By the numbers.

[Andrew]

Lol, you can sit back down Wheatley.

I never stood up... I am just that tall sitting down.

[caribe]

So I'm not allowed to have an opinion on climbing, or to praise Andrew as a role model for young climbers on the way up?

Please tell me you were referring to Gearing....

Omg! Ha ha ha!

[dustonian]

Lol, you can sit back down Wheatley.

I never stood up... I am just that tall sitting down.

Hahaha perfect!!!

[climb2core]

Ha, well that was good for a laugh. If it is any consolation AW, I have been a fan of yours ever since you said I didn't look as fat as I used to.

[LK Day]

http://www.redriverclimbing.com/RRCGuid ... ay&id=4637

Hardest send. 13b or 10c?

[SCIN]

Go to the Indian Creek forum and ask this question. That'll really fuck up your logic.

[512OW]

Go to the Indian Creek forum and ask this question. That'll really fuck up your logic.

Exactly. It's all about what you spend your time doing. A crack climber friend of mine from Colorado came out a few years ago, sent Welcome To Ole Kentuck in a few tries, and then spent the rest of his trip trying unsuccessfully to redpoint any 5.12 sport routes. Just got too pumped.

I'm a far better sport climber than I ever was a trad climber. I had to train to climb hard sport. I ate McDonalds everyday to climb what you guys call "hard" trad.

[THB]

There you go, JR. Takeaways from this inquiry? It's pretty typical for those that climb sport and trad in the RRG to post considerably bigger numbers on sport than on trad. "Some" suggest that you're just being lazy if you try to balance your skills by pushing on trad when you could be spending all of your time in the gym trying to go from 12.b sport to 12.b+ sport, even if you couldn't climb your way out of a paper bag on trad. I think I'd pick Andrew as my role model, not whoever the Pigster was talking about.

But take out a guidebook and see how many routes are published, trad vs. sport, grade for grade. Take 12+ (12c-12d range) for example... seems like a lot of people posting on this thread are saying they can climb in the 12+ range (sport) if they are the ones posting "bigger numbers on sport than on trad" so that seems like a good place to look in the guidebook. There are 7 published trad lines 12c-12d. There are about 80 published sport lines 12c-12d. I'm sure that if I spent as much time trad climbing as I do sport climbing then I'd be out of routes to climb at my redpoint limit.

Correct me if I'm wrong... but I think that's sort of what happened to Ray and to Odub. They climbed most of the "harder" trad lines in the gorge... and so they started sport climbing. And, again, correct me if I'm wrong... but I think that they both now have a gap between their hardest sport redpoint versus their hardest trad redpoint.

So, if you are really pushing yourself in the trad game... you get up into the 5.12 range with trad climbs... do most of them in the gorge... start sport climbing... climb most of the 13's in the gorge... start sport climbing even harder... do a good number of the 14's in the gorge... run out of stuff to climb on that's already bolted (at your limit)... and so you either start bolting new stuff or go back to trad climbing harder stuff (like Andrew) and you start putting down 5.13 and 5.14 trad lines...

I like Ray's point about asking this question to people that frequent Indian Creek...

[LK Day]

Good point THB. One can't climb what isn't there. But have all the hard trad lines in the RRG been done already? Have those that consider themselves to be 5.13 climbers done those 12c-d trad lines? Are there no cracks so intimidating that nobody's lead or even tried them yet? Are people bolting 12+ lines that should go on gear? I have no idea, just asking the questions.

As for the Indian Creek forum, does wdub hang out there? Unless he does I don't think they could answer the question of which was the harder send for him, a 13.b that he did on his first try or a 10.c that took three tries. The "harder send" question was supposed to be kind of funny anyway, thus the at the end.

[LK Day]

Oh, and for the record. RRG sport climbing looks like it must be an out-of-this-world experience. Psychedelic, even. I know I would have enjoyed being part of it, as the big endurance jug hauls look like tons of fun. I harbor no illusions that I would ever have been able to develop the contact strength for the stuff I see on some of the videos. It is simply amazing. I do appreciate the time and place you find yourselves in and am glad you guys get to explore the unique spot on the planet that is the RRG.