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Roadie
Trad climber
Bishop, Ca
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Aug 29, 2012 - 11:11pm PT
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One thing that seems to have gotten overlooked,
As I recall, the original question was: how hard is the average climber climbing? Not: does climbing 5.11 in all these disciplines put you on top of the heap?
I stand by my original guess, the average climber is on sighting .9+ to .10-, anything, anywhere.
Just my observation.
Steve Seats
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills, CA
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Aug 29, 2012 - 11:22pm PT
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Good point
YO, JOHN LONG!
What are you looking for, onsight level?
I say the non STopo guys are probably hitting 11 on average
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Aug 30, 2012 - 12:20am PT
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"Since as far back as the mid-1970s, the rarest thing in the entire climbing world is the true 5.11 trad leader. This sounds almost laughable. After all, 5.11 is only borderline expert terrain nowadays. But in fact, there are very few climbers who can go to Yosemite and on-sight lead Twilight Zone (run out off-size crack), Tightrope (run out slab), Edge of Night (difficult flare) Center Route on Independence Pinnacle (thin hands), Final Exam (fist crack), Spooky Tooth (steep and scary face), 1096 (squeeze chimney), and Waverly Wafer (wide to lyback) – and none of these routes are harder than 5.10. Believe it: The climber who has mastered all of those techniques at the 5.11 level is exceptional, and those climbing wide to thin to face, all at the 5.12 standard, number very few in any country."
We got into averages, but here's the original statement posted by JL, just for convenience.
Glad jlp--quick to make the same tiresome points repeatedly--is done with this thread. Missed the point nearly entirely, despite saying quite a few things that ring true to anyone who gets out even 20 days a year (or watches vids on climbing narc, for that matter).
The reason I find the topic interesting is that, upon returning to Yosemite a bit after many years away, I expected that everyone I saw would be walking up all of the 11s. This because the standard is so high in sport climbing (particularly in Europe).
Instead, you find a lot of people hanging all over the 11s. If you see someone float one, chances are they've got it wired (read: Arch, Cookie).
The overwhelming observational response on this thread is to basically concur with the statement: it's pretty rare still. People like Donini and Riley see a lot (count 'em double).
Coz, if you flashed U-Wall, and os of all 12s was so common bitd, I guess 20 guys did that flash.
Even Honnold wrote about falling on a 12+ lieback recently. But I guess he's a sport climber who could learn to climb trad with a lil' work.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2012 - 02:38am PT
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But I guarantee you I can take a 5.13+ sport climber who only climbs overhanging limestone clip-ups and make them a 5.11 OW climber a hell of a lot easier and faster than making a 5.10 all-arounder a 5.11 OW climber.
The problem with this statement is that it comes from a sport climbing mentality - i.e., that the determining factor is physically doing the moves. While cams have come to make the pro a lot better on straight in/dihedral off size cracks, flares and stuff above 7 inches or so remains basically unprotected, especially in the mountains or on big wilderness routes, where sac and seriousness are paramount. A 5.13+ sport climber is not quite the exceptional candidate for this work as is being advertised here. In fact he might be the most ill-trained for the job, seeming that risk and sac have largely been engineered out of his playing field. Trying to reduce trad climbing down to a merely physical enterprise, and then compare it to sport climbing, is patently moronic.
This discussion was not started to discount the physical achievements of sport climbing, which are vast, or the manner in which many sport climbers flounder on routes involving any true seriousness. But it has not been my observation or experience that those with remarkable skill on grid bolted faces climbing are especially suited to leading run out trad routes. That is why comments that on-sight skill is an "old-school" and forgotten art necessarily come from someone who doesn't even understand the topic.
On the actually serious climbs you find in places like where I'm at right now, the Troll Wall, in Norway, the notion that on-sight ability is passe is not accurate. It rather brands a person as someone haunting the lesser walls of the world. No harm in that, but to heap too much virtue on it feels overstated. What's impressive, to me, is the new-school trad dood who is up there right now on-sighting 5.12+ off RPs on pitch 38 or a 56 pitch route.
Shezam!
JL
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2012 - 03:06am PT
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...or the manner in which many sport climbers flounder on routes involving any true seriousness
BITD I and the folks I climbed with always assumed pure climbing difficulty would eventually progress to a level where onsights leads on gear would simply not be possible and at that point routes would have to be 'worked'. At the time we assumed it would be somewhere north of a then still non-existent 5.12 and only climbs of that level would be 'worked' in that manner.
What we failed to imagine was a future where 'climbing' for the vast majority of folks at every level would become a succession of work/hang/work/hang/work/hang/done/next. I think that's begun to change somewhat with the rapid rise in the popularity of bouldering where resting on the rope simply isn't an option. But as I said, these days I typically see a 50/50 split between people essentially sport climbing on gear as opposed to what most of us here would still likely consider straight up trad.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Aug 30, 2012 - 07:14am PT
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That last post fills me with the urge to vomit! joe is back in the sixtys dissing hangdoggers and preaching from his holyier than thou throne on what a real trad climber is. bunch of small minded BS. The real climbers are those who can walk up to a climb and climb it from the bottom to the top and get home in one piece. The bigger the climb the more real the climber is. Nitpicking how they did it and if they took a hang or two at the crux is for folks with too much time on their hands and not doing enough climbing.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Aug 30, 2012 - 09:07am PT
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Hey, the kids are alright. They are kicking ass, and technique has grown by leaps and bounds.
I will never forget watching my first frenchman flail on Outer Limits, but they are so strong that they can certainly learn. Their fitness level is outta sight, so just because they can't do it their first crack doesn't mean that they can't pick it up.
A lot of the trad problems is gear fear more than anything. Even today I see the new bolted stations on El Cap and how complicated everything is.
Geez. One really good cam is fine for a belay anchor as long as you know what you are doing. We always just clove hitched the anchors together for speed.
Bolts are no big deal now. Face it. Also, climbers are much better than they were, and like most sports, the level of difficulty climbs.
The problem now is that if a route doesn't overhang like crazy, it usually just isn't hard enough to bother with. That is why Sharma lives overseas where there are endless caves and arches. I wouldn't be surprised to see sport climbing go underground as they run out of overhangs.
If you think that nobody can climb cracks, just look at the free routes on El Cap. That is the future, and A4 will fade away as something quaint.
I didn't make up the rules. Time did that.
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Aug 30, 2012 - 09:24am PT
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Got this video in my inbox today - first time I've heard of sport climbing referred to as "bolt climbing." It's a better name.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
One reason 5.13 sport climbers may not be the best candidates to break into trad is their dynamic climbing style and ability to push themselves so hard, like a beat up boxer in the 15th round, who can barely see but can keep driving forward. You have to climb statically and be able to downclimb. If you don't have that approach to climbing trad, you're gonna die.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Aug 30, 2012 - 09:48am PT
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Look. Sharma is doing the hardest climbs on the planet. Have you ever seen the video of him sending that unreal Randy Leavitt bolted line on Mt. Charleston? He had to skip bolts that were unclippable, and took all of these MASSIVE falls.
OK. I admit that the screaming is kinda weird.
You could take Sharma to the Valley and he would rule by the end of the summer. Honnold isn't even close to being the best, but he soloed the Phoenix and Cosmic Debris like it was nothing.
We are old farts clinging to our ideas that we are somehow still important.
I was never important. Guys like Kauk could climb me into the dirt from day one to day last. Now there are people who can climb our old heroes into the dirt. I don't know why people think that this is unusual.
The two british "wide boys" who dispatched the hardest offwidths in the country last year had never really even done real rock offwidth before they came. They just trained on evil size crack machines all winter.
Now Randy Leavitt. That is one guy who had some staying power. Kauk, too. They moved from Trad to sport and kicked ass through the transition.
Like I said, you can take a fit 12 year old girl and have her doing 5.12 in the gym pretty quickly. However the gym has strict safety rules and that becomes their mindset. It takes a while to get away from that, but there are lots of young hotshots who dispatch old desperates with ease.
Today belongs to the kids. It has always been like that.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2012 - 10:13am PT
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That last post fills me with the urge to vomit! joe is back in the sixtys dissing hangdoggers and preaching from his holyier than thou throne on what a real trad climber is. bunch of small minded BS. The real climbers are those who can walk up to a climb and climb it from the bottom to the top and get home in one piece. The bigger the climb the more real the climber is. Nitpicking how they did it and if they took a hang or two at the crux is for folks with too much time on their hands and not doing enough climbing.
Well, that's one opinion. Part of the discussion in this thread has been about the significance of onsights. From my perspective, clean onsight FAs, clean FAs, and clean onsights define trad climbing. You may not value those experiences, but many here do and for those, style counts, clean counts, dogging counts. And it's not a definition of a climber, it's the definition of 'trad'.
People long ago mistakenly boiled the distinction between sport and trad down to bolts versus gear. And while bolts were a point of contention with the advent of sport climbing, the distinction was never so much the bolts per se as the tactics. So sure enough, you can rap in and preview, clean, tick, and then work your way back up a line hanging on gear all the way - does that mean you're trad climbing because you're using gear instead of bolts? Hardly. You're just sport climbing on gear or 'sprad' climbing. Have at it any way you like for sure, but it's the exact opposite of the essence of what trad climbing is all about - clean onsight FAs.
Sport climbing is what it is and clearly at a certain level of difficulty there is no avoiding those tactics whether on bolts or gear. But that doesn't mean the essence of trad climbing should be boiled down or tossed out. To do so is to entirely lose sight of the essential experience of walking up to line that has never been climbed and doing a clean onsight. Maybe that doesn't mean much to most folks in today's demographic who have never experienced it and never will, but for many of us who have, it remains the defining incentive and represents the whole point of our climbing.
I don't give a rip what or how you or anyone else climbs. What I do care about is that the definition of trad climbing not end up further buried and lost under so much mindless bullshit the term becomes irrelevant. Bad enough it's gone from 'climbing', to 'trad climbing', and is now fast on its way to the shadows of the saddest oxymoron of all - 'adventure climbing'.
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steve shea
climber
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Aug 30, 2012 - 10:39am PT
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Well said Warbler, JL, and Healeyj. I just cannot add anything except to agree strongly that climbing, to me, is not just a series of physical moves.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Aug 30, 2012 - 12:09pm PT
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Sticking a piece of gear into the rock is elementary school. In a season or two, most interested in the task will become ninjas at it. The hard part is the task of leading itself, and in this regard, finding a stance where you can free a hand and clip a fixed draw, place your own draw or stick in a nut then clip a draw to that - they are all the same skill and this skill varies and gets refined by grade and style of climbing. This is absof*#kinglutely ALL about the movement.
Someone needs to do some more homework on this mythical 5.12+ trad climber, master of RP's, runouts and big walls.
Let's go take a look at Honald's 8a.nu scorecard. He puts it out there, why not? Notice the majority of his climbing is on bolts. Notice his onsight roughly 1 full number below his redpoint. Notice he solos below that. Notice performance on trad routes is usually within a letter of performance on sport. This is typical (rule of thumb) and you will see this with most with some experience (except the soloing). If there is a large gap between sport and trad, you are either looking at a beginner or someone just not interested in or with not much exposure to trad - ie, maybe a Euro. Also, as mentioned upthread, go to the MP.com database or the back of ANY guidebook and see how many hard trad routes are even out there.
Also note that an onsight takes about 10-20 mins. Projecting a harder route takes considerably longer. What are you more likely to see more of as a clueless visitor to a sport climbing area?
Runouts are a direct function of familiarity with a particular rock and style. The vast majority of them were put up and are generally repeated well below the leader's onsight ability. Most of the rest between the gap of onsight and redpoint are headpoints - ie, rehearsed. The remaining 0.00001% are performed by the extremely competent - and even then, the problem is usually broken down to the point that the task becomes reasonably safe given a par level of competence for the route - and they're probably rehearsed and they just didn't tell you. Mythical death runouts done at the onsight level are rare to non-existant.
However - all of this runout stuff is rare - really, most trad-heads are just scared shitless of falling even a couple feet and call their 10 foot section of blank 5.8 rock a bold feat of the mind to overcome. It's not. In general, the harder the route, the more likely you are to fall, the more protection (of various forms) you will find established by the FA's.
This "Bible" is sounding like the Old Testament - harrowing and mythical stories of parting the sea and walking on water, performed by a chosen few granted special powers from God, guiding the weak and uninformed to the promised land of trad mastery. Good luck with that.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Aug 30, 2012 - 12:16pm PT
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On-site all-around climbing isn't passe. As JL says, there are places where whippers are a bad idea and rehearsal isn't possible.
But it's just one of the types of climbing that people care about and have cared about for a very long time. The thing that is off-putting to me about so many of the posts in this thread is the value judgement that so many posters are making that this style is superior and the people that do it are, therefore, superior climbers.
I think that there is truth in both the OP and some of JLP posts.
5.11 all-arounders are pretty rare, IMO.
Most people just don't care to become that, and some who do care (like me) are limited by our minds in a way that doesn't yield to training as well as the physical stuff.
And just because someone might be able to do something "relatively easily", doesn't mean they have done it. I still see way more who probably could than who have.
Anyone whose can onsite 99% of the 11's that they try is probably sending 12's and 13's too, onsite and often. The only exceptions to this that I've ever seen with my own eyes might be older people who have the technique of a lifetime behind them, but don't have the power that they used to have (when they were sending bigger #'s). I've never met a younger climber with the drive to climb at that level on all terrain that didn't also train power and couldn't bust out some harder numbers on their favorite flavor of climb.
So, I would also agree that someone who's a 5.13 not-all-arounder will become solid on all 11's, if this is what they want to do, a lot faster than someone who climbs lower grades as long as they don't get too freaked out. Many (advanced) foreigners roll into Yosemite, spend a season working on filling in the gaps in their abilities, and at least have a good show on the walls, even if they don't send every pitch.
As an aside, I don't bow at the alter of ow as being a sort of climbing that is inherently harder than other styles at the same grade cuz it's always come much easier for me than many other styles like slab or even overhanging plastic that the kidsthesedays can do in rental shoes.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Aug 30, 2012 - 12:32pm PT
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Today belongs to the kids. It has always been like that.
I like your post, BASE. It's kind of nice when you think of it like that. Let's you look at what the kids are doing and without the bitterness that taints so many of the posts in this thread.
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wstmrnclmr
Trad climber
Bolinas, CA
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Aug 30, 2012 - 12:44pm PT
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Largo. It may be hard to figure what today's climbing demographic thinks of the OP from this site. Most on this thread seem to be "old farts" from the era of climbs you listed in the OP and they are posting over and over again so it's hard to get a good read on what's happening out there from here. Have you interviewed younger climbers in trad areas? I see and talk to many younger people out there in traditional trad areas climbing. Today's "average" climbing demographic is certainly different from the era of climbs listed as you point out in your last post. One can look to the view numbers of climbing vids to see the difference. A slickly produced Sharma vid shows many more times then a well produced vid of climbers on the Bachar/Yerian or even Honnold's solo of the Pheonix. There are of course younger climbers pushing the levels of trad climbing but they don't represent here for whatever reason. So it begs the question as to how relevant a trad bible will be to today's "average" climber? You won't get the answer here as your preaching to the choir.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Aug 30, 2012 - 01:24pm PT
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Ron - a typical no-bolt slab route was put up by someone with the confidence of a drill in their back pocket. They tend to be butt easy otherwise. Yes, there are some notable exceptions. I've done a few no-bolt slabs, 5.9 tops. There aren't many 10's or harder to choose from. Nobody cares about these climbs anymore, nor the people who did them. The risk of injury isn't worth it - to be able to say you did a butt easy slab route and stayed glued. You'll just get some funny looks. The rest have bolts to varying degrees, more bolts as they get harder. As Bridwell said, long ago, you'll grow tits if you spend too much time climbing them.
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steve shea
climber
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Aug 30, 2012 - 01:43pm PT
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I think we are at the crux. I have been reading JLP's arguments with interest and think he has some valid points. However to equate clipping with placing pro is insane. JLP just lost me. This whole discussion is really predicated on all pro being equal in JLP's eyes. If so then he is correct. But it aint' so. Placing pro is the essence of climbing traditionally. The confidence inspired by clipping a fat bolt, not to mention the time saving reduces the commitment. It is the addiction to the excitement, fear, and the anxiety of trusting that pro enough to move on which make trad different. Commitment.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Aug 30, 2012 - 01:51pm PT
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Depends on the comp - most are local and do their own formats. You pretty much always score more points for a "flash" - where you get to watch others. Some formats are flash or nothing, others allow reduced points for a redpoint or even a TR. The finals rounds are usually "onsight" - competitors are held in isolation so they don't see each other. Check out http://www.usaclimbing.org/ if you are really interested, official rules are there.
The various suggestions here that these hang dogging sport climbing gym wankers don't appreciate and train for the onsight is rather ignorant, really. It happens fast and at ~grade less than what they got into the mags for - you probably just missed it - although lots of hard 13-14 onsights are getting reported these days.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 30, 2012 - 01:52pm PT
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it's like golf...most people lie about their handicap, but if you subject their game to a lot of intense scrutiny, suddenly their shooting closer to 100, rather than breaking 80
Boy, your club must be different from mine (or ultimately, less dangerously dishonest). If there were erasers on the golf pencils at my club, no one would be eligible for the club championship!
John
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Total demographic: How many people will leave the floor / ground in climbing shoes in 2012?
Let us know!