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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 12:35pm PT
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I am only pointing to how the change has taken place, and specifically not addressing it from a standpoint of value.
I can't credibly build an argument as to whether it is good or bad, productive or unproductive, because I find it difficult to straddle contexts.
It's easier to speak in terms of preference.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 10, 2013 - 12:56pm PT
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I would prefer the opening sequence of the Open Book to be better protected.
I will never climb it because there are traditional principles involved which I cannot accept for fear of horrible, mutilating injury and the stigma, oh, the stigma, of failing.
Kudos to Royal.
F*#k the rest.
Nobody's constraining anybody.
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MH2
climber
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Apr 10, 2013 - 12:57pm PT
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Trad can't exist in a world that needs that word. Henry Barber is one of the last survivors.
On headpointing: remember Cleveland in the Needles, and Gill in the Needles.
There is still "adventure climbing" but the terrain is shifting in a tidal wave of guidebooks, cell phones, etc.
In my own pointy head at least.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Apr 10, 2013 - 01:01pm PT
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I like Donini's take.
Edit- ^^ & MH2's
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Laramie
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Apr 10, 2013 - 01:41pm PT
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mouse from merced,
a 15 ft fall to solid ground or jaggers can do a lot damage to one, and so can that same type of fall/landing from a slack belay at the first placement. Having done the Open Book, I say as you kind of indicate "Let others feast on this, there are better climbs to do and they have the pro I like".
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 01:41pm PT
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Nobody's constraining anybody.
Voluntary constraints. Artistic, personal, stylistic, choice.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 01:45pm PT
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...And my personal preference is for:
Trad Trad Trad Trad Trad Trad Trad...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 01:48pm PT
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Imposition of style upon others is not my bag.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 01:49pm PT
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Thanks all!
This is cool.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Laramie
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Apr 10, 2013 - 01:50pm PT
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But what is nowdays TRAD??
Gear is a pain in the Ass.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 01:54pm PT
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My pussy hurts!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 10, 2013 - 02:09pm PT
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Jeez, fingers & toes been here lots longer than ropes, ladders, and slides.
If a pred's chasin' a biped, he'd best not stop to place pro or he's a meal.
Seems like a worthy tradition, many things considered.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Apr 10, 2013 - 02:42pm PT
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"I consider mountain climbing an absolutely egocentric activity; I could therefore never understand why one would want to set up rules for it. "In the mountains, freedom rules" is an old poacher's saying. Whether and how I use artificial means is my business. To climb in the cleanest and smoothest way possible - that was my desire. How others climb is their business, and nobody else has the right to interfere. Most people abide by rules because they want to be accepted. I was only truly content when I succeeded in completing a climb the way I had envisioned it. Naturally, there is satisfaction when a climb is acclaimed by the experts, but basically, this was not as important to me as the recognition by my friends."
I think Anderl Heckmair's attitude is the attitude of the nobility among trad climbers.
Is the word "nobility" too value laden?
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patrick compton
Trad climber
van
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Apr 10, 2013 - 02:51pm PT
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'climbing in the cleanest and smoothest way possible' easily applies to sport climbing or bouldering as well, but in a different way.
The idea that trad is inherently more noble than other disciplines is laughable.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Apr 10, 2013 - 02:55pm PT
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Let me share an experience from last summer that might have some relevance to this thread. An accomplished modern Frankenjura "sport climber", lets call him Felix, was visiting US with his family and wanted to experience climbing in Yosemite. My understanding is that he had red pointed most of the hardest routes at Frankenjura (mainly very steep to overhanging, bolt-protected, limestone pocket routes). He was particularly interested in A Separate Reality because of the iconic images of Wolfgang Gullich free soloing at the lip.
I agreed to meet him in Tuolumne for a weekend warmup before he would go to the valley for a try at SR. We started at S Flank of Daff where he easily flashed most of the routes on TR. Next we went to E Cottage Dome, where Felix proceeded to effortlessly red point Knobnoxious. No surprise, this route was well within his ability and similar to the sport climbs he is used to at Frankenjura.
So the next day we went over to Do of Fly (5.11C) on Puppy Dome where he could try a "Trad-style" route. Here's a sequence showing Felix leading Do or Fly, which he did in reasonably good style but not without resting on pro.
I didn't accompany him but the next day Felix went to Yosemite where he hooked up with climbers and had a go at SR. My understanding is that he climbed SR but did not red point it.
Felix is an awesome climber, well beyond anything that I accomplished at his age. On his next trip, I'm sure Felix will burn the place up. However, it was interesting that a 5.12/5.13 mainly "sport climber" was unable to on site, red point a trad climb a numerical grade below his ability.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2013 - 03:00pm PT
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Marlow:
It doesn't need to be considered noble, or elevated.
But I wholeheartedly agree with what Anderl wrote.
It can still be practiced, yet no longer has a home in the culture of climbing at large.
As to trad climbing being dead: certainly as defined in the OP it is no longer relevant as a popsicle for the masses to succor. It never was for the masses. She's an old Indian with flaccid bosoms; barren. She's dying but she still speaks to those who lower their ear toward her withered pulse.
Opportunities to engage these chosen artistic constraints as defined by TRAD are obviously withering. No argument. Yet, like driving a model T down the frontage road of the freeway, it can still happen. It can certainly still happen in the mountains and there at a high standard.
In my premature dotage, it's all I have been doing for many years now. And this includes puttering about in the woods finding bits and pieces of rock which I've never seen, undocumented in any guidebooks and which I engage in exactly the way I did even before this stylistic imperative had a name.
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills, CA
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Apr 10, 2013 - 03:01pm PT
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You know your sport climbing when:
You did not get lost on the approach.
The route is only half a rope length.
The line to get on a route has a Disneyland ticket taker at the base (easily could include Manure Pile).
Belayers are letting out rope to "soft catch" falls.
Climbers care about their helmet getting scratched.
Climber and belayer are endlessly discussing "lowering versus rapping".
fill in the rest
and a feel free to start: You know your TRAD climbing when"
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Apr 10, 2013 - 03:18pm PT
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'climbing in the cleanest and smoothest way possible' easily applies to sport climbing or bouldering as well, but in a different way.
This is a great point, Style of movement has a great bearing today when compared with style of ascent compared to the past. I can only speak for myself but an ascent is much more satisfying if I feel in control of the movement & protection as opposed to hacking my way up, whether it is a gear,sport,boulder route. It is how I moved & climbed that is most important to me, not whether I had quickdraws or hexes or crashpads for pro.
It's funny how aid climbing is trad climbing where u entirely rely on equipment to ascend & free trad climbing is when you are cheating if u rest on the gear, lol. Stupid awesome rules.
Edit- ghoulwej I see a lot more lineups & congestion on 5.9 & under "trad" routes than 5.12 sport routes.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Apr 10, 2013 - 03:21pm PT
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So I'm sorry graybeards, but trad is climbing with a rack of gear, end of trad.
You may well be right. But there would be a certain irony in it for the greybeards. The last time there was an attempt to use equipment to define aspects of climbing was the Sierra Club's six-grade system, in which each grade was defined by the equipment a climber would need. Class five was piton-protected climbing, and of course that proved just a tad broad so we ended up with the unlovely "decimal" system.
In retrospect, trying to define the difficulty of a route by specifying the equipment used on it as opposed to an evaluation of the route's intrinsic challenges is absurd, and of course the system and its definitions disappeared, leaving behind the pointless units digit 5 in front of our difficulty ratings.
Defining trad simply in terms of equipment used misses so many aspects of trad that, as you say, it could well contribute to the end of the type of climbing trad originally referred to.
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