Greg Boswell made the first ascent of his yet hardest Scottish winter route, Banana Wall, Coire an Lochain, Cairngorms on 25th February 2015, as reported in his own blog post.
It can well be the hardest Scottish winter route (grade XII, 12) or even the world, for the trad-protected mixed route.
Here is my perspective as the belayer, climbing partner and witness of his feat.
Film summarising the outdoor activities by myself and Bowliners in Scotland in 2014.
Directed by Masa Sakano, presented at Bowline Climbing Club Slide Show 2014.
We are all wired to be a stone-age human!
So we react to the risk as wired as our ancestors who run on the
savannah in Africa, fleeing away from predator beasts, avoiding
poisonous or harmful things like particular plants and something polluted
to maximise the chance of survival.
It might be all good as long as one lives such a life alone, relying
thoroughly on their instinct, or so called Gut. But we don't.
Modern lives are far more complicated.
In this post I summarise, from a climber's perspective, some interesting facts taken from the brilliant book: Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear by Dan Gardner (2009).
Greg Boswell's attempt of Stump Man (D11), White Goods, Clwyd, Wales, during White Goods Drytooling Meet 2014. Filmed and edited by Masa Sakano. Licence: Creative Commons Share-Alike.
There was a fatal accident in Yosemite — the circumstantial
evidence implies the party placed 4 pieces of gear for the belay,
then the leader took a factor-2 fall on the belay, all the gear of which
ripped, and as a result the entire party was perished. In that
particular case, clearly the belay was not strong enough despite 4
pieces of gear…
Kyle saw an orange light tumbling down the steep slope on the glacier and passing him.
He realised, I have got to do something, right now!
Throwing himself at the slope to thrust the pick of iceaxe into snow as deeply as possible.
Unfortunately, that was not enough.
The rope between him and falling Masa became taught.
He was dragged down and he too started to fall…
In this world, the unit is often the source of confusion. Climbing is
no exception. As an example, here is an extract from Andy
Kirkpatrick's solo attempt in Troll Wall, where he had a hard time as
vividly described in his own words:
[After hand-drilling a hole to place a bolt:]
I slid the bolt onto the hanger, then pushed it into the hole, but
found it was a little too big to fit easily, so tapped it in with my
hammer. I felt it trying to resist, but eventually felt it begin to
give way. Then, after only a centimetre, it started to bend.
…
"What's the next move?!" I asked myself. I have practiced the move so many times, yet for some reason in this final leading attempt, I can't recall…
The last and only meaningful gear was 4 metres below — as many as 4 pieces — loads in terms of quantity, but the quality is questionable: a small pecker, micro-cam in a shallow seam, micro-nut placed side-way, and slider-nut placed vertically…