Summit Junkie

If you have an 'Attitude for altitude' you are so uncool i cannot put it into words.

http://www.summitjunkie.co.uk/

Houlding Joins Mick Ryan in the Hall of Chodes

Cool Updates

Sorry for being so slack with updates, the upcoming boxing title fight has been keeping me busy,

Cool this week is Rich Simpsons for getting fuckloads of sponsorships and sticking it to The Man. Whats with every photo he releases having him doing a mono in it though? pretty uncool.



Jack Geldard this week tried to tell the masses that bouldering is cool (karabiners on chalkbags are not cool, and brushing holds is apparently). Snapping off welsh limestone holds is definitely cooler than brusing though.

Bob Hickish Strikes Again- Super Cool

Our friend Bob has been tearing up the bouldering scene in North Wales. Literally, having removed the 'wobbly jug' from the roof of Parisella's cave.

Kudos for wrecking the cave after his southern bolting spree.

Pearson Slips off the Radar of Uncool

After overgrading, being soppy and obcene levels of sponsorship you'd think Pearson's 'come back' over on UKC would have been dignified. O dear.....

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=3118

"As fun as it is, excelling at drinking beer and dancing to techno don't carry as much respect as they once did. Shame really, as we would probably still be undefeated champions ;)"


And this in a week when disaster strikes the cream of the UK climbing community:
http://climbingworks.com/blog/2010/11/25/#Climbing_Works_Birthday_Party__Help_Needed

Roddie Wear

Mr.Cool himself, Alex Roddie, now has his own range of fetching garments. You can display your support for his retro-progressive ethos with a range of T-shirts, hoodies or underwear. There's even stuff for your pets.

http://www.cafepress.co.uk/alexroddie

Check it out!

Uncool of the week- Cragrat Rich

Cragrat rich is this weeks least cool climber - for being a massive douche:

extremely petty arguments about who did the first ascent of an extremely mediocre looking route,
and generally completely missing the entire point of climbing

Cool of the week- Bob hickish

Bob hickish is a strong young sport climber, who has done stirling work winding up the UKC masses by bolting up "laughing arthur" a previously E8 roof crack in Devon.

rumours that he laybacked it may cost him serious cool points though.

Buys Owns Houlding: Cool Regained

Jordan Buys almost sneaks into the cool list this week after his flash ascent of Balance it is, followed by owning Leo Houlding. All this despite the fact that Houlding went for the onsight and didn't set up a belay in the cave...

Jordan Buys flashes 'Balance It Is' E7 6C/5.13R Burbage South UK from Wild Country on Vimeo.

Adam Lincoln looses cool for giving it a YDS grade.

uncool crack climbing

Behold a Yorkshire classic in the video below from Adam Lincoln. Full cool points for this (despite sharing a second name with a really terrible city).
Unfortunately for Mr J. Buys who isn't exactly cool of the week the uncool radar went into overdrive at around 00.31 on the video. Being short is no, i repeat NO, excuse for falling off Giggling.
1. Its an offwidth crack. Holds are desired but ultimately not present and unnecessary.
2.Jordan is well strong, can't he just crimp some scrittle.
3.Joe Brown was no lanky bastard.


Giggling Crack from Adam Lincoln on Vimeo.

Scottish Tooling Series

We think Mick Ryan could win a Tooling Series. If only he was Scottish.

And tyre climbing: Not cool.

Cool crisp ascent

The pringle man, makes a hard ascent in 'the Red', top cool marks for sharing your surname with a salty snack full of MSG. But huge cool reduction for climbing so hard that salty snacks are probaably not eaten, and also for gaylord screaming at the top of a highball sharma couldnt do. Man up ethan crisp.

Birkett forgiven over OR ordeal

After the loss of cool last week, Birkett has redeemed himself and more.

After the fuss that The uncool Pearson made over removing the pegs from the adjacent route, Birkett claims oodles of cool for placing 4 quality pegs in his new stonking route right next door. Well done Dave, have a pint on me.

Cool Hills

Eiger North Face- for being described by the Alpine Journal editor as:
'An obsession for the mentally deranged and the most imbecile variant since mountaineering first began'.

Uncool Organisations: The S.M.C.

Uncool for snobbery, claiming that climbing is an 'honourable sport' and building a large mansion on Britons best mountain. Their highly uncool mansion (CIC hut) sports a highly fortified entrance (to keep the plebs out), gas powered heating (to keep the noble arses warm) and now has an added extension to accommodate the butler and servants. It does however have one cool redeeming feature, as the entrance provides a excellent sheltered place to take a dump on the Ben walk in.

More cool accommodation for the Ben can be found in the north face car park or in the underpass near Nevisport.

How To Be Cool

Obviously this is a highly subjective topic, and some people have just got "it" whatever it is.
but generally speaking:

Sport Climbing: Not cool

Bouldering: Seriously Uncool 

Bumbly Trad: Not cool

Hurting animals (Eagles etc.): Cool

Proper trad: Definately cool  (proper trad means pushing yourself, ground up, hard moves well above your gear etc)

Getting preachy about ethics: so uncool, it's just a bit of rock FFS

Alpine climbing: Cool

Gnarly Crack climbing: So cool

Climbing While off your tits: It's not clever, but it is cool

Making a blog deciding who's cool and who isnt in the climbing world: Not cool

Redhead On Top

Some shocking news today in the people's choice as John Redhead gets on top of Alex Roddie SPA. This expert in soul nourishment is one cool cat.

"The thing about onsight climbing is that it nourishes the soul. I mean whats the alternative? Top roping? Which leaves nothing in doubt. I think doubt is a really important thing in any excercise like that; where you're not too sure whether you're going to climb it or not; you're not too sure where to go. And climbing with Neil today on Margins is like introducing Neil to some very old friends...

The difference between top roping and onsight is like the difference between seeing the animals in the wild (which was today), ya know seeing Neil grapple with....the animals, not knowing where they are, where they're coming from, volatile, wild, in appose to animals actually in a Zoo which are very passive and lost thier spirit... in some way.

....This doubt thing is really important with climbing.. you know sports climbing, it covers a move, an collection of moves that get the route done. An otiose collection of moves. To me thats nonsensical." - Gotta be cool.

Stolby is cool

Quick update, all climbers from Stolby in Russia are officially cool. Especially the guy that does the spin near the end.



Alex Honnald eat your heart out.

Millitary climbing competitions?

Killing people isn't cool. Unless it is pushing a terrorist off a cliff. Uncool people at a competition (auto uncool) = uncool with a bowl cut.

Kendal Mountain Festival Promo Film 2010 Cool?

Kendal Mountain Festival Promo Film 2010 from kendal mountain festival on Vimeo.

Overdramatic, money-grabbing event or cool representation of modern extreme sports?

We say uncool: Expensive.

Result of the Great Climb

Dave Macleod and Tim Emmett still cool?

Thumbs up for Macleod with a sneaky bit of sandbagging, letting go of the rope and actually looking properly scared for a bit.

Emmett, perhaps already questionable, lost several points for repeating 'Come on Daaaaaave' and 'Coool' more than 100 times each.

Close call for Birkett

It was a close call today as Dave Birkett lost some cool thanks to OR

But fortunately as he was already so fucking cool, he is still cool enough to stay in the list.

Close shave.

The people's choice- Alex Roddie

An inspired retro-progressive alpinist:

Alex Roddie in action..