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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Aug 28, 2012 - 04:22pm PT
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JLP is right.
Look, at 5.easy to 5.11 there are a shitload of good to amazing gear routes. So you could take the approach of just climbing a lot of routes onsite in a variety of styles and gradually raise your game to being "solid" and "well rounded" where you consistenly onsight 5.11.
But as the routes get harder, there are way less of them (look in the back of the '92 Vogel for JT, notice how the fat part of a bell curve sits at about 10a and there are very few 13s, even fewer that are gear protected). And the harder they get, the less they lend themselves to onsighting...not due to overall skill or strength required (althought that isn't a linear progression either), but because they get beta intensive to go at the given grade, room for error is much lower, they tend to have seen fewer ascents and are thus dirty, have loose holds etc, it's hard to find partners for it, lots of reasons.
If you wanted to become "solid" at 5.12, where the hell would you get mileage on 5.12 ow? There aren't that many of them. Even in an OW mecca like Vedauwoo there are maybe what...ten?..whereas at 5.11 there are probably fifty or more of em at that area and hundreds across the west. Mileage at 5.13 ow? Forget it, there are maybe a half dozen in the country.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Aug 28, 2012 - 04:44pm PT
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yes media darlings and the falsely fluffed, care nothing more than what others think
Media darling you say? ;^)
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 28, 2012 - 04:45pm PT
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Fact is climbing 5.10, 5.11 on all terrain is the basis of an average good climber, hardly the stuff of legends.
Hard climbing starts at that grade, my God do any of you take a second to see what Tommy is doing on El Cap?
Maybe an "an average good climber" that's in like the top 5% of the total demographic. And Tommy? Probably in the top 0.01% of the total demographic.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Aug 28, 2012 - 04:59pm PT
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Maybe an "an average good climber" that's in like the top 5% of the total demographic. And Tommy? Probably in the top 0.01% of the total demographic. Hanging around in the dark swamps of 5.10's from the 70's will leave one with this perspective. A few days in a modern area may leave you wondering if anyone even still climbs those routes.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 28, 2012 - 05:11pm PT
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Dude, you're hallucinating - what do you think the term 'total demographic' consists of?
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Aug 28, 2012 - 05:20pm PT
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I'll probably regret asking, but what's a "modern area"?
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goatboy smellz
climber
Nederland-GulfBreeze
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Aug 28, 2012 - 05:25pm PT
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More clitoris?
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Aug 28, 2012 - 06:33pm PT
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Bachar-Yerian? For fuk's sake.
Let me take this moment to add Nazis, Hitler, Jesus and Double Cross to this thread as well.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 28, 2012 - 06:42pm PT
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Coz has a point about the tremendous rise in climbing standards over the last few decades, but a lot of this increase in standards (with a number of notable exceptions) has been accompanied by extreme specialization. Based on what I see in my worldwide travels, climbing 5.11+ trad to include runout slabs, offwidth cracks, flaring chimneys etc. is still far above the reach of the average climber.
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Roadie
Trad climber
Bishop, Ca
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Aug 28, 2012 - 06:48pm PT
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for the first time in my life i agree with jim, it pains me to say it.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 28, 2012 - 06:56pm PT
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Coz has a point about the tremendous rise in climbing standards over the last few decades, but a lot of this increase in standards (with a number of notable exceptions) has been accompanied by extreme specialization. Based on what I see in my worldwide travels, climbing 5.11+ trad to include runout slabs, offwidth cracks, flaring chimneys etc. is still far above the reach of the average climber.
Oh, standards have definitely gone up (as they always have), but it has happened within the context of a veritable explosion in the demographic. And given the minor percentage of the total demographic that has ever even fondled a piece of gear, let alone placed one on lead, it's a very small percentage of the total climbing demographic that leads 5.11+ trad onsight, does it consistently, or across climbing styles and rock types.
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slabbo
Trad climber
fort garland, colo
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Aug 28, 2012 - 07:20pm PT
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My good bud, the late Karl mallmen could do 12+ slab,, onsight Fish Crack and we did Watkins onsight in 17 hours bitd
pretty good all around in my book
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 28, 2012 - 07:28pm PT
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I was once given a [brief] tour of a couple of hard slab routes at Whitehorse and I frankly couldn't for the life of me figure out what even made any of them a 'route', why they thought a route started where they said as opposed to anywhere in that overall general vicinity, and especially how the hell they were climbing any of them.
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slabbo
Trad climber
fort garland, colo
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Aug 28, 2012 - 07:40pm PT
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I should have given you a tour
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Aug 28, 2012 - 10:10pm PT
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climbing 5.11+ trad to include runout slabs, offwidth cracks, flaring chimneys etc. Slabs? Give me a pair of clod-hoppers and 2 days to get used to the rock. Are there any harder than 5.12, anyway, that aren't actually just miserably stupid face climbs? Just the thought of those things makes my forearms atrophy.
OW? Apparently if you can climb 13/14 sport, a few months on some lumber in your basement and you'll rule the planet.
Chimneys? Did you really just type that after "11+"? I have yet to find anything I can stick my full body into that's harder than 5.9.
Runouts? Most people I know, that have been in the sport long enough to get good at it - they really like their ankles. They like them a lot.
The reality is this argument of specialization and "all arounder" translates into nothing. There are styles of hard climbing that are interesting and challenging to climbers today, and there are styles that aren't - that is all. The rest is just a matter of experience.
It's nice to see the thread move into the late 80's to mid 90's, though, where we saw countless examples of sport climbers taking up trad climbing.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 29, 2012 - 05:00am PT
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Walk in to your local gym, grab ten people at random, drive them to a 5.11, hand them a rack, and say have at it.
No one is saying .11 trad is 'world class' or state of the art; what is being said is you don't see many 'average' climbers capable of it. But again, most of the demographic doesn't trad climb so in reality that leaves 'average' climbers completely off the table to begin with. And I'd say it's still a small number as a percentage of the total number of people each year who leave the ground sporting a rack of gear.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Aug 29, 2012 - 06:38am PT
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VMC direct Direct @ Cannon seems to have monkeys on it every time I get up that way. Same thing @ cathedral there is often someone on The Prow, Camber, Edge of the World, Etc. mayby you guys out west just don't climb hard anymore? ;)
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Aug 29, 2012 - 08:19am PT
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I have to go with Coz on this one. BITD climbing 11+ on any given weekend in the Valley I would run into climbers whom I considered world class, the Kauks, Clevengers, JB, almost every weekend. I remember the first time I ran into Kauk at Leany Meany. I could not believe how smooth he was. That's world class. I was just a good all around climber.
Ps...I did climb a day with Jardine once after meeting him bouldering at swan slab. I did an onsite of Ahab for the first time and didn't really have much pro but a couple of manky nuts. He didn't seem such a super human climber as some others.
Marty
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Scole
Trad climber
Joshua Tree
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Aug 29, 2012 - 10:48am PT
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As I recall, a good climber was supposed to be proficient on any type of terrain. This means climbing onsight at your personal limit, on pretty much everything you attempted. Climbers used to wait, sometimes for years, to attempt certain climbs at their limits, because you only get one shot at an onsight.
There is more to climbing than the ability to do hard free moves. Historically, most good climbers did not limit themselves to a single aspect of climbing: Specialization was common, but proficiency was determined by all around ability. In addition to free climbing ability, proficiency in aid, ice, and alpine climbing were considered part of the deal. The true climber does not master one skill set, one type of rock, or one style of climbing, but is proficient in all disciplines.
This is just as important in modern (current) climbing. Who cares what you redpoint after 100 tries. What can you walk up to and onsight on any type of rock? This is the sole determining factor of a climbers free climbing ability, but even this only gauges one skill set. Can that same 5.16 climber lead the A-4 hooks, or the rimed up OW?
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Aug 29, 2012 - 03:35pm PT
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^^^ +1 ^^^
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