Posts Tagged ‘people’

Damian Cook’s article about UAE climbing

Monday, June 4th, 2012

I made a low-quality scan of this vintage article by Damian Cook from On the Edge magazine (1999? 2000?) a few years ago. I have finally got around to turning it into a PDF and uploading it.

Worth reading: “Carrots and Magic in the UAE“.

A few cultural notes:
- “Crispin” refers to Crispin Waddy, a legendary British trad climber and DWS pioneer, also from Dorset like the Cook brothers.
- “XS” is a no-longer-used British climbing grade.
- “Wurzel Gummidge” was a living scarecrow in a British children’s TV show from the 1970s.

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the Columbian Slapper

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Dan Cieszynski, visiting the UAE from the UK for a vertical access contract in Abu Dhabi, has accumulated an impressive tick list over the last few weeks, culminating in the first ascent of the Columbian Slapper project at Tawiyan. He has given it F7b+. It took him several tries spread over two visits. The route extends the warmup pitch, Laundry Service, over a juggy roof to a dynamic boulder problem launching off very slopey holds to the finish ledge.

From UAE Climbing

Dan’s other ticks include: third ascent of Acquiescence E4 at Shady Circus, with Aiden Laffey; second ascent of Tradistan Incursion E4 at Nearside; third ascent of Echo Beach F7c at Tawiyan; fourth (AFAIK) ascent of Tadaima F7b at Hatta; third clean ascent of Jebel Jebel F6b+ at Tawiyan (the guidebook cover …) plus onsights of all the other routes at Tawiyan!

This is highly embarrassing for the rest of us. Fortunately his employers are ending his contract early and sending him to China …

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The wisdom of Antoine Fabre

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

In the brief history of UAE rock climbing, Antoine is the chossaneer’s chossaneer. Aside from a wide range of bold ascents of tall tottering features in the guidebook’s region, he also did some meaningful ascents in “proper” Oman, such as the first one day ascent of the French Pillar of Misht (Dan Donovan and I made the second or third). I corresponded with Antoine briefly about some confusion over the line of one of his routes at Shady Circus. It rapidly became clear that he wasn’t someone who dwelt excessively in the past … nor took climbing too seriously:

“It was about 10 years ago. So I might be slightly wrong about the details of the line on the photograph …. As a geologist I know that the past is fading away, rocks are being eroded and washed into the sea, whatever we do in our short lives has little importance, except of course: playing music, drinking good wines and f***ing girls ….”

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The late great Damian Cook

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

I have nothing much to do at the moment – the book should be printed tomorrow and Saturday – so I thought I would upload some animated GIFs of Damian Cook bouldering that I have had for a while. I couldn’t use them in the book as they are too low-res. They were originally in a draft online guide that Damian put together but never published.

As many people will know, Damian drowned in Mallorca in 2004. He was based in Abu Dhabi from 1998-2002 and was essentially the first person (with his brother Dominic) to bolt sport routes in the region. After Dominic left, he developed the boulders in Wadi Khab Shamis almost entirely by himself. Before he was in the UAE, Damian and his brothers were amongst the first DWS pioneers, on the Dorset coast of England. Their “Into the Blue” guide from 1996 remains a cult classic in the UK.

Daysdont
Days Don’t Get Better (V7?)

DamoTravV7
Damo’s Traverse (V7?)

I don’t think either of these problems have had proper repeats. Both look very good.

February 2010 UPDATE: since I wrote this a few people have done Damo’s Traverse and consider it a bit of a path! My impression is that this may be due to a higher level of gravel in the base than before … I think Damian started further left.

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