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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Aug 30, 2012 - 01:54pm PT
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trusting that pro enough to move on which make trad different. You'll either get used to placing and falling on that pro like you clip and fall on bolts, or you will remain plateaued at the grade. It's that simple.
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steve shea
climber
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Aug 30, 2012 - 01:59pm PT
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That's right plateaued at a grade requiring commitment as opposed to a sanitary, commitment free series of moves. Apples and Oranges.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Aug 30, 2012 - 02:12pm PT
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As Bridwell said, long ago, you'll grow tits if you spend too much time climbing them [slabs].
What would he say about people who just do sport climbs? Manly men?
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Aug 30, 2012 - 02:13pm PT
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You'll either get used to placing and falling on that pro like you clip and fall on bolts, or you will remain plateaued at the grade. It's that simple.
I'll stay plataeued thank you. The times I fell on gear, half of it pulled out. So I would not want to fall on it regularly. For ice climbing its worse. One of the main differences between ice and rock climbing is that in ice climbing, the gear doesn't work. lol
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Aug 30, 2012 - 02:26pm PT
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That's right plateaued at a grade requiring commitment You're speaking of the lower grades. Harder climbing is most often safe to fall on. Stevie Haston has an interesting comment in his blogs - suggesting beginners first get strong in the gym, then skip over all the easier crap you could get injured on outside - and that is in fact the modern trend.
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steve shea
climber
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Aug 30, 2012 - 02:51pm PT
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JLP you just do not get it. BTW I know Stevie Haston from my Chamonix days. Also his wife Laurence Goualt and I were on the NF Ama Dablam together. We did not see any bolts up there. I don't think Stevie skipped the "lower grades" to get where he is. Climbing is not modern just evolving. You can kid yourself into thinking what ever you like but a fact ia a fact. Given JL's premise, ALL sizes and face,onsight, maybe 5.10. I'm done. To address the comment below; you can hurl insults, but how does that help? Now I'm done
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Aug 30, 2012 - 03:01pm PT
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We did not see any bolts up there. Was it the stroll along a golf course that Haston described? I'm sure you two are tight.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Aug 30, 2012 - 03:03pm PT
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if 5.10 is the new 5.7 how come no conga line on EBGBs?
One of the Kids from Stoney Point, McKenna, lead EBGB's his first weekend out at Josh... after a day of bouldering. Oh yea he had been climbing for a little less than a year.
But he is a pretty exceptional climber.
It got my attention for sure.
I am dismayed by all the climbers who don't even try to onsite or redpoint at all. I guess its becoming a lost art or something.
And to give JL an answer.... 5.11 climber is a rare breed, IMHO.
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills, CA
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Aug 30, 2012 - 03:28pm PT
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JLP
is correct about gym climbers skipping into 5.8, 5.9. 5.10 faster than was ever possible (generally speaking) before.
Ron
Is also correct that they are not as good at using gear compared to the typical 55 year old 5.8 climber.
In reality, these new guys are doing nothing different than those before them except raising the grade of introductory TRAD.
Ron, you learned gear on .6, .7 climbs. A comfy zone where u knew u would not fall; with maybe an rare occasion scare.... Well, .8 and .9 is their comfy zone.
I just had that talk with a new to outside climber. He's been climbing outside for 3 months. He's lead Serenity, Nutcracker, schimitar, the line, and others.
He did not believe gear was possible at the low crux of the line... We discussed the need to know gear... He commented how he doesn't worry about falling on the line so it's a moot point.
It's a new day
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Aug 30, 2012 - 04:24pm PT
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Sport wanking is neither.
I can guarantee that if you go climb Perilous Journey it would still matter and people would still care.
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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Aug 30, 2012 - 04:48pm PT
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JLP is piercing egos left and right here...
with the truth.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2012 - 05:32pm PT
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I dunno about most of what he puts out there, but so far I've found this to be the most revealing thing JLP has said in this thread:
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.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Aug 30, 2012 - 06:14pm PT
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Any of you old farts still climb? how many of you really run it out at your limit? INMOP running it out at your limit is not heroic it's stupid.
99% of the folks who rant about how wimpish sport climbing is sew the heck out of their moderate trad climbs. How many times have you seen the trad leader put 4 pieces in 10ft? just imagin how you would get ridiculed if you fired in 4 bolts in the same space. I did a GU FA last week complete with gear ripping whippers that is reasonably steep 5.10 I can gaurentee you that the bolted 5.10 section is braver than the 5.9 crack. Trad ain't no mystery. It ain't rocket science and at least 70% of the time you can place gear at closer intervals than your average sport bolts.... It's all just climbing to me now. No more of this sh#t that I am better than you becuse I put shiny little springy things in the rocks.....
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Aug 30, 2012 - 06:21pm PT
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^^^ Exactly ^^^
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Aug 30, 2012 - 06:29pm PT
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Sport Sled it instead.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 30, 2012 - 06:40pm PT
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Tradmanclimbs.....using perjoratives like "old farts" is interesting, do you care how old a climber is, or does it make you respect there opinion less?
Much of what you say comparing leading trad to sport is true but you miss the point.
Yes, often in a trad lead you can get in gear closer placed than on a sport climb.
but
There is the uncertainty....come climb in the Black Canyon and sew up an area only to get to a place where the crack ends.....and.....there is no bolt.
in
Sport climbing, even on ones with spaced bolts, there is the CERTAINTY that a bolt will be reached
and
You don't have to develop any special skills (as opposed to puting in your own gear) to clip a previously placed bolt.
maybe
That is why, as has been stated on this thread, most climbers lead a higher grade when sport climbing than they do when trad climbing.
there
Really is a world of difference between the sport and the trad climbing experience. I do both (i was clipping bolts today) I enjoy both but I have a greater feeling of accomplishment when i trad climb.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2012 - 06:42pm PT
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Any of you old farts still climb? how many of you really run it out at your limit? INMOP running it out at your limit is not heroic it's stupid.
Well, again, that's one opinion. I'm officially quite old now and I still tend to let the line dictate both the runouts and amount of marginal pro I'll live with on my FAs. I'm still taking falls at my limit that come close to my age in feet, but then (so far) I've had a pretty good feel and track record for what I can get away with having always free climbed over a lot of very small and marginal (but very carefully placed) pro - much of it a lot of folks probably wouldn't be overly comfortable with.
Last decent fall I took was a fifty footer trying to get established on a headwall on turning the lip of a roof on a longstanding project. Relatively clean to the bottom of the drop where you then can 'brush' the lower high-angle wall on longer falls - all in all the fall went as I suspected it would, I wasn't significantly hurt other than scratched up, and I'll be heading back up it again once I'm back in shape enough to work that roof.
It's again a matter of skill, experience, and judgement brought to bear on the often minute details of a line and weighed against what the FA is worth to you. Me? I usually only do FAs that grab me at first sight for some reason and then become an obsession until they've had their way with me (one way or the other).
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Aug 30, 2012 - 06:46pm PT
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I took a lead fall on to a bolt yesterday. It was my first ever lead fall on a sport climb. Does that make me a Sport Dogger?
John Long's point is good and remains valid IMHO.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Aug 30, 2012 - 07:02pm PT
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Jim, I count myself as one of the old farts these days :) It just seems that with a few exceptions a lot of the old guys on here gripe more than they climb..
I used to think i was hot sh#t because I carried arround all those
little gadgets when I climb. Somewheres along the line i realized that many of the young kids can climb circles around me... the only thing i have going for me is experience at this point. knowing how to do things with less effort. that only works to a point and then you eventualy need some guns to back it up. especialy on 5+ ice. My hardest trad lead is 3 letters above my hardest Spurt lead. for whatever that is worth? maybe my take on this is skewed by all the rad ice and mixed climbers we have here in the north east. our testpieces get climbed quite a bit so a bunch of semi retired climber spouting off that nobody knows how to climb anymore seems a bit odd.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Aug 30, 2012 - 07:26pm PT
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Ron,
Drilling from a stance pretty much always means you are on a slab. Today, a "slab" is anything vertical or less. Yep. The Nabisco Wall is a slab. Sorta kinda. I grew up with a great slab crag to go to. Since all bolts were drilled on lead, and the FA'ist back then would even skip stances to keep away the riff raff, I grew up running it out because I didn't know any better. I even took a fer real 100 footer that removed about half the skin from my body. The young guys who have gotten used to that stuff absolutely walk up that route. I've watched them, and it is just cool.
OK. I have done very few real offwidth pitches in my life. Steck Salathe was easy to figure out. I don't really remember anything hard about it. The top of the Bismark is a 5.8 layback or a 5.10 squeeze. Do the layback.
I lead the Fissure Brown with no pro or frigging, and it was still kind of feared by the masses. I had seen some pictures in the old Basic and Advanced Rockcraft about squirming and armbars. It wasn't that bad.
One time Walling and Swilliam took about a dozen of us over to TR Bad Ass Momma: then rated .12a (now .11d) Russ did it first, in cowboy boots soled with 5.10 rubber. No lie. Swilliam had it wired as well. Then they talked the rest of us up it except one guy who will remain nameless. I was also getting over a broken tibia in my ankle and had to ride my bike to the route, so I know you don't need the right foot. If I hadn't had Walling and Swilliam chuckling up beta, I would have been at a total loss.
I was pretty much a 5.10 climber. I kind of hit a wall, and no matter how much I climbed, I never got a lot better. However, I became rock solid and could solo right up to the grade. That sounds like spray, but it is actually really useful. If you ever do any zillion pitch alpine routes and can more or less solo all of the 5.9 pitches, you go really fast. So I was a useful partner for much stronger climbers on those kinds of routes. I could also climb ice fairly well, nail very well, and ended up always climbing with much better partners. Myself, I sucked and often gave up a pitch that I knew I couldn't do.
Point being, I was nothing special and could pick up stuff fairly quickly.
Other than the gear, there is nothing special about trad climbs. Sure, a lot of sport climbers need to learn how to do cracks, but have you ever seen the forearms on those people? Training and lack of injury have grown by vast amounts. The strength to weight ratio is ungodly. Girls and Boys both.
Face it. The kids are just better. They are so damn much better that it is a joke. Midnight Lighting is still a gem, but in the world of bouldering it isn't that hard. It is a classic.
It is always like this, and all of the hot climbers from their era still get props and are widely known. We all hail Pratt and Robbins and Sacherer and Bonatti and that whole crowd.
The wanker coefficient is simply a function of numbers. There are at least 10 times more climbers these days. The wanker factor was always there. Hell, I remember yo-yoing with my buds on FA's back in the olden days. Now you pull the rope. We thought nothing of yo-yoing, but hanging was forbidden. The idea of the redpoint was really the first time this was all clarified. Hanging was going on back in the late seventies long before sport climbing. It is a matter of scale.
I am lucky to know enough young climbers to realize that they are just really, really, good. I assume that if any of us turned 15 tomorrow, we would be much better than the olden days as well.
Get over it.
Largo should be thrilled that people line up to do Central Pillar of Frenzy now. I kind of went ballistic when I heard a bolted rap route had been established, but I got over that about ten years ago.
BTW, Fine route Largo. I wonder if anyone has gone up there and yarded on that twig you wrote about.
I wasn't climbing last fall, but was hanging with a bud who climbed like a dog well into his fifties. He would take off from work, grab a box of bolts and his Hilti, and go put in new routes all summer with his buds. He was a good climber in the seventies and is now climbing harder than ever. The 5.14 kids dig him for doing 5.13 with grey hair. These weird old geezers still pulling down hard. They just never stopped climbing and rolled with the times. Yeah. I was talking to this one kid in college and he actually told me that he wasn't any good because he could only do 5.13.
The really weird thing is that one of them climbs a lot of ice in the winter, and even got into modern mixed sport bolted routes because there wasn't much else to do in the winter.
What sucks is that this forum is rather famous for having a bunch of whiny old dudes who, like myself, don't even climb anymore. I like it here because there are old friends around. Plus I get to bitch at Largo. In 1979, I could only watch as their gang soloed every route in Hidden Valley. I was doing my first 5.10 lead.
What is the point about trad anyway? Is it somehow the end of the real bad ass? Is it some way to earn points? Even back in the day, I knew a fair number of super good climbers who just weren't into doing x-rated routes. They weren't into soloing, either. They were still great friends who put up terrific trad routes.
"Hey babe, ya know we used to do Double Cross without the bolts...."
Shoes and pre cams. That was different. Post Fire's and cams, things changed a lot.
I sucked. I admit it. Ask any of my friends. Had a hell of a young life, though.
Great story: When Dale Bard built the first artificial wall I know of, he put these wicked off fingers crack machines on the four corners. Dale could just walk up and down. I would try it and he was right there showing me how to do the locks. Couldn't get my feet off the ground. Dale was from another planet when it came to thin cracks. Still, you know Honnold is better.
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