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Karen
Trad climber
So Cal urban sprawl Hell
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Regular Route on Fairview
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WandaFuca
Gym climber
A survey where 68% preferred this Fuca over others
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What's the difference between sandbagging your FA and claiming that a popular route is too popular?
Just another kind of pissing contest.
(edit) I love smack talkin'. Whaddya think I'm doin' here?
V V V V
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Camper is packed and ready to go
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Whattya, got a problem with smack-talking? get off the interweb!
Eat's at E-Rock, it's a fingercrack.
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Iron Mtn.
Trad climber
Corona, Ca.
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I wasn't that impressed with Overhang Bypass when I did it.
Double Dip & Stitcher Quits are pretty average too.....
Man we are friggin' spoiled in California.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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The Nose.
Chipping. Pin Scars. Lines of wall gumbies. Poo and pee at all the ledges.
Why would anyone bother?
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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I'm tempted to name some three-star New Hampshire climbs that, on my grumpy
days, seem unpleasant or chossy. But no, this ain't California, we've gotta hang on
to those stars.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Camper is packed and ready to go
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Chim, your ignorance is showing...cover it up!
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rick d
climber
tucson, az
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Chim chim- (aka BURT BRONSON) thanks for nothin'.
 All those rotten lines at the Tower just suck right?.
back to Illusion Dweller-
You know I thought it would be harder, I thought the moves would be better, I thought that the idiotic crux was different, and I thought is was pretty- at first.
Like "Run For Your Life", it is really not that good. Hell, I grew up in McDowells/Pinnacle Peak and there are very few greats. Same rock style with more approach.
The rock just does not lend itself to brilliance.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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It always amazes me with the tens of thousands of routes out there that so few get climbed regularly and the amassing of humanity on those popular lines somehow is tolerated. Even---perhaps in a way for many---the crowd is actually reassuring and sought after. It would seem that less popular routes “have something wrong with them” and aren’t worth going up on and may even on some deeper level be scarier and too challenging. Along with the cabbage patch doll, many famous classics are “must haves” and people are willing to get all stacked up on them, queuing up actually as if for a movie or lunch counter. A situation that never ever would have been acceptable 40 years ago. The degradation of your day's effort out on the stone is critical to consider here.
I know it is hard to grow as a climber and go through a logical development of your skills via a carefully picked list of an area’s routes but to cluster up can’t be the price of your improvement. In fact I suspect there are aspects of this compromise that probably thwart your real leading and climbing skills. Having a show-and-tell mechanism going on just above you in the form of earlier parties puzzling out your same route for you will erase many of the issues a leader should discover and solve on his own. You are not getting full value and the party-like situation is pretty lightweight and you are not facing the climb on its own terms.
And lastly, it is sure true there are sacred cows all over the place, or should I say, emperors with no clothes. There are fashions in climbing even down to particular crack sizes or whether one is a splitter or not. It is just silly. There is ever so much more to climbing than the three-note melody that is proffered so often. I just see kids excited and easily stimulated, yelling on a bus.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Camper is packed and ready to go
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Seems like a lot of people's disappointment with the overrated ones is that their expectations are so high, then the thing turns out to be just a rock climb and not some kind of orgasmatron and bingo! it's a chosspile.
So: Expectations lead to disappointment, shocker.
The old Thomas Kelley guide to NC had a binary system: a start meant a climb was recommended. That's it. Nobody ever came home griping about how such-and-such failed to earn its star, or how they'd been promised a transcendent experience and were tragically let down when all that happened was a day spent scaling sheer cliffs.
Parsing the difference between four and five-star routes gives people something to talk about around the campfire, and maybe it's helpful in a place like J-Tree with five trillion lines, but it's basically a bit much. No one should ever come off of, say, Illusion Dweller feeling like they've been ripped off.
["Idiotic"? Attributing human qualities to a naturally created fissure in a rock formation might be stretching things a bit, y'know?]
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Camper is packed and ready to go
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Sacred Cow? That thing is A M A Z I N G!!!
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wack-N-dangle
Gym climber
the ground up
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Maybe Donnini's question wasn't about any routes specifically, but was more simply a statement about his view on aesthetics.
Can we hear a story about this area?
what remains
wild and free
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Tork
climber
Yosemite
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Ya, all those cracks at the tower suck!
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Peter Haan:
Along with the cabbage patch doll, many famous classics are “must haves” and people
are willing to get all stacked up on them, queuing up actually as if for a movie or lunch
counter.
"Classic climbs" become consumer goods, in a way -- we see all the ads, and everyone
agrees we must have them.
This viewpoint really struck me some years ago when I read a brochure by a climbing
guide service. It listed classic routes in the Moab area (Castleton, Ja Man, Ancient Art,
etc.) and with each one, described how great it was -- and the price. They were selling
the climbs, exactly like consumer goods in a store.
In a less-commercial way, something like that happens whenever anyone asks what
routes they should do in area X. "Here are the climbs you must have!"
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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For sure, Chiloe. And it is AN ILLUSION, this commodification. Everest is another one of these situations.
Like I say, a three-note melody. Everybody has to grow and develop of course and at any given point will be at various stages in their understanding but it is looking like more encouragement is necessary to get folks out on the giant splendid variety that climbing is. A climber won't develop much if he/she doesn't get it going on over all sorts of stone and situations.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Camper is packed and ready to go
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Generally speaking, I try and stay away from telling people how they're going to feel. It takes something away from their experience: either it happens that way, and the experience is cheapened a bit, or it doesn't, and they are either disappointed or just think the description was wrong.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Lots of folks want to measure themselves against the accomplishments of their predecessors. Thus when a climb gets named a 'classic' or given 'test piece' reputation the conga line begin to form. My beef is not that these routes are bad or unworthy but rather that the 'tick list' mentality leads to unnecessary overcrowding. We used to laugh at the name "Supercrack". Not the climb mind you, it's quite good and leading it on pre cam gear was a serious business. But at the name it self. I mean really Supercrack of the desert? Have you looked around the desert? There is a lot of supercracks out there. But more and more aspirants line up for 'classic', 'test piece', 'tick list' climbs every year. Sadly, I think, they are missing more than they are finding.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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DC without the bolts.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Wow. I think "Run For Your Life" would be a five star climb anywhere.
Curt
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
Sprocketville
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my mom wasn't much of a climber, but we won't get into the details, ok?
good ol, mom. taught me how to swim with a weight belt.
"i'm trainin ya for Survivor-Phillipines, or dick cheney, which ever comes first..."
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