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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Jul 23, 2012 - 03:34pm PT
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Pump-O-Rama. How many goes to send, compared to other 13's you've done? Can't say I've heard anyone wanting to downgrade this route, certainly not to an 11b. Pump-O-Rama does sit at the bottom of the 13a grade. It used to be a 12d/13a slash grade.
Whatever you want to rate it for whatever reason - it does have, basically, international consensus as a 13 - period. The only other area in the US with this kind of upper end grade consensus is going to be Smith.
I think the only OW with similar "consensus", if you can even apply such a vernacular to the OW world, is the Generator, at 10c, maybe Ahab at 10b? What else? Where is the international 13 yardstick for OW? There isn't one, there never will be and I think that's the way the people who do these things like it. Is this what makes it the "Last Bastion" - nobody knows WTF you are really doing, so you can make things up and call it hard?
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chill
climber
between the flat part and the blue wobbly thing
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Jul 23, 2012 - 03:41pm PT
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For wide-crack aspirants, here is an OW technique I've seen the masters use: lift beer gut and wedge in crack, raise feet, repeat.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Jul 23, 2012 - 03:50pm PT
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I think we're talking past each other on this one.
When you said "last chance", I envision older people or folks without a lot of power, and the enduro style on a lot of Rifle routes caters to that...if you can't climb hard moves, just go where there are a lot of easier ones in a row. Same with the Red I'd imagine. Power seems to fade with age while endurance seems to continue to improve (if Ironman comp winners vs bouldering phenoms are any indication)
Not arguing that Pump-O is soft or whatever, just that it doesn't have individually hard moves, it's a jug haul that I think takes well to having it wired and sprinting it.
The consensus thing is easy to understand, there aren't as many routes for one...limestone clipups are everywhere, not so much on cracks of a certain size and/or geometry...and the body-size-dependency is critical, OW for some will be fists at 6 letter grades easier for others.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Jul 23, 2012 - 04:35pm PT
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OW for some will be fists at 6 letter grades easier for others. These issues exist with all types of climbing. The climbs still get rated. At the top of one's grade, it's common to seek climbs that "fit", others at the same grade may well feel impossible.
More on this "Last Bastion" silliness -
Would the OP's premise imply it's easier to learn to face climb well? Seems to me the OW bag of tricks is a much smaller one than a sport climber's, comparing 1:1 for each grade. What's that Steve Hong quote on the subject?
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Jul 23, 2012 - 05:01pm PT
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Yup.
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MisterE
Social climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 23, 2012 - 05:06pm PT
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I say this because off-widthing is pretty much a fringe activity, not understood by society in general in a time when climbing is showing up all over the place in advertising, etc. It is inglorious, painful and a crapload of hard work.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jul 23, 2012 - 05:08pm PT
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I think Elcap is right about individual move difficulty, at least most of the time. Most offwidths challenge us because you have to make a straightforward move a ridiculous number of times in a row. Rather like liebacks in that regard.
John
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The Call Of K2 Lou
climber
Squamish
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Jul 23, 2012 - 07:10pm PT
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^^^^^^
Damn! Beat me to it.
Chopping the Compressor Route, and a Tosh web redemption for getting the sharts. There ought to be some sort of special ranking on 8a.spew for that.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Jul 23, 2012 - 07:48pm PT
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John, that is very funny (“a straightforward move a ridiculous number of times in a row”) and visual too, but you are being simplistic, let me assure you. Not everything in the Valley is rated hard because it is enduro. And this holds true for offwidth as well.
Hard OWs are not just "longer Pharoah's Beards". They get just as subtle, tenuous, and hideous as any face climb of the approximate grade. Perhaps more so in that the OWs are so unintuitive, as Werner has said.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Jul 23, 2012 - 09:51pm PT
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The Last Bastion of True Climbing
would still be chalkless, barefoot ascents.
much as I admire all involved in ow climbing, doing a hard one (>10a) barefoot would seem pretty unlikely.
OW may be the most shoe-dependent type of climbing in the upper grades.
I got on an ow in some old worn lasers and couldn't take the pain/bleeding. Put on some old ballets--seemed like a # grade easier.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 23, 2012 - 11:45pm PT
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Odd comments from some... not sure why JLP reacted with the post:
More like the Last Chance for people who can't climb hard in any other realm. The climber avoids all of the pressure, competition and comparison present elsewhere in rock climbng - and in most other competitive sports. The whole thing is a lot easier for the ego, especially if you call it a 13 and get it in just a few gos.
perhaps because of the recent spate of 5.13 OWs being put up... of course, after how long? OW hasn't seen a lot of attention for quite a while.
As far as MisterE's provocative OP title "...last bastion of true climbing..." well, really what is true climbing.
For me, it's seeing a line and going for it... to do that in a place like Yosemite requires a broad range of skills, OW included... in past years, being like a lot of people and adverse to expending a lot of effort and time, I just avoided OWs... but at some point you have to learn something about the technique.
In the OP find the assertion: "There ain't no short-cuts here" and that is also true to my experience. Lots and lots of practice to learn the technique, which one finds generally applicable to other forms of climbing, just as one brings those other forms to OW... no surprise there, or there shouldn't be. But even though "natural talent is rarer than a unicorn" there are some "unicorns" out there, always have been just a few, and they did amazing things in their time, and the contemporary ones are doing it now... so I'm also not surprised that those natural talents are pushing the grades, and even doing it at a rather brisk pace.
Not being a 5.13 climber (at least not an outdoor 5.13 climber) I didn't know there was a "number of attempts" minimum for a route to qualify for the grade... seems strange to me that such a notion would exist.
How would you support a statement like: "More like the Last Chance for people who can't climb hard in any other realm. The climber avoids all of the pressure, competition and comparison present elsewhere in rock climbng - and in most other competitive sports."? How hard is hard? Let's put it at 5.15? 5.16? how many people climb at that level, and if they can't then you're saying they're slouches for putting up 5.13 and 5.14 OW routes? Like that is some pathetic thing?
As far as I've heard, the current "stars" of the OW realm have had loads of negativity dumped on them for their recent accomplishments, and it was definitely not "a lot easier for the ego" by a long shot. A climb like Century Crack is an amazing line, who wouldn't see it as compelling, a person eating Separate Reality only longer by about an order of magnitude. It's been there, no one had figured out how to do it until this last year... it is an amazing accomplishment.
New development in Vedauwoo is equally amazing, that area had been the arena of many OW masters, and the center of the universe of OW climbing, and new lines are being pushed at higher grades... a climb from the last generation, like Lucille still hasn't many repeats, less than 10? yet it's grade is debated as not possibly that hard... by people who haven't ever touched it.
Strange...
One night drinking beers at the Fish compound Russ opined that his favorite OW was The Living Conjunction 5.11d at JT... pretty tiny grade there, but as he observed "it's smeared with the DNA of the best climbers of the day who couldn't touch it" what's that all about?
Isn't it all climbing?
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Jul 24, 2012 - 12:03am PT
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at least one of those ow Brits has climbed solid 5.14 sport.
always heard Schneider was one of the best ow climbers ever...he also climbed 5.14 at Smith, 5.13 knobs in the meadows, big walls, one of first uiaa cert. route setters, etc.
not sure what got stuck in jlp's ow either...
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Jul 24, 2012 - 12:56pm PT
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I didn't know there was a "number of attempts" minimum for a route to qualify for the grade... seems strange to me that such a notion would exist. That's pretty much it. The number of tries for a particular person is a pretty solid indicator of difficulty and is mostly what is used to get consensus in sport climbing. Most hard sends are accompanied by the number of tries and/or days of work it took the person.
If you have a climber who sends an OW in just a few tries and calls it a grade they possibly can't even climb in any other realm, or can't in a similar number of tries, most are going to think it's pretty much BS.
The "special talent for OW" card is a f'n joke - as if other rock types and climbing styles don't have their own unique demands.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jul 24, 2012 - 01:25pm PT
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Agree with your premise, Peter -- the harder offwidths involve difficult moves, not merely endurance. I've fallen out of enough of them because of difficulty, not lack of endurance, to know that.
I intended my comment more toward my own early years in the Valley -- I could get up a 5.9 OW or chimney almost as soon as I started climbing in Yosemite, because I was fit and strong, but I struggled up even 5.7 face and friction moves, and was wondering why wide cracks seemed so much easier to me. I think it was because the wide cracks that I did were largely problems of endurance and patience (I often felt like I was making about 100 one-millimeter moves to get past tough sections. In truth, I still feel like that often!), rather than small holds.
Ironically, after four years of bouldering at Indian Rock (no small amount of which was spent watching in awe as you, Chris Vandiver and Ben Borson opened my already wide eyes to what good climbers could do), I got very confident in face and friction, but never improved in wide stuff. It was only after I left Berkeley that I got caught up in the siren song of the wyde.
John
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Branscomb
Trad climber
Lander, WY
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Jul 24, 2012 - 03:03pm PT
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Will Cottrell told me once that there were a set of techniques that had to be mastered by extensive practice and humiliation to do off-widths well. I never had the patience to hang with it and learn them and after having the holy beejesus scared out of me on a couple of the hard man circuit offwidths in the Valley, I pursued face and friction which is more my thing. I have to respect thems that can do it well. It's a real mastery.
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bergbryce
Mountain climber
South Lake Tahoe, CA
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Jul 24, 2012 - 03:19pm PT
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Not so sure I agree with the last bastion description either. I see it more like the last crack type I want to become proficient at.
I actually like wide cracks because they require such different technique than anything else, but yes, they are difficult.
The way I see it, if you're living in California (and a number of other places), if you don't become proficient at wide stuff, there are a lot of great routes you're not going to climb because there is a gap in your skills.
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