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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Dec 12, 2009 - 03:08pm PT
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Days of Future Passed sometimes gets an R:
(photo lifted from Mountain Project)
Me on the fist crack pitch (not the sometimes R pitch but the only photo I have).
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cragnshag
Social climber
san joser
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Dec 12, 2009 - 04:04pm PT
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A little runnout on GPA this summer. Sustained 5.8 and 5.9 friction for quite a ways. The one bolt is now SS 3/8" so that might inspire a little confidence. The rock definitely had my attention.
I generally try to avoid R-rated routes since they can be hazardous to my health. But occasionally I'll get on one for one reason or another...
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Dec 12, 2009 - 04:04pm PT
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Oh yeah, and like twenty years after putting up the N ridge of Notch Dome I decided that having a runout so long on the second pitch that, if you fall, you can actually hit the ground, was a bit much.
So I went up there 2 months ago with my Bosch and started to put in a pro bolt,........
and fukking ran out of juice with only an inch of hole.
Had to fukking lead it anyway with an extra load in my pack.
Nearly wound up with another one in my shorts!
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David Knopp
Trad climber
CA
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Dec 13, 2009 - 01:24am PT
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my favorite was a route we thought was "flight path" at red rocks, turned out to be some 10-ish thing, which i couldn't possibly have climbed had i known it was rated that. As i puled a teeny roof, weighting a knob with my stretched out right leg, i heard it go- "pop." Next thing i knew i was quite a ways, down, held by a nut behind a plate, feeling the sand and gravel from above still brushing over me. Eeek.
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Dec 13, 2009 - 04:17am PT
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What about the 2nd pitch of april fools? Also a var pitch to lady bug (at the leap). Full on 5.8 death pitch. 75 + feet of tenuous moves over a ledge with no pro at all. Probably one of the most memorable pitches I have ever lead. At one point my belayer was screaming to put in pro, at the belay he was white as a ghost.
Very stout yet unassuming, wonder how many have ventured up that pitch?
It just suckers you into it, looks like it will pro up, but nope no dice!
Hardman Knott?
Petch?
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Dec 13, 2009 - 09:34am PT
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Most of the really scary free leads I've done weren't on purpose, they had no ratings.
Suddenly there's that gut-punched knowledge that you're climbing for your life.
If you see an R in the guidebook and then start the lead anyway, that's usually not
in the same mental class -- you have an idea what to expect, you've thought it over,
and figured you're up for this.
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Delhi Dog
Trad climber
Good Question...
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Dec 13, 2009 - 09:44am PT
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Nerve Wrack Point in the meadows was pretty spicy if I remember correctly. Maybe not death but disfigurement...
I had the damndest time finding those bolts...
Cheers
DD
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Dec 13, 2009 - 12:12pm PT
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One I wrote up for ST, now languishing as the Needle's Eye trip report.
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papa_eos
Trad climber
conejo valley, california
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Dec 13, 2009 - 12:29pm PT
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On my first trip to Courtright Res. with myself pretty much a freshman trad climber, my buddy Chris asked Greg Vernon at the campground about a good route to do. He mentioned Zorro Zone, and you could use small rack of cams, fun route, he didn't stress that we needed some tri-cams for the solution pockets.
I still cringe when thinking about Chris on one of the upper pitches being out about 100+ feet looking for bolts or pro placements. At the belay I wondered if my harness and/or belay would hold if he throttled by me. This was an example of "When in doubt, run it out"
We finished it, went back to camp, saw Greg, mentioned the lack of pro and he just had that evil grin. He said we should have had some tri-cams.
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
Sacramento, CA
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Dec 13, 2009 - 01:52pm PT
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Mucci,
I remember that pitch. That was my very first climb! I was too new know much but I was very aware that my faithful leader -David Stam- was "out there" as he told me "Do NOT short rope me".
Oh yeah, it was raining!
This was they day that began the rest of my life. Man I love climbing.
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Salamanizer
Trad climber
The land of Fruits & Nuts!
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Dec 13, 2009 - 01:55pm PT
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Mucci... That second pitch of April Fools used to have a bolt. You can see the old 1/4in stud that is sheared off and bent over about 30ft above the belay ledge. It's not a pitch worth repeating IMO.
From what I've observed of "R" routes is that most of them hardly deserve the grade. Yeah sure, there might be some space between your gear, but 90% of the time your on ground way below the crux grade.
I know people (alot of people) who would never get on a route merely because it has an R in the guide. Totally ridiculous! Are you really willing to pass up a world class route to go stand in line for another just because it has a 5.6R section on a 5.10 route? Because that's basically what you're doing... most of the time anyway.
Have ya'll seen the new Tuolumne guide? Apparently everything there is R/X. What a load of B.S. Way to liberal use or the R/X classification.
Ok so, X routes pretty well define themselves, but what about R routes. What's the criteria for a route to be considered runnout? Apparently some people seem to think it's anything beyond what a normal "sport route" would have. I disagree.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Dec 13, 2009 - 03:10pm PT
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Tuolumne is easy to figure out Salmanizer:
10' above a bolt on 5.11 = R/X
70' out from last pro on a 5.8 = PG/R
Kind of like how it's easy to figure out star ratings in Joshua Tree:
Good 5.7: zero stars
Best 5.7 in JT: 4 stars
Crumbly thin edge 5.13c: 5 stars
Maybe actually good 5.13c: 5 stars
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 13, 2009 - 04:42pm PT
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By Tucson standards, Days of Future Passed is pretty well protected so I would be curious which pitch you consider to be R rated, the 3rd or 4th? Several bolts were added during the intial ascents to produce the route in its current state but that is another story...
The Great Gig in the Sky which climbs the face left of Days is another matter with entire pitches of runout climbing. Great route! Defintely an X rated adventure as the name implies. LOL The stone in the Stronghold lends itself to wild climbing and most of the finest bold routes in the Tucson area are there.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Dec 13, 2009 - 05:21pm PT
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I didn't think Days was more sketch than other Cochise climbs (it's less so than many), it just sometimes appears with an R. I think because you might hit the ledge on the last pitch at some points, though the climbing isn't that hard.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Dec 13, 2009 - 05:23pm PT
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Ok, this is gonna be one of those retro-grouchy rants.
I think the protection rating system has condemned lots of perfectly good climbs to an undeserved obscurity.
Used to be, you went up and tried to climb something. If you didn't like the pro you retreated. If the climb still appealed, you worked on raising your game and came back when you thought you were ready.
Now its all handled by the guidebook (according to standards that are more subjective and far less universal than climbing grades), and people don't even get on routes they are really quite capable of doing.
Come to think of it, maybe this is a good thing!
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gonzo chemist
climber
the Twilight Zone of someone else's intentions
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Dec 13, 2009 - 06:01pm PT
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A few years ago, a friend and I took a trip to Red Rocks for a weekend. I'd never been to RR before, but I had been dying to go. My buddy sent me photos of this really incredible looking climb that he had been eye-ing the weekend before, located on the Catus Flower Tower. So needless to say, I was psyched. A new place to climb AND an awesome, obscure long route. Turns out the climb was every bit as good as the photos. Long pitches of squeeze chimney, hand and finger cracks, stemming corners, even a CAVE(!) on the route led us eventually over a large roof, to an anchor right on the lip, and to the base of the remaining 300' of pure face climbing. I was up for the lead on P6, and was expecting some kind of bolt line to follow. I had never seen a topo of the route and had no idea what was up there. My partner said, 'just go up and keep looking for bolts. They've GOT to be up there. And besides, we're past the crux now, so it can't be that bad." So I cast off into the steep and vast open expanse of rock. After about 25 or 30 feet and no bolts, it became apparent that falling was NOT an option: if I were lucky, I would have pitched over the roof and maybe only broken my ankles. Worst case: maybe the anchors pull out of the sandstone and we take an express ride right back to our packs at the base. All I know is, I'm used to bullet hard granite, and this sandstone stuff just isn't inspiring. Much to my relief, I find a bolt about 40' up and clip it. I take a deep breath and keep going, slow but steady, periodically clinging to the rock like a lizard when the wind began to howl. 80' off the belay I get a small nut between two plates. 'Just keep moving, just keep moving,' I would tell myself. I couldn't see any other bolts. No anchor was calling out to me from above. But I just decided I would keep going until I either hit an anchor, or ran out of rope. Another 70' feet of no pro passed slowly, like time had just stopped altogether. It was weird. I had become numb. All that mattered was to find the good holds and keep moving upward, inch by inch. Then all at once, I was stunned to find myself face to face with two 3/8 inch bolts. I clipped in, yelled that I was off belay, and let out the loudest whooping scream of my life.
That pitch was maybe about sustained 5.8ish (truth is I really couldn't tell); not that hard technically. And prior to that, I had even soloed things of that difficulty. But the combination of unfamiliar and sometimes dubious rock, in an area I'd never climbed before, near the end of a long day made this pitch feel like an epic adventure I'd never experienced before.
The route we climbed was The Warrior (not 'Rock Warrior', which I think is more popular). 7 pitches, 5.11a. I HIGHLY recommend it if you're looking for something off the beaten path in RR, that is full of adventure and excellent climbing.
-Nick
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ec
climber
ca
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Dec 13, 2009 - 06:17pm PT
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Rx = Drugs required to lead
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Dec 13, 2009 - 06:19pm PT
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^^^ A proper safety meeting is necessary.
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Dec 13, 2009 - 06:58pm PT
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I tend to agree with RGold. Things have gone so far that routes that seemed perfectly normal outings BITD, now all sport "R" ratings -- most notably Tuolumne. There has been a real dumbing down of all ratings as expectations have changed (with gym and sport climbers venturing out onto "trad" routes).
And while there is no real consensus on what makes a route "R" or "X," within each climbing area, there seems to be some consistency.
No More Mr. Nice Guy is one that stands out in my mind (someone mentioned making a 2nd ascent). Lechlinski, Gilje and I each drilled one bolt on the crux pitch. Gilje drilled the last one, after running it out quite a ways and through the crux.
Of course, Space Babble is a real classic.
I'm sure there are more, but my mind is gone.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Dec 13, 2009 - 07:21pm PT
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If climbers didn't consult guidebooks and topos as much, it wasn't because they were made of sterner stuff, it was because there weren't as many guidebooks, and the ones that were written were either far less detailed or consistently wrong and confusing.
Personally, almost all my climbs in Devil's Lake, my early climbs in the Shawangunks and in the Needles in SD were done without any kind of guidebook. I did lots of climbs in the Tetons trying, often with little success, to follow Ortenburger's descriptions---some of these resulted in new routes or variations. Climbs in the Wind Rivers and Bugaboos I did mostly with the American Alpine Journal descriptions from the Climbs and Expeditions section, which were far less detailed than today's guidebook write-ups. In Yosemite, Tuolumne, RMNP, Lumpy Ridge, and Eldorado Canyon, I had primarily information communicated verbally by other climbers. It wasn't unusual to know something about where the route went without any pitch-by-pitch breakdown. You knew that there'd be 5.9 somewhere, but not much about where or how much.
As for protection, I think most climbs were R-rated by today's standards, but of course they were easier and there was much more of a leader must not fall approach. I'm thinking of the piton-protected period through the beginnings of clean climbing, before cams came on the scene. You just didn't ever place that many pitons on a pitch, so the run-outs were often pretty big. One of the major changes that came along with nuts is that you could, and did, put in much more gear. Still, before cams, there were inevitably big gaps between solid placements. Fortunately, there were no protection ratings to alert us to the fact that we were gonna die.
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