Ben and The New Silent Menace

Yesterday I was fooling around on the internet and I came across this photo of Ben Harnden climbing The Silent Menace, a route in the Grand Wall Boulders first bolted by Jim Sanford and then first climbed, I think, by either Sonnie Trotter or Jordan Wright. The line starts by the climber jumping a gap to a huge jug that hangs midway on a blank face to start the climb. Two summers this hold was mysteriously found at the bottom of the climb with no explanation of who pulled it off or how it came down. A few weeks passed and Matt Lucas found a video of someone climbing this line on the internet. I have posted this video so you can check it out. You got to imagine that a number of people have started this climb without clipping the first bolt on the wall before jumping!

Anyways...to make a long story short, Ben Harnden was really close to climbing The Silent Menace when the hold was ripped off. Ben had found a way to traverse in from the left instead of jumping the huge gap and when finding out that the hold was gone he was pretty bummed that he would finish his project that summer. Now for those of you who know Ben, he is made of steal. No one can stop this guy and especially not a big hold ripping off the wall! With a whole lot of determination, Ben started back on his project the next summer to find a sequence on very small crimps that now were in place of the huge jug. Two summers later, Ben got the first ascent of The New Silent Menace (This is actually not the new name of the climb but I think Ben gave it a super weird name that I think everyone has forgottten). Nice one Ben!