UKC

Pete Whittaker has made the first ascent of his longstanding multipitch trad project, Crown Royale, at Profile Wall in Jøssingfjord, Norway.

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Looks awesome! Trying to find it on Youtube but I don't think Pete's uploaded anything yet.

Love the audio on the clip - leaves no doubt about how hard this is.

I'd be exited if he commits to give it a higher grade than recovery drink. I mean he is at the cutting edge of this style.

Looks excellent. 

Is it really a multi pitch route though? The way Pete describes it sounds more like one big 80 metre pitch, with possibly different t sections that he worked individually 

I wonder why the likes of Connor Herson or other US crack-masters have not made the journey to Profile Wall yet? There's not many Europeans operating in that kind of range on cracks to get a consensus on difficulty. I suppose there aren't many people full-stop who are operating > the 8s on sport and capable of hard trad crack climbing. 

I think it is legitimately a multi-pitch route, in the sense that the wall already has various multi-pitch routes on it and Pete added a new pitch recently in conventional multi-pitch style. Now he's gone back and climbed the full wall, including his hard new pitch, in one mega-pitch as an added challenge.

Pitch turns out to be one of those words that starts to sound odd when you repeat it too many times in succession.

Seems like the kind of place where the conditions are uncertain enough to make you second guess planning to travel a long way to get to it. In Pete's case, having a Norwegian partner with contacts out there probably helps.

I guess so. It just seems like the news here is that he's climbed a massive pitch, so calling it a multi pitch seems slightly misleading.

I think he lives in Norway these days doesn't he? 

I assume he's done what made most sense. If there aren't any decent ledges to give a natural break between pitches, then doing a big pitch is 'purer'.

I think he said with regards the original pitch that it ends or starts from a hanging belay in the middle of the wall rather than a stance. 

Hanging belays are cheating. I bet I could climb Silence if I only brought a 10m rope. 

Didn't intend to suggest that what he had done didn't make sense. Just explaining why I thought the UKC article might still have described it as a multi-pitch route.

How much are you willing to wager? I'll bet you £100 you couldn't!! 😅

Is the bet still standing and can others take it on? I'm due a trip to Neist...

Yep, you can take the bet on. If you can take video evidence of you climbing every 10m section clean, without skipping any moves I'll give you £100.   If you come back from your trip, and you haven't succeeded, you owe me £100. The bet is on 👍

I'm particularly looking forward to you linking the F8C-F8B-F7C+ Section. 🙂

Awww, that's not fair, surely the point of a cheeky mid-crux belay is you can aid past the crux! 

Admittedly on Silence this may require a belay at every bolt + a few extra on trad gear for me.

Great! Hopefully Skye weather improves soon