RRC Archives

interesting camhead...interesting...

so is it really up to the whim of the guidebook author? if so I better buy this man some beer....

Pig, as many routes as you have up, you should buy him a case of beer.

pigsteak wrote:thanks guys...this really wasnt about trying to stir the pot ( not totally anyway).

so in your case larry, those 4 top rope problems that you did the FA..am I to understand that your FA might have been with aid or at least a few hangs..and then you counted it as an FFA once it went clean even on top rope? russ and other traddies,would you still use this same mindset when opening new lines today...?

It's much simpler than that, piggie.
1) Toproped ascents counted for nothing. They may have been mentioned in guide books so that the full history of a line was known, but they weren't considered FAs.
2) The FA went to the first person, and members of the party, to lead a climb, ground up. If you couldn't lead it without hanging it was considered 5.whatever-A0. If you pulled on gear or stood in a sling it was most likely 5.whatever-A1. The only route I ever did like that was The Quest. I failed in the attempt to pull myself up into the final slot. It was getting late so I pulled on a sling and climbed to the top. If I'd had any idea that climbing in the RRG would ever amount to anything, I think I would have gone back and freed the final off-width slot.
3) In the purest sense, FFA meant, ground up, on lead, all moves free, no falls, no weighting of gear. Although Henry Barber to my knowledge never climbed in the RRG, he established a reputation as an ultra-purist, and would lower all the way to the beginning of the pitch, pull his rope (though not gear that he'd already placed) and start the pitch over if he fell. Jim Erickson was the true ultra-purist and as a rule, would not return to a pitch that he'd fallen off of. I don't know of even a single other climber that approached climbing like that. I think that most free climbers of the era were more concerned with good rather than "perfect style" and were satisfied if all moves went free without hanging. For purely expedient reasons I think it was pretty common for a climber that was attempting the FFA of a route to lower, after a fall, to a point point to where they could rest without tension from the rope. It was from this point that they would start climbing again. I did that on one of my routes, Last Day. All my other routes I did without falls on the FFA. I don't know of anyone in the RRG that pulled their ropes and started a pitch from the beginning after a fall. They might lower all the way to the beginning of the pitch or to a good stance, but nobody pulled their ropes and started over.

Little known fact: the "FFA" of the Phoenix crack in Yosemite (1976) by Ray Jardine (inventor of friends) is widely hailed as the first 5.13 route, at least in the US. However, Jardine never freed this line by today's standards; he did the whole thing clean on toprope a few times, and did all the moves on lead, but with a few "takes." He never climbed from top to bottom on lead without weighting the rope (neither pinkpoint nor redpoint).

The reason for this is that, by the standards of the day, the fact that he was hangdogging, "taking," and working moves already invalidated his ascent; whether he did it with a few takes, or redpointed it was irrelevant, since he had already hungdog it and broke the "rules" of the time.

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/the-phoenix/105875268

great stuff guys!

so larry just thinking Aloud here..in theory one could lead to within say 5-10 feet of the top of a pitch and fall. they would then lower and literally top rope all but that final section. this would give them the ffa yet some dude who fully top roped it the day before was not recognized.

it is good to know that the old standards were as arbitrary and evolving as they are today.

pigsteak wrote:great stuff guys!

so larry just thinking Aloud here..in theory one could lead to within say 5-10 feet of the top of a pitch and fall. they would then lower and literally top rope all but that final section. this would give them the ffa yet some dude who fully top roped it the day before was not recognized.

it is good to know that the old standards were as arbitrary and evolving as they are today.

Sorry, I'm not Larry, just a huge climbing history nerd... Yup, quite a few FA's at the Gunks went down just as you described, Kipp. The only saving grace is that the style of the time also dictated that EVERYONE in the team who gradually sketched and fell their way to the top would get credited with the FA. It was often seen as very bad form to take two ground up attempts in a row; ideally, all members of the team would take turns in gradually pushing the toprope higher and higher.

Even making it more complex: many FFAs in the Gunks were done on lines that had previous been aided, and often aided with pitons (especially on thin face climbs). So, it was not unusual for bold, tradbadical FAists to free routes with nothing more than a harness full of slings to clip already-placed pitons. How is that not sport climbing again?

Piggie, That is correct. Keep in mind that one guy did lead the whole pitch, even if not in one push. The other guy lead none of it. The FFA's style left quite a bit to be desired, however. And I agree, what camhead describes is indeed sport climbing, just not recognized as such until many years after the fact. And yep, just as camhead says, everyone on the team got credit for the FFA, even those who never lead a pitch. The important point is that every pitch had to be lead free.

camhead said: "It was often seen as very bad form to take two ground up attempts in a row; ideally, all members of the team would take turns in gradually pushing the toprope higher and higher." Yeah, whenever people had a reasonably balanced team "gangbanging" it was seen as the only way to be fair to your partners. However, if one guy was seen as the only one that had a chance at the thing and the partners were more like understudies, then we wouldn't necessarily rotate leaders.

so it now makes my opening scenario even more of "who the hell cares"? 20 years from now itll be irrelevant...naw, 20 days from now.

That's what I was trying to tell you.