The Sean Myles Appreciation Society

One thing I hate is asymmetry in language. You can be underwhelmed, and you can be overwhelmed, so why has no-one been whelmed since the mid 1850s? Similarly, why is no-one ever vincible? I'm mulling this over because of the spectacular grit season so far. It's been an astonishing month, with testpieces like Meshuga getting multiple ascents, and people like Nathan Lee and Ethan Walker climbing a grit E8 or E9 every other day. As if that wasn't enough, Ben Bransby has resurrected Parthian Shot. In typical fashion, he's playing it down, but make no mistake - this is a big fucking deal. I can't imagine what it would feel like to be climbing solid 8b above the single remaining RP3. Perhaps the only other route on grit with similarly hard climbing is Captain Invincible, which brings us back to the waffling about language at the start of this post.

Captain Invincible - climbs up the middle of this big lump of grit

CI was first climbed by Sean Myles back in 1991. Largely forgotten by today's climbers since he moved to California to go surfing, Sean was one of the strongest climbers in the country back in the early 90s. Anyone who doubts that should go and look at the photo of Sean's back rippling it's way across the Powerband in The Power of Climbing. CI has only seen one repeat, by that other 90's legend Robin 'Tubby' Barker. Tubby is my wife's favourite climber, ever since he turned up at Raven Tor one morning, clearly out of shape and not having climbed for several months. After a desultory warm up, he strolled up Revelations - by far the easiest ascent I've ever seen - warmed down by lapping the Powerband a few times, and then spent the rest of the morning cheerfully taking the piss out of everyone else for being so weak. Unfortunately, in recent years Robin has begun disintegrating, and has snapped several tendons - ouch!

I've always wanted to do CI, and have never tried. This is partly due to the awe I hold the two ascensionists in, and partly because it looks so flipping hard! However, the recent spate of grit sends got me inspired, and so this weekend I trudged over the moor to the Cioch block and threw a rope down, to see what I could see. I think it would be fair to say that things did not go well. In retrospect I had at least hoped to be able to pull off the floor! Pulling past the first few moves I worked out a sequence up the half-height roof, where I found more moves which are apparently impossible. Ignoring these I started working the traverse left into the obvious break. This went more easily - until it didn't - leaving me several moved from the top and with no clue as to how to proceed. 

Hmm. I don't think I've ever been on a grit route with such physical difficulty! The gear is not bad, particularly if it's fair game to replace the many pegs in the route. On the other hand I have absolutely no idea how to climb it. On the off chance that Robin reads this blog I'd appreciate any beta (and sorry for the 'tubby' thing)! Or, if any of the keen youths ticking everything in sight fancy joining me for a real challenge, then let's get it done!