The Birthplace of Bold Trad

[LK Day]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLcoTnzyDew

Back in the day I was inspired by what I heard and read about climbing as practiced on the sandstone towers of East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Check out Alex Honnold's FA of the arete near the end. My old buddy Topher Donahue is in this video as well. Last time I climbed with Topher he was maybe 12 years old. Imagine an alt history for the RRG where everything is done East Euro style. There'd be far fewer routes, obviously, but they'd be real horror shows.

[Brentucky]

That wakes ya up just like a good dose of coffee.

[Jeff]

No doubt 'tucky!
Then again, not much different than a day out with Jackson/Hammond.
Not that they like to run it out or minimize use of gear, its just they're so old, they usually forget to bring the gear.

[climb2core]

Or climbing trad with Kipp for that matter... gear placements for him is more for appearance than functionality.

[LK Day]

Or climbing trad with Kipp for that matter... gear placements for him is more for appearance than functionality.

So now we know why Kipp is always ragging on the trad. No good with the widgets.

[caribe]

Is the stone too soft for cams and nuts or are these people Luddites/ die-hard traditionalists?

[Crankmas]

I would say its tradition in the literal, where I have read over the years are there are bolts like they refer to but they are large, with rings that again are larger than a typical bolt hanger. The history predates modern protection and then with the influence of Soviet communism on the populace it probably made acquiring modern western climbing gear difficult. But, like their fellow climbers in the Soviet Union, Poland etc the spirit of climbers would not be broken and they carried on despite the hardships and rather than not climb they merely embraced the limitations as part of the game

[Crankmas]

sorry for the typos but my guess is the rock would be more like the Red than say the New River or T-Wall

[clif]

looking at the formations and the color it's not like any sandstone i've seen. weird though how you get those basalt columns near the welded tuff out west, and at least 3 kinds of sandstone (Corbin, Wingate, ??). my first impression was of a gray/gneiss looking consistency?

[Crankmas]

Hey Clif, I'm not a geologist though a few climbers I know are, the rock reminds me of the stone like on Half Moon and those type formations rather than say the tiered walls of T-Wall or the Nuttall sandstone of the New, maybe someone educated in that field could enlighten us. Still wild to see Honnold take on the arete like that when I normally think of his crack climbing prowess, that dude is a genuine badass and lets his actions do his talking.