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pFranzen
Boulder climber
Portland, OR
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Jul 24, 2006 - 01:43pm PT
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So the moral of that story is that Achilles doesn't understand calculus?
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mark miller
Social climber
Reno
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Jul 24, 2006 - 02:11pm PT
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I don't climb the big numbers, but I've noticed and debated this topic with my partners since the 80's. As we were struggling to stick to 5.11 slab( and wearing out our shoes sliding off) we could usaully work our way up the face with a bit of effort. Then 5.12 came along and it was like " do what, smear on what" how could this ever be any harder. But then I also noticed at sport style area's Cave and pig rock, that the harder number climbs usually weren't any harder then 5.9 or 5.10 moves( once you learned a few funky techniques) but required a different level of conditioning to do the moves repeatedly, and hanging 200lbs upside down.
Do the rating systems need to be altered to more correctly reflect the hardest technical move of a climb and then also show how continously strenuous a climb is? But where do we draw the line on route beta? Does every move have to be documented for an individuals size or should we keep it adventourus and just say that Left facing corner over there is an easy 5.10. I'm old school and usually feel lucky if I've found the correct side of the mountain I even ment to climb. That looks good let's go up! Some days 5.7 feels like scary 5.11 and some days 5.10 feels like 4th class, Like life everdays a crap shoot.
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the Fet
climber
A urine, feces, and guano encrusted ledge
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Jul 24, 2006 - 02:13pm PT
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I can do 5.12 moves, I can not do 5.14 moves (e.g. dynos from monos).
The scale must be open ended, someone always comes along and climbs something harder than has been done before.
It will take longer and longer to reach each new level of difficulty.
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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
Fresno, CA
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Jul 24, 2006 - 03:18pm PT
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Anyone who has ever climbed real .12's or higher and thinks they are only longer, more sustained .9s, .10s, .11s, etc... Well, you haven't climbed a real .12 or higher route. Simple as that. I'd wager you haven't even looked at a real .12 or higher, if that's what you think. You can see the difference in the holds, the spacing between them, the angle of the rock, all kinds of things, from the ground.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 24, 2006 - 04:02pm PT
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I don't agree with Karl in one respect and agree with him in another...
The conception of a climb is something that imagination and creativity are of paramount importance. How climbs are conceived may be entirely open ended and take visionary climbers to imagine and execute.
Part of this, however, is dealing with the physical limitations of the "players". For Mozart has to write music that can be played by a human utilizing the technology available. The technology has the ability to extend human capability, yes, but at some point we fail to think of the assist as "legitimate". Playing an instrument is considered as something different from instructing a computer to play a piece, even though the computer may be able to do something that a human could never do.
In climbing, we use technology very selectively in the allowed assists. The selectivity is to provide the maximum human participation in the sport, with technology providing a safety margin which reduces the consequence of failing. A big exception is in shoes, which give humans a big technology advantage important for pushing the sport. But even "hand-jammies" are frowned upon by many as unnecessary aid in climbing crack, some here have even argued that hand taping is "aid", and extremists have called for the elimination of chalk usage as too artificial.
If we put a premium on human performance, then there will be limits imposed by human capability. These can be enhanced by enhancing the human, but there are definite limitations along those lines. Training like crazy isn't guarenteed to make you a great climber, it can help... if you have a physiology that would allow you to succeed as a "5.12 Climber" than following a training regime might actually help you realize that grade... too bad if your body doesn't, won't or can't be trained.
The physio-mechanical description of climbing is a work in progress. However, there is enough known to start to address what the physical limits in climbing might be. I offer the historical record as an indication that we are reaching the limits.
----
For those who missed it: [url="http://home.comcast.net/~e.hartouni/doc/greatest_climber.txt"]The Greatest Climber in the World by Bernard Amy[/url], interesting that it should come up here... but talk of physical limitiations, existence or non-existence of the "most difficult grade", etc. may be confused with the unlimited nature of human imagination.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 24, 2006 - 05:54pm PT
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"If we put a premium on human performance, then there will be limits imposed by human capability. These can be enhanced by enhancing the human, but there are definite limitations along those lines."
What limitations are you so sure about Ed? 100 years from now we might have the ability to alter our DNA to enhance our performance in unimaginable ways.
Maybe not too but the possibility is real. I climbed with a guy whose only working kidney was a transplant. Maybe all climbs are A0 for him now!
What's cheating and what's standard medical science all depends on time, concensus and PR.
Actually we better hope that DNA technology allows us to engineer ourselves smarter, and more importantly wiser and more compassionate (or hope for our evolution by some other miracle) cause the way we are going, it's clear that humans are just limited enough to be on a crash course with disaster.
Peace
Karl
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cintune
climber
Penn's Woods
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Jul 24, 2006 - 07:26pm PT
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We'll never genetically engineer wisdom. Only time and experience do that.
Gecko nanoskin, on the other hand, is a possibility.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
one pass away from the big ditch
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2006 - 09:30pm PT
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with gecko nanoskin a new sport will be born
how far up a perfectly smooth feature can you climb?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 24, 2006 - 09:31pm PT
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Some high rise buildings don't have a 13th floor. A concession to superstition and a reluctance by renters.
Mabye we should skip 5.13, promote the 13s to 14s and start in on 5.16. that would be an icebreaker.
Peace
Karl
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 24, 2006 - 09:45pm PT
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5.15 and above is no problem if you want to do it. You can even free solo El cap it's not hard.
Just develop the conciousness and your in.
Your next life will be in a lizard body or some insect crawling up some rock.
You'll never believe me, but it doesn't matter. You'll be a worm crawling up some rock face and totaly missed the boat to what climbing is really all about.
Happy crawling .................
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Jul 24, 2006 - 09:56pm PT
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There are definitely physical limits, but since there are moves on boulder problems harder than 5.13 (not that I would know personnally) that could be worked into climbs somewhere, I don't think we know where those limits will be, yet. On the other hand I think we are going asymptotic ( is that a word?)and it's going to take more 'work' for a measureable increase in rating. So, if the scale remains constant (ha) it will take more chronologic time to establish progressively higher grades.
I've tried to relate those SJ Gould baseball analogies to climbing before, and though there are a lot of correlations, climbing doesn't have defense and offense, so to speak. Thus, I think our ceiling will be harder to probe.
Unless, of course the burgeoning field of; doubt, spew and slander gain even more accepted 'importance' than they do now!
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
one pass away from the big ditch
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2006 - 10:22pm PT
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[edited- Sorry Jaybro, I jumped the gun on that one]
boulder problems are just cruxs. any bouldering rating system that doesn't match an existing YDS system for it's highest value is full of sh#t and should be dropped like a neurotic ex-wife.
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john hansen
climber
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Jul 24, 2006 - 10:37pm PT
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I think some one WILL free solo the Nose some day. All the moves have been done free ... It is just a matter of some one being mentally ready. people were blown away by Bacher on New Dimensions or Croft on Astroman , Huber did a 1500 foot 12 b or something in italy. When Barber soloed the Steck Slathe people thought No way!!! Of course Hershey fell and died on the same route. Its been shown to be physically possible .. " changing corners" is 14a according to the man with 9 and a half fingers.
Has any one ever soloed 14a in the death zone before.. 180 feet or 2800 you still die. It will happen.
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john hansen
climber
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Jul 24, 2006 - 10:40pm PT
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I think some one WILL free solo the Nose some day. All the moves have been done free ... It is just a matter of some one being mentally ready. people were blown away by Bacher on New Dimensions or Croft on Astroman , Huber did a 1500 foot 12 b or something in italy. When Barber soloed the Steck Slathe people thought No way!!! Of course Hershey fell and died on the same route. Its been shown to be physically possible .. " changing corners" is 14a according to the man with 9 and a half fingers.
Has any one ever soloed 14a in the death zone before.. 180 feet or 2800 you still die. It will happen.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 25, 2006 - 01:35pm PT
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Baseball has been around for more than 100 years, a time period of remarkable changes, and while the level of play has improved greatly, the current limitations are due to the human.
I offer baseball not as an exact analogy, but as a way of looking for indications of limits, that is, through statistics. This is descriptive in the sense that we can see if the limits exist without being able to explicitly identify the limits.
For climbing, the only real statistics we have are the date at which various grades are achieved, the rate at which we are doing more and more difficult problems. This rate has greatly decreased in the last 20 years inspite of better climbers climbing with strong motivations to push the degree of difficulty up, as that is one way of demonstrating a climber's contribution to the sport, and achieving notice.
If this is true, then we can start to analyze the reason for the limits. That will be interesting.
Werner has a profound wisdom that we may not believe, but we would do well to heed. I was climbing on Stately Pleasure Dome in Tuolumne Meadows last Sunday and was very there... watching the lizards play on the rock, and the insects, and the marmots scampering around in a vertical world that is natural, that is their home put me at ease in my own return to those places. I don't know what it was about that day, it was an easy moving-over-stone day with no attendant difficulties in climbing, just joyous to be there.
If I believed in reincarnation, I would be honored in my reincarnated self being a lizard on the rock without the burden of having to over intellectualize my existence.
But I am not that now... and only time will tell what our fate will be. Werner does not need us to believe, nor do we need to believe, for his wisdom to enlighten us.
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G_Gnome
Social climber
Tendonitis City
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Jul 25, 2006 - 02:51pm PT
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Ho man, there were at least 4 parties up on Pywiak when it started to rain on Sunday. I bet everyone of them wished they were a lizard that could just scamper off with no worries, especially the poor dude leading the dike route at that moment. Can anyone say 'poor planning'?
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rjtrials
Sport climber
ChattaVegas
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Jul 25, 2006 - 02:52pm PT
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Mungeclimber-
"boulder problems are just cruxs. any bouldering rating system that doesn't match an existing YDS system for it's highest value is full of sh#t and should be dropped like a neurotic ex-wife."
There is a system just like that, the Font grading scale. It goes hand in hand with the french system. The highest graded problems and routes are respectively F8c+ and f9b+.
These systems are very good for rating either the hardest moves (Font) or the entire difficutly (french) of a route or problem.
Of course if your are climbing hard trad, where danger needs to be accounted for, the English system works very well.
In short, the YDS is broken and needs to be replaced or supplanted.
RJ
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
one pass away from the big ditch
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2006 - 03:50pm PT
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agree, a rating system for danger would be nice.
Clint and I discussed this over email, that some routes didn't used to get R ratings, if the unprotected part was 2 grades below the listed rating. (Clint, correct me if I am mistating).
In any event, R or X ratins are really vague and poorly applied on a consistent basis due to subjective levels of fear.
however, one of my thoughts around the YDS is that it seems to take into account endurance in modern times, but many do not realize the complexity of this.
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BoKu
Trad climber
Douglas Flat, CA
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Jul 25, 2006 - 09:26pm PT
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> The Tortoise challenged Achilles to a race...
Zeno's race!
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