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Why The 'World's Hardest Trad Climb' Got Downgraded | ft. James Pearson

The Nugget Climbing

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About The Guest:

James Pearson is one of the world’s best trad climbers.

We discussed a 15-year-old controversy that nearly ended his career, how meeting his wife Caroline saved him, climbing his first 9a after learning how to train, eGrader and quantifying E grades, his decision to suggest E12 for his new route ‘Bon Voyage’, why he was afraid of becoming a dad, what kids taught him, and much more! This was one of my all-time favorite interviews.

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20 Comments

@thenuggetclimbing Creator 6 months ago Pinned

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@philleng480 2 years ago

That's a very honest and straight forward explanation of the whole Walk of Life story, and it was quite a story at the time. I am glad James has come back and been brave enough to put another E12 out there - and this time got the worlds best sport climber to verify a sport grade at least. Thank you.

@TheQuantumPotato 2 years ago

I do think it's pretty important to point out that it was downgraded to an E9... that's still a world-class difficulty that only a handful of people are capable of completing, and Dave Macleod said as much.

@ilanfl1234 1 year ago

Love the authenticity from James Pearson about himself. That's impressive.

@WellingtonIronman 1 year ago

People gave James a hard time for grading Walk of Life. But before he did it, he went and repeated Equilibrium, an E10, had flashed two V13 boulders (a grade which had never been flashed before by anyone), and completed two projects on grit which had never been done before including the Groove at Cratcliffe, a route which had been written off as basically impossible.

@chris_devlog 2 years ago

Oh my god that fall was insane

@pdebra6542 2 years ago

Kudos to James for his honesty

@geometerfpv2804 2 years ago

Reminds me of the american crack climbers treated the wide boys. OK fine, they pre-placed gear...they still came from a country with no cracks, and climbed something NONE of you could climb.

To me, its neither here nor there that they went back and did it "right"...they still should've been celebrated without that.

Climbing can be so snotty and elitist...such a weird hobby to have a reactionary "tradition" mindset...and I used to think it was all a bunch of laid back hippies!

@shouldhavebeenhere 2 years ago

It takes so much more to be humble and to face our own errors in the eyes. Every body gets wrong or says stupid things at times, not many people are able to recognize it. James is a great climber and it looks like he is an even better person!

@robertgallacher7214 1 year ago

At 22 most of us didn't know what we didn't know. As you get older you realise the man that never made a mistake never made or did much. There is definitely still some epic climbing to come from Mr Pearson.

@Mick-v4n 1 year ago

Dave was just being honest and James paid quite a price for his youthful hubris from the UK's armchair climbers.
But, he went away, matured, then repeated, and put up, some amazing, world class climbs.

But, he really showed his class by repeating Dave's chop route Echo Wall, itself unrepeated for 16 years, and, it seems, a route much more challenging than even Indian Face.

So, he could have been cheap and down graded Dave's E11 route, but instead confirmed the grade and gave Dave quite a few plaudits on the way.

Big respect to James. A class act. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umQ-JpFc8pA

@sailingcorribeemwera 2 years ago

Thanks for your honesty and humility, loads of respect!

@SuperMoosay 2 years ago

we need the full podcast 🙏🏼. the video cams make it more interesting

@thenuggetclimbing Creator 2 years ago

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@peaknut1 4 months ago

Respect

@richedwards4590 2 years ago

Good perpective

@zacharylaschober 2 years ago

The British trad grades are a mixture of climbing difficulty and quality of gear, but E11 I think would be extremely well protected 9a to almost impossible to protect 8b+ (maybe, though this grade range may be too broad). I have heard many climbers, such as Dave and James, have a hard time explaining the grading system exactly and much of this is you just kind of know when you do the climb. Tends to often include both the E grade and an alpha numeric to suggest climbing complexity and therefore gear quality and mental aspects.

Is a curious one, for sure.

@zackmiller3467 10 months ago

So he misjudged it i dont see why its such a huge deal, its just a bit funny. It sounds like it had a huge negative impact on him

@torreyintahoe 2 years ago

gear route

@ReaIJohnDoe 2 years ago

Yip, I remember this back in the day. The way this (then kid, more or less) was treated by the climbing community of the UK (which is quite tight knit at that elite level) was a real eye opener.