Saw a clip from this during Dave's talk at Kendal last year - the photography makes you feel like you're actually there trying to make the moves yourself. Bloody pleased I wasn't! Great filming and awesome commitment from the man himself.
At 4:18, you can see the belayer is tied down. This is horrible... the belayer should have been free to launch up in such a huge fall which would have softened Dave's fall (he had plenty of height above any ledge still). If there was a chance the entire pitch would rip, I'd understand giving the belayer a down-anchor, but not the case here. In any case, Dave no doubt agreed to the setup before going for it, but man as the belayer there's no way I'd agree to be tied down like that knowing I'm going to be unable to soft catch the leader who's going to potentially take a 50+ foot fall.
Well explained JJ. All climber who later repeated the route did as you described and gave a safe soft belay from the ground. I think Dave might have been worried about reducing rope drag / weight.
Curious why this is E11 and something like Indian Face is E9, given that a fall on the crux of Indian Face would likely mean ☠️ and here a fall, whilst v big, wouldn’t be nearly so dangerous…
@@willl3824 yeah E grades take into account both the technical difficulty and risk, rhapsody is just technically harder at around ~5.14c (8c+) if it were an american climb while indian face is ~5.13a (7c+).
It's funny how Dave looks like he's almost at the top with the last piece of gear at his waist, but then he pops from the last move and it's a BIG ride. I felt like his belayer should have given a softer catch and he wouldn't have swung so hard back in and hurt his ankle. If you watch the James Pearson movie "Redemption" he takes a much softer fall on this route (and his belayer launches a solid 15 ft in the process!)
That massive fall was totally unneeded, the dude really needed to place some more gear in any of the multitudes of perfect places all over that climb. There is no need to hurt yourself with a stupid fall like that. Gives climbing a bad name.
