Tom Randall & Pete Whitaker Onsight Kill Artist

This sure turned into Pamela hunting. You show that chick!

caughtinside wrote:

Gabriel (bolts were placed by someone else) and the forever war. 

Thanks!

This reminds me of the walk of life downgrade with James Pearson.   I think it's easy to polarize and have the extreme views.   "They're just ripping on her because she's a girl" or  "Pamela is a lying sack of shit!"  (I know these aren't people's actual views.)

I wonder if it's similar to what happened to James.  He had climbed many E10s and cutting edge grit stone routes.  Likewise Pamela has climbed lots of incredibly hard OW 5.13 Forever War etc.  

Pearson's mistake seemed like a variety of factors.  Arrogance, a mentally taxing and dangerous climb, a different climbing style, and the "insulation affect"   Basically getting a bit detached from the real grade and getting caught up in the hype.   I can imagine climbing at that high of a level with very few people being able to repeat what you climb it would be easy to lose some objectivity in the  grading.

I wonder if a similar thing happened here.  No bad intentions from either party.  Just a case of subjectivity and an accident.

Also I can't count how many times I've turned "easy" moves into grunt awkward i'm gonna die moves.  Then cruised them later.  I think it can happen to the best of us.  That invert looks hard as shit.  No doubt about that.

Tom and Pete are strong AF. Toms forearms look bigger than my quads. If those dudes call it casual I might take it with a grain of salt.

Vaughn wrote: Tom and Pete are strong AF. Toms forearms look bigger than my quads. If those dudes call it casual I might take it with a grain of salt.

Well, they didn't only call it casual, they downrated it from 5.13 to 5.11-.

Harsh.

Phil Lauffen wrote:

Well, they didn't only call it casual, they downrated it from 5.13 to 5.11-.

Harsh.

I never found Tom's blog post, but I read Pete's. I thought he handled it tactfully. 

Phil Lauffen wrote:

Well, they didn't only call it casual, they downrated it from 5.13 to 5.11-.

Harsh.

As far as grades they came up with,
Pitch 1 - 5.12c
Pitch 2 - 5.11-
Pitch 3/4 linked - 5.12-

As far as I can tell PP probably did do a 5.13 move on P2 (there is video of the invert move after all) and the wide boys found substantially easier beta and just laybacked it.

But yeah, they make it sound like a route us mortals might actually try.

Full text of Petes post for anyone without FB:

(F)Log, The Kill Artist
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After mine and Tom’s 2011 offwidth trip to the States, we haven’t actively seeked out offwidth climbing. We dived into that world for two years then jumped right back out again. It’s an odd place between those wide gaps. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t still get an offwidth itch every now and again. We do. And it needs a scratch. This usually just takes a couple of stacks and my skin often feels the burn i’m after. Then I tend to bugger off again for a year.
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The route Tom and I decided to have a look at this time was Kill Artist. It seemed logical to have a look at this route, firstly because it hadn’t been repeated (which always sparks my interest). Secondly, the film about the first ascent of the route gave quite a hardcore impression (which also sparked my interest). And thirdly I knew it would be good quality as Pamela Pack had established it, and the routes I have done of hers have always been great (Spatial, Gabriel, Forever War, to name some exmaples).
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After studying the film and news articles from the first ascent we were pretty intrigued to have a dabble on the route ourselves. smash a few stacks in, and wildly kick some legs around. Talk of 5.12 calf locks as a warm up (oh goodness…), loose block mantling, and 5.13 inverts around levitating blocks certainly perked my ears and caught my interest even further. It sounded like an adventure, and at the end of the trip a little multi-pitch adventure was what I was after.

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Brilliantly the route was right next to Dark Passenger, a perfect warm up for the main event. The first E5 (5.12a), turned out to be a right little beauty. In typical Randall/Whittaker fashion, we managed to forget the majority of wide gear for pitch 2 as we were too busy chatting shit…however I tactically happened to be secured to the first anchor when we realised, so chuckled to myself as Tom had to slog back to the car, (sorry Tom, but it is all good running training for your summer projects  )
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Tom got the pleasure of pitch 2, known as ‘The Squiggles’. We’d heard fun things about this one, and so it was pretty cool to finally sample an offwidth that went in and back. Unique is the key word here.

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Nicely warmed up. On to the main event. Kill Artist.
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Pitch 1 - Ooooo a little cheeky size this one. Too big for fists (even my fat mitts couldn’t fist the whole thing), yet too small for the knees.
Luckily I’ve been editing text to my ‘Crack Climbing Technique’ book recently (out later this year by the way folks), and I’m fairly positive it was down to reading my own tips and knowledge, that got me the onsight… ho ho ho
A great pitch which will only succumb to proper offwidth technique and some definite 'huff and puff' and offwidth work ethic to get up it. Although Tom the little bastard laybacked the final crack. i’d like to see you layback that one on lead Tom
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Pitch 2 - This was the ‘Mental Block’ pitch. The one that got the 5.13- DFU (Don’t Fuck Up) rating in the Kill Artist Film. From watching the film, plus speaking to some folk for some knowledge, we found out we had some loose blocks to navigate past, an airy invert to succumb, a 40’ runout with only psychological protection after the crux and a comment of ‘be fucking careful up there’. Plus of course, ‘The Mental Block’ to negotiate our way around.
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‘The Mental Block’ was described as a big hanging block, detached from the cliff on all sides and levitating inside the crack. Apparently gear placed behind it could displace it, and displacing it could kill everybody. Adding to this, the bolts which had been placed to prevent you from having to use gear behind this block had been chopped…so our only option was too in fact place gear behind it. It all sounded fairly daunting. But luckily I didn’t have to worry. it was Tom’s lead so I could casually watch from the belay, shout encouragement and have the joy of a top rope afterwards, perfect. Ever the tactician I thought to myself
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I passed Tom a huge rack ‘you should take it all, you’ll definitely need it’ I told him, my plan being that he’d take the lot and I didn’t have to carry any of it up on second. He gladly accepted it, which I thought was strange because i wasn’t expecting him to place anything behind the ‘Mental Block’ nor in the 40’ runout to the top. My goodness I thought, I’m a tactical wizard today, and its working!
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I chuckled to myself as I heard clunking, some cursing and scraping gear up the back of the starting chimney. After a few more minutes and with little bother Tom had rounded ‘The Mental Block’ and finished the pitch. What a hero!
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I followed, taking out all the gear he placed low down (the cheeky little devil, giving it all back to me at the start of the pitch), shuffled out the chimney, placed a hand jam and monkeyed round the block without any trouble. I shuffled up the remainder of the pitch to join Tom at the belay. Strangely the belay bolts had been chopped, but due to Tom’s healthy running skills back to the car, we had some extra #6's which were doing the job well.
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We looked at each other a bit bemused. We’d climbed round and taken out lots of gear from behind the block (without moving it), neither of us had done an airy invert at the crux, and then I’d taken out lots of gear above the crux. The whole hype around the pitch seemed a little too hyped and all very bizarre to me. There was one block to climb a little delicately around lower down, but we both agreed there was plenty of good gear, limited looseness, no runouts and the climbing (even without the bolts) was a fairly safe E3 (5.11-).
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Pitch 3 and 4 - One continuous splitter lead to a ledge to join Dark Passenger, which was supposedly meant to be separated by a belay. However, The next set of belay bolts had also been chopped. Due to this I went back to my irish roots (of which I have none), and decided to do an ‘Irish Mega Pitch’ (basically link the whole lot together instead of building a belay in the middle). The only information we had about this pitch was again from the Kill Artist film, which gave some rough guidance of ‘5.13+, prepare to die’. Although I believe this grade and comment was proposed before it was actually freed.
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Just incase the death part was true, i first said my farewells to Tom before plowing on up the headwall. Luckily I’m still here, and I can tell you, in Irish style, it turned out to be a safe and fantastic E5 (5.12-). After lots of slow moving wide stuff and pod shenanigans, you get to finish on a glorious fisting crack (ahem cough cough…Tom’s favourite). Although to be honest I also prefer to finish off with fisting, rather than lets say…pony shuffling.

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Overall, I thought both routes were brilliant. And despite the hype on Kill Artist about the loose blocks and runout nature of the climb, I actually thought it was safe to do with the bolts gone and completely on natural protection. It does seem a shame the belay bolts had been chopped though, as it’s quite inconvenient to have to now carry up 2 extra #6's to build a belay. However, you know the tactics now folks; Seconders, offload as much gear as possible to the leader. And leader, never accept it, you know the real truth of what your seconder is trying to do
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Thanks for putting the time in to cleaning and establishing both routes Pamela and partners they are classics which people can definitely go and enjoy. I look forward to repeating the next ones you establish.

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As there is limited info about these routes, here are the very basics, to help other people along their way if they would like to repeat them:
Dark Passenger.
Rack - Double set of cams from .4 to #6. 1 VG #9
Pitch 1 - 5.12a
Pitch 2 - 5.11b
There is an easier chimney pitch above this but I can’t comment on that because we abbed off after pitch 2.
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Kill Artist.
Rack - doubles #2 - #3. triples #4 - #5. 4 x #6 (we only had 3, but it would be luxery to have 2 on the second pitch belay and then take 2 with you for the final irish mega pitch). 1 x VG #9
pitch 1 - 5.12c
Pitch 2 - 5.11-
Pitch 3/4 linked - 5.12-
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Thanks Catherine Eden and Mark, for the great shots and good vibes

abandon moderation wrote: As far as I can tell PP probably did do a 5.13 move on P2 (there is video of the invert move after all) and the wide boys found substantially easier beta and just laybacked it.

FWIW, just off the top of my head, Burfning Man (Vedauwoo), Bad Girls Dream (Vedauwoo), and Right Longs Crack (Woodson), all 5.11, all share an invert move nearly identical to the one Pam does in her Kill Artist video.

The British are coming!  The British are coming!  Even if they downgrade it, PSP and the video of Kill Artist are still pretty badass.

JNE wrote:

FWIW, just off the top of my head, Burfning Man (Vedauwoo), Bad Girls Dream (Vedauwoo), and Right Longs Crack (Woodson), all 5.11, all share an invert move nearly identical to the one Pam does in her Kill Artist video.

I guess my point is I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, she's done enough 5.13 offwidths to know what I 5.13 move is. I don't think we can establish a grade by watching a youtube video, but clearly the way she climbed it was very different from the way the wide boys describe they climbed it. The wide boys sound like they used hand jams on the left side of the block which would make it not an offwidth at all...

Not to mention Tom Randalls post, complaining about a non-existent runout in mountainproject.com/route/1… - there's a comment from 2017 by PP there about another party suggesting she mention a possible height related 40-50ft runout, so it was edited in, while the pictures of PP clearly show it wasn't a problem for her on the FA. Sounds to me like trying to be responsible.

In short: I think you can grade a route wrong without malicious intent.

I am not an off-width climber. I have been in awe of Pamela Pack for years and I love the videos she makes. I've never had any reason (as an expert video consumer!) to question the grades she has assigned to her first ascents.

But it has long been obvious to me that she loves to hype the danger level of the climbs she does and I have assumed for quite some time that there is a healthy amount of bullshit involved in the way she talks about her routes.

So the Wide Boyz assessment of The Kill Artist is not surprising to me, at least when it comes to the risks involved.

abandon moderation wrote:

I guess my point is I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, she's done enough 5.13 offwidths to know what I 5.13 move is. 

With the exception of Belly Full of Bad Berries (13-) and Lucille (originally 13- but has been downgraded for years to around 5.12, and even been called 5.11), I'm pretty sure all the 5.13 she has done has been her own ascents. On The Forever War, if memory serves me correctly, she claimed to have gotten kidney surgery and a few weeks later she supposedly did the FA, and pushed her grade from claims of 13- to 13+. 

I'm just happy to see someone else finally telling the truth about that stuff.

Vaughn wrote: Tom and Pete are strong AF. Toms forearms look bigger than my quads. If those dudes call it casual I might take it with a grain of salt.

I mean, they’re arguably the strongest trad climbers in the world.  Even 5.13 will probably feel pretty casual when you’ve just spent the last few weeks FAing 5.14-15 roof cracks.

Ted Pinson wrote:

I mean, they’re arguably the strongest trad climbers in the world.  Even 5.13 will probably feel pretty casual when you’ve just spent the last few weeks FAing 5.14-15 roof cracks.

Never mind the fact that right before they put up their most famous OW, Century Crack, they could not do the cruxes of low-ball v8/9 boulders with several days effort, but justified the grade of CC (which they both climbed second go) as being several v8/9 boulders stacked on top of one another...

That being said, at least both of them can genuinely climb hard trad in good style, especially Pete. That guy is a beast.

JNE wrote:

Never mind the fact that right before they put up their most famous OW, Century Crack, they could not do the cruxes of low-ball v8/9 boulders with several days effort, but justified the grade of CC (which they both climbed second go) as being several v8/9 boulders stacked on top of one another...

That being said, at least both of them can genuinely climb hard trad in good style, especially Pete. That guy is a beast.

I've climbed those boulders and can confirm that they are significantly easier than Century Crack.

Danny Parker wrote:

I've climbed those boulders and can confirm that they are significantly easier than Century Crack.

Someone who actually has experience with hard OW! Save us from ourselves! 

Pnelson wrote: Hey, wasn't someone talking a few weeks ago on here about how bold PP's routes were?  Haha!

Can't wait to see the fluffboys come out all like WE MUST PERTEKT OUR QUEEEEEEEEEN!

Not knowing that much of anything, I'll chime in :) 

PP is clearly a badass. So are Pete and Tom. They all are super inspiring, get after it, and climb cool shit that motivates a lot of us. 

It appears in this case that they had wildly different experiences on the route.  no big deal?

JNE wrote:

FWIW, just off the top of my head, Burfning Man (Vedauwoo), Bad Girls Dream (Vedauwoo), and Right Longs Crack (Woodson), all 5.11, all share an invert move nearly identical to the one Pam does in her Kill Artist video.

I've hopped on Right Long's at Woodson a few times and the initial invert move isn't too bad, its getting back upright that I found the most difficult. The beginning hand stack is pretty sinker for my meat mittens, but lack enough flexibility to whip the knee/hips around. 

Jaren Watson wrote: I’ve only climbed a few offwidth routes, but it’s been enough to show me that there’s only one grade—5.13.

Actually, that would be YDS 5.9+.

Danny Parker wrote:

I've climbed those boulders and can confirm that they are significantly easier than Century Crack.

It seems a little ironic if they were shut down on an "easy" V8/V9 before Century Crack, and are now talking about inconsistencies of, more or less, a single move.

Of course, I guess much of their complaint seems to lie in the "hype" rather than the grade. Let's get some MPers up there for the 3rd and 4th opinion...