard to find

Pitch 15!!!!!

Dave Barter wrote:Pitch 15!!!!!

Looked impossible!!

Cheers for the PSA.... trailers looks amazing

"this has always been my safe place, my way to deal with life"... I would guess that chimes with a few on here

Love that quote 'chimp. Stopped me with a jolt and made me think.

jay91 wrote:

Dave Barter wrote:Pitch 15!!!!!

Looked impossible!!

Although I have climbed/bouldered etc, I certainly have no experience of the high grades but I can’t understand why this pitch wasn’t rated higher as it definitely seemed to be the crux of the route.

Need to find a way of watching Free Solo...

Watched it last night :D
and while it's not as new but I can highly recommend Valley Uprising (also on netflix)

This is timely as I've just caved to family pressure and signed up for Netflix.

Anything else on there worth adding to my 'I might get round to watching it one day' list?

Valley uprising is a great film, as is the Barkley marathon film, now that’s an eye opener.

Keeping with the mountain theme, The Horn is also good, follows the Swiss mountain rescue service

Watchwd it last night... tha ks for the PSA

voodoo_simon wrote:Although I have climbed/bouldered etc, I certainly have no experience of the high grades but I can’t understand why this pitch wasn’t rated higher as it definitely seemed to be the crux of the route.

Your impression may come from cineastic effects and the way the film was cut, edited, recorded etc.

More likely though;
15 comes after 14. I can't remember what Tommy Caldwell did (yet looking forward to watching the movie, perhaps tonight) but Adam Ondra free'd it in the logical fashion. Up.
On day 5 he free'd 14, then 15. If Tommy did it like this too, he would've been worn out by the extreme technical difficulties of basically a hard boulder problem high up a Wall with days of fatigue. Add rope drag, wind, soreness and what not to the equation and it may seem 15 is harder, as it may be harder in that moment for the climber, but technically it's not.

If you've been or still are climbing you surely know that feeling on the last few pitches when you're wasted and figthing to hang on, on what would be e few grades beneath what you can comfortably climb in the Alpine. The more difficult crux earlier in the day was easier though.
Technical difficulty doesn't take this into account.
Simples...

Edit:
Perhaps the movie Dawn Wall simply didn't cover the crux move on pitch 14..? A crux can often be just one hard move in an otherwise not so difficult pitch.

Anyhow, thanks for pointing the movie out.

Many well made climbing movies out there.
The Huber Buam's speed ascent of the Nose was covered in a movie called 'Am Limit'. Very intense.

Or the often disputed climb of David Lama on Cerro Torre. Quite a bit different cinematically, but I got well drawn into the project. Think I saw it on Redbull TV.

voodoo_simon wrote: Keeping with the mountain theme, The Horn is also good, follows the Swiss mountain rescue service

That was about Air Zermatt. In my point of view there's a better documentary about the other SAR service in Switzerland, the Rega. Look for 'Rega Dok SRF'. Might be in german only though...

One good thing about Swiss telli, our national broadcasting channels often do/show mountain stuff.

voodoo_simon wrote:Valley uprising is a great film, as is the Barkley marathon film, now that’s an eye opener.

Enjoyed those too

Many thanks, I've wanted to see this for a while.

Oops! My mistake, I meant pitch 14 (the traverse)

And you’re right Alpinum, cinematic licensing will no doubt haze my judgement.

I enjoyed the Horn, nice easy watching after being in work all day. Will see if I can find the Rega Dok on the internet

Typing for the second time annoyingly

Whilst I hate to be the one that says.

Is that route bolted before they get there, theres several shots of each climber approaching an existing bit of pro?

Not judging in any way but just want to contextualize what I am looking at and somehow relate it to my own experience.

Ive only ever climbed the uk centric trad method so my experience is limited

Edit2. Got to the dyno. Thats deffo bolted so please ignore my previous.

Is that route bolted before they get there,

They are free climbing existing aid routes - route where previous climbers use pegs and bolts to get past bits they can't climb. It's fair game as a free climber to be clipping existing gear - quite often it's not that good, as it might only have been needed to pull on, rather than fall onto.

Thanks for that. The traverse and dyno were amazing to see.

Greetz

S.

boxelder wrote:

Is that route bolted before they get there,

They are free climbing existing aid routes - route where previous climbers use pegs and bolts to get past bits they can't climb. It's fair game as a free climber to be clipping existing gear - quite often it's not that good, as it might only have been needed to pull on, rather than fall onto.

Nearly.

Tommy Caldwell combined existing aid routes (Mescalito and New Dawn) with some new lines, which had not been climbed (free or aid) before.
That's why his route can be regarded as a new one, rather than freeing an existing one.

From Climbing
"Most of the climbing on the Dawn Wall involves fixed protection, clipping suspect fixed aid pro instead of bomber pro. “On the first 21 pitches I placed only 10 cams,” Ondra says. “The rest is all fixed gear. Mostly bad ones, beaks and heads.” Used as aid protection in hairline cracks, a beak has a tapered nose that climbers pound in. Aid climbers employ heads for seams, smashing copper or aluminum into the rock, relying on soft metal to bite into the stone. Tommy Caldwell added 30 bolts to the line, with half of them protecting the traverses on pitches 14 and 15."

To add more confusion,
aid climbing doesn't necessarily mean bolts.
Pulling on gear, no matter if it's a nut, cam, an old rurp, bolt or rope isn't free, yet aid routes of 10 or more pitches have been climbed without the use of bolts. Also fixed gear (as in the quoted text) as in pitons can be removed and is often done on long routes as you can only carry so much gear and move fast (rather than hauling bags full of gear).

Not pulling on the rope to keep it free is why Tommy didn't swing the dyno pitch, which would've been a more regular thing on the face, but rather downclimbed. Good times to see Kevin pull it off with the dyno.