RRC Archives

LK Day wrote:"Trying to stay away from offwidth 5.8s"

Now that's hard to do, definitely the crux of the entire effort. The only reason climbing in the red river gorge wasn't popular prior to the emergence of sport climbing was the ubiquitous and dreaded 5.8 offwidth.

I guess I should just sack up and do it huh? My problem with offwidth is that I never know the moves until I see how someone else does them, it's a total mindfuck for me.

Ever used a Chouinard tube chock or an 11 Hex? Hexes could be bomber up to maybe slightly larger than fist sized cracks, but every tube chock I ever placed wobbled like crazy, instilling little confidence that they would hold a fall. Still we slithered up all manner of wide cracks while knowing little or nothing about offwidth technique. Just plug some of those monster cams you guys have and work it out. We're pulling for ya!

Knowing little or nothing about OW technique??? Who does know anything about it, without trying it? I am sure you had a good idea after a few pitches of OW...

But that shit seems to never get easy!

Well what little I did know came from perusing the line drawings in Royal Robbin's "Basic Rockcraft". After that it was just climb, climb, climb.

A lot of the OWs in the Red tend to be relatively easy, good friction and lots of face and foot holds to dull the pain on many of them. Good place to dive in and learn, just don't get spoiled when you make the switch to granite!

I agree completely whith dustonian.

http://www.redriverclimbing.com/museum/ ... age27.html

http://www.redriverclimbing.com/museum/ ... age28.html

It has been many, many years since I've looked at these illustrations but, seriously, I wonder if the inspiration for the guy on page 54 might be Mike Caldwell (Tommy's dad). I climbed and guided with Mike in the mid '80s and I swear this illustration is a dead ringer for young Mike, except I think I remember Mike sporting a flat top back then.

dustonian wrote:Not unlike the strong opinions of ted over on that other thread...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_formation

A classic in the field...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term ... %208772014

lol...my response was meant to be a tongue in cheek dooood. it could have easily been the scenario for us sport wienies who go choss hunting in the winter with drill in tow....but then again, maybe you were pointing the finger at yourself as it regards reaction formation...if so, sorry.

Cleveland, to get back on the subject of solid 5.8, I know something about old school 5.8 in the RRG and believe me, it's solid. A really good cool weather 5.8 is Devine Climb. It starts off with steep, sustained, sinker jams (hands or fingers, can't remember which) then transitions to a tips lieback that's made easier by the fact that it's kind of low angle - a really good line that for some strange reason almost never gets climbed. It will be a bit dirty because of that, but it's good - no kidding. Get on it and spread the word.

Good Times 5.8+, Eastern sky bridge. .....stout but not too stout, and protects well

Good Times has a short section that qualifies as chimney/flaring offwidth. not hard, but your mind should be in the game.