Dave Graham’s boulder problem The Book Of Bitter Aspects (V13) has stood unrepeated for several years now. Strong climbers like Paul Robinson have come close to repeating the problem, but it was still waiting for that coveted 2nd ascent. Until now.
After a summer spent ticking V13s in RMNP and a winter spent ticking V13s in Hueco, Phil Schaal returned to his home area to make the first repeat of The Book Of Bitter Aspects. Commenting on his blog Schaal says that repeating the line, “didn’t take much effort maybe 10 or so tries over 2 days”.
Here is some background on what Dave Graham had to say about his 2003 FA of The Book…:
Really brilliant tall, stand start, which goes straight out this huge wall, maybe an 8 meter boulder, it breaks down to a sick hard 8B+ish two move sequence with a REALLY hard stand into a bad undercut, on steep terrain, directly into a big tall 7B+ finish, which is exciting, and pumpy, and when it´s cold, like fucking deadly cold, its really mind numbingly freezing, AHHHHHHHHH-THE PAIN, that´s what it feels like.
Here is the video from the send:
The Book of Bitter Aspects from Phillip Schaal on Vimeo.
The long awaited second accent.
Narc I tried this one for one day when I was in Bradley. Big props of course to Phil for making the second ascent but I thought this was lower in the grade and I am sure Phils would agree. I think it went unrepeated due to lack of strong people trying.
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I agree, from all accounts it sounds like you are right. Even DG has commented that it could be 8b on his spraysheet.
I would have commented more about the grade, but I am trying to get away from making judgements on the grades of problems I have no first hand knowledge of. I read something that Wills Young wrote about the topic recently that made a lot of sense so I am trying to do less of that type of thing. I’ll leave that for the experts…
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I believe both Fred (n) and Paul(r)have put day(s) into it.. Paul thinks it to be really hard.
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This is what Paul had to say in the comments of a post last year:
“yep the book is absolutely amazing! and i am very close, hopefully i will get back out there sometime in the near future.”
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I’m pretty confused about the state of access at Bradley. I thought there was a pretty strict no-fly zone there, but recent news (like this) suggests otherwise. ??
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Apparently you are correct:
http://phillipschaal.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-day.html
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seems like there has been a 3rd ascent
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It says the video is private? Do you have a password I can have to watch it?
Thanks.
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Not sure why the video was made private. I don’t have the password.
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