Paul Robinson is back in Switzerland for a short stint before finally returning to the States. His main goal for this portion of his journey was to repeat Dave Graham’s The Story Of Two Worlds (V15) on the Dreamtime boulder in Cresciano. Story, which adds a difficult sit start to Toni Lamprecht’s The Dagger (V14), was first done by Graham in 2005 and given a tentative grade of V15 although some have speculated it may well be V16 given that it had not been repeated*.
Not repeated until today that is.
After an unfortunate dab on an easy exit move invalidated a send over the weekend, Paul returned today to finish the Story of Two Worlds for its 2nd ascent and in the process achieved one of his long-term goals. This ascent gives him some 6 V15 or harder boulders in just the past 12 months!
For reference, here is some video of Carlo Traversi trying a portion of the bottom section of the problem:
*Story was thought to have been repeated last year by Dai Koyamada although it turns out he started the problem a few moves in
Update: Thanks to an alert reader in the comments who pointed out that you can see footage of Robinson on The Dagger here
Update #2: On his 8a logbook Robinson gave the problem a grade of V15 noting that it is at the “upper echelon” of the V15 grade. He also mentioned that he plans to retroactively adjust the grades of other problems he’s done based on Story being, as Dave Graham put it after his FA”, “the new standard”.
Update #3: Here are a few pictures
Photos: Marc Stellbogen
Update #4: UKC has some words from Paul regarding the experience and how he came to the V15 grade:
In brief, I found that really nice new beta which made a hugggeee difference. Instead of the end being a crux in itself it became a lot easier. My estimate on the breakdown of the climb would be soft 8C to throwing of the toes followed by soft 7C+ or maybe even hard 7C!!!
I thought that Dai got the 2nd ascent on this bad boy???
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Oops, didn’t see the asterisk!
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Major props to Paul on the ascent. I can’t wait to FINALLY see some footage of the complete line!
Has it been confirmed that Dai didn’t get the second ascent? I remember reading some online “rumors” that he didn’t start low enough, but then I read that Dave told Carlo where to start, and Carlo told Dai. Did someone finally verify that Dai’s ascent started in the wrong spot?
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UKC mentions that Dai “promised to return this spring to make a new ascent” and I’ve seen enough about it that it seems safe to say he didn’t do the full line.
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I just read UKC’s description of the events. It looks like Carlo may be to blame for Dai’s incorrect start…
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@Josh: Actually Carlo (and Paul) got the beta from Dai, who was our next-door neighbor, while we were in Switzerland. None of us knew where the actual start was (until Carlo emailed Dave), but we assumed Dai did because we thought he had sent Story already. Turns out Dai was unclear on the start as well! Hopefully he gets redemption on the problem soon…
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Thanks for the clarification, Connor!
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@Connor: Thanks for correcting me! I *thought* I had read somewhere that it was the other way around, but such is the nature of relying on internet forums for *information*. I would hate to be a source of further disinformation.
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What video has footage of someone sending The Dagger? I swear I’ve seen it before but can’t remember what video it was in…
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How long before Jamie Emerson downgrades it?
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C’mon now, Jamie has been playing nice of late…
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There is footage of Paul sending the dagger here: http://vimeo.com/18027874
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Very cool, thanks.
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Just fresh out of his send database: 8C has been suggested for this one.
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Upper end 8C, to be specific.
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I’m looking forward to seeing how the grades of other problems change after Paul’s ascent of TSOTW. With the impressive ticklist he’s amassed over the last year or so, I’m sure he has a very strong understanding of what the appropriate grades should be for hard boulder problems.
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i can’t wait to see Paul downgrade everything now….
especially all of those over-inflated Colorado, Hueco, and SA grades.
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PRob details the day on the prAna blog! https://www.prana.com/blog/2011/03/09/paul-robinson-the-story-of-two-worlds-v15/
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Such a delicious turn of events when he dabbed at the very end, after taking a look at the climb years ago and calling it “dabby” on his blog.
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