Nicolas Favresse

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cie2PQ-sJMD/

Second ascent?

An unsuccessful onsight attempt that ended with a memorable whipper.

Talking about E8 on-sights - you took a whipper down Nightmare on Dinas Cromlech…

Yes, it was my first day climbing in the UK. I was still virgin to this type of climbing so still a bit ignorant! The famous old school local climber Pat Littlejohn was climbing next to us and had seen me looking easy on climbs. Nightmare E8 6c was a good looking line so I decided to try it. I mentioned to Sean [Villanueva O’Driscoll] that I would first try it on toprope but Pat said to Sean: "If there is somebody here who is able to give a good try ground up it's him." When Sean told me this I thought it would be good to follow this wise local climber's suggestion. The route was completely dirty so Sean first went up to clean the route a bit and look at the gear. The climbing was really nice with a style of climbing that I like particularly, crimpy and dead vertical. But the climb was still very dirty with poor gear on the first part of the climb. After a few good pieces of pro midway up the wall the crux arrived at the upper section. While searching for other pro I got too pumped to keep on climbing and so I fell. The piece I thought would hold didn't, it ripped out and so I unexpectedly fell a long way down the wall. 3 pieces ripped and I was stopped upside down about 20 meters below by a good wire. Afterwards people talked about this fall a lot, even though for me it was just an unsuccessful try. [2]

References

[1] https://vimeo.com/21869523

[2] https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/nicolas-favresse-trad-climbing-in-wales-and-england.html

https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/nicolas-favresse-trad-climbing-in-wales-and-england.html

https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/nicolas-favresse-trad-climbing-in-wales-and-england.html

References

[1] https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/nicolas-favresse-repeats-cobra-crack-squamish-canada.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOIr1An3Nvk?t=111

Second ascent. With Adam Pustelnik.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wmAliJeMHI

When we got there our attention was immediately caught by a very impressive series of splitter cracks up the middle of the overhang. Even though it looked way too futuristic we were so motivated we decided to waste no time and check it out right away. In fact, it's the very first line we got on in Norway and we immediately found what we were looking for: a perfect crack project that would keep us busy for a while. We spent the rest of the trip trying it over and over again, learning how to solve each move, making really unique sequences of thin fingers locks, drop knees and rail slapping moves. After three weeks trying it and fighting against difficult weather conditions our fingers got completely trashed by the sharp cracks and we were forced to leave it, unfinished. [1]

[1] https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/nicolas-favresse-frees-his-crack-project-in-norway.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4bydCNknFA