The Birthplace of Bold Trad

[LK Day]

It's soft sandstone alright. Wilford told me that a rope can cut a deep groove in the rock rather easily. That sounds a lot like the RRG. That's why they use massive ring bolts for pro. I'm pretty sure that the use of jammed knots arose as an alternative to pitons in a time before chocks were available. While I doubt that aluminum pieces would cause much more wear on the rock than jammed knots would generally, I can imagine cases where falling on a cam might blow off a thin flake where a jammed knot wouldn't. Still, I think it's mostly about their local tradition. They're ballsy mothers for sure.

[dfspau2]

The walls don't look like any volcanic (tuff) or any metamorphic (gniess) that I've ever seen... based on the formations/color they look like limestone, which I know east Germany has alot of... you can have quartz rich LS (calcareous sandstones basically which form in shallow beach environments) or non calcareous LS's that are harder (form in a lake bed environment)... take a look at formations in China or Thailand and you can get the same things... Its hard to say from the video though, or without having the rock in hand...
Your local geologist,
DFSPAU2

[dfspau2]

regardless, the guys who climb on the stuff, must have a hard time pulling their pants over their bowling sized balls

[LK Day]

It is sandstone.
Numerous articles in climbing magazines over the years have called it sandstone.
First hand reports of the only two climbers that I know that have visited the area say it's sandstone.
The second line of narration in the video calls it sandstone.

[dfspau2]

tis true... its in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains of Germany

[clif]

yeah, i didn't mean to imply that it isn't sandstone, more just how there is a bit of the fantastic in the varieties and whimsy in something so seemingly immutable

[hamsco]

Think of the Red if we had a no chalk ethic.......

[LK Day]

We never really climbed all that hard back in the '70s, but we climbed up to 5.11 trad without chalk and, seriously, didn't feel like it held us back. We just didn't feel like it was right to mark the place up. I was NOT one that spent much time rock climbing in the Gorge in the heat of summer, though. I didn't break down and use chalk until one of my very last (climbing) visits back home. And that was only because everyone else was using chalk by then. Sometimes I think the use of chalk is more a mental crutch than anything else, and the Czechs, Germans and Poles are climbing damned hard without it.

One thing for sure, there's no such thing as a true "on sight" ascent of a route that has chalk on it.

[camhead]

We never really climbed all that hard back in the '70s, but we climbed up to 5.11 trad without chalk and, seriously, didn't feel like it held us back. We just didn't feel like it was right to mark the place up. I was NOT one that spent much time rock climbing in the Gorge in the heat of summer, though. I didn't break down and use chalk until one of my very last (climbing) visits back home. And that was only because everyone else was using chalk by then. Sometimes I think the use of chalk is more a mental crutch than anything else, and the Czechs, Germans and Poles are climbing damned hard without it.

One thing for sure, there's no such thing as a true "on sight" ascent of a route that has chalk on it.

I agree with that in a lot of ways, even though my soft western ass can't even touch rock in KY without teaching for the chalk bag.

I personally never used chalk in the Southern Utah desert (Indian Creek, or Towers), simply because the mechanics of pure crack climbing combined with near 0% humidity make it unnecessary. It's pretty lame that tickmark culture has extended out there. Also, it's a totally biased judgement call, but the aesthetics of exposed, smooth, soaring Wingate sandstone walls make chalk marks and especially ticks quite a bit uglier out there than they would be on a broken, blocky limestone cliff or an overhang nestled back in the trees somewhere.