RRC Archives

Exactly my point.

I used to be the same way. I've since seen the light.

OW and SCIN both now belong to the darkside...by the way ladies, we are preparing 10 new lines in Muir as we speak. I think you'll like how they add to your point totals

caribe wrote:Do you mean that tricams are not part of the trad repertoire?

Not part of my trad repertoire. The tri-cam just seems wrong to me. It just looks like a square peg for a round hole.

caribe wrote: If I use a tricam in one out of ten placements, the tricam placement turns my statement above into a true statement; more time will be spent on protection.

More time will be spent of protection. Because tri-cams take a long time to place and they are just placed to say you placed them. And you place them just so you can do one more move to get in some real gear.

I really enjoyed your post absolutesugersmurf. If you have been climbing for 6 to 8 years you are definetely qualified to comment. But here is the thing...

I can not agree with most of the stuff that you posted.

A sport line is more defined than a trad route???? What???? I feel like this is completely backward. What could be more definite than a crack route? What could be more arbitrary than sinking a bunch of bolts in a steep overhang?

Don't trust bolts??? You say trad is more heady but you don't trust bolts. What could be scarier than cleaning a route if you didn't trust those two bolts you are sitting on?

Placing a cam is more difficult than placing a draw? Sure

Cams weigh more than draws? Agreed

About the grades? Yes there is a difference of a whole number between 8+ and 9+. A whole number. I think you are flat wrong to assume that this whole number would be a greater difference than the whole number between 13a and 14a.

About the "beastly" hard 10c or 11a trad routes? Have you seen someone that regularly climbs trad at these levels climb them? Have you seen 512OW do the Inihibitor? Are you sure it is burly? It is a technique thing.

Hand sizes? Sure it matters. Mostly at Indian creek. I think all good traddies have a way to deal with different sized cracks. But when it comes to repeating over and over again a size that is slammer hands for someone else, sure, it will feel harder for you. Doesn't happen at the Red much.

I also have a friend that skipped all the lower grades in trad. It seemed very effective, I am note sure it is for everyone though.

Thanks again for the post. Just thought you deserved a little more feedback.

512OW wrote:As far as gear being "not as fast" to place as a quickdraw... I agree, but only barely. When redpointing an extreme trad route, the climber usually has the gear placements as dialed as the hand and foot placements. It takes very little time to plug in a cam or nut you already have the exact placement for.

I don't see many trad climbers who "redpoint" though.... maybe thats the problem.

I love this process of sport climbing a trad route. The only thing that super sucks about it is the cleaning part. Cleaning the route after every try sucks.
Especially if you don't have a follower that understands this strange game of taking out all the perfectly good placements, just to put them back in again. Single pitch trad climbing is wierd this way. I kinda wish Pink pointing was more accepted. Didn't Sony Trotter Pink point a bunch of his sends? Bio-Desiel at the New? Maybe if Sharma did it we could all get away with pre placed gear. Sort of like the stick clip thing..."Hey I know stick clips are a little ghey. But Sharma does it. And what could be cooler than Sharma?"

JR wrote:

512OW wrote:As far as gear being "not as fast" to place as a quickdraw... I agree, but only barely. When redpointing an extreme trad route, the climber usually has the gear placements as dialed as the hand and foot placements. It takes very little time to plug in a cam or nut you already have the exact placement for.

I don't see many trad climbers who "redpoint" though.... maybe thats the problem.

I love this process of sport climbing a trad route. The only thing that super sucks about it is the cleaning part. Cleaning the route after every try sucks.
Especially if you don't have a follower that understands this strange game of taking out all the perfectly good placements, just to put them back in again. Single pitch trad climbing is wierd this way. I kinda wish Pink pointing was more accepted. Didn't Sony Trotter Pink point a bunch of his sends? Bio-Desiel at the New? Maybe if Sharma did it we could all get away with pre placed gear. Sort of like the stick clip thing..."Hey I know stick clips are a little ghey. But Sharma does it. And what could be cooler than Sharma?"

Yep, Sonnie did Bio Deisel that way. Croft also did the roof at Lions Head that way.

I think its become more accepted for roof cracks, because of the cleaning difficulty, though I'm still not totally buyin it....

that's because OW is a crotchety old fart at his core.

Its true. But I'm becoming more of a bolt clippin faggot everyday.

JR,

I think a sport line is more "defined" than a trad line due to the efforts of the route equipper. It is clear, when on a sport line, that you climb from one bolt, to the next. It is your immediate short term goal. Nothing else needs to be done in between bolts other than climbing, and it is clear that you should clip the bolt from a stance in the general vicinity of the bolt (super obvious). These "dots" do not exist on trad lines. On an onsite attempt, you do not know where good placements will be found, or were the best stances to place from will occur. Many times on a trad line, you will place a secure piece, just to find another great placement waiting for you in just one foot. Should you then place another piece? Is this your last placement for 10 feet? You simply cannot know. This argument does not really apply to well rehearsed red-point efforts, climbs like crack attack, or climbs with ple-praced gear. You were talking more about what is usually refered to as a natural line. I personally agree, that a crack is a more clear line than a sport climb. This differentiation becomes less distinct when you climb more and more sport, as the lines become more obvious to a trained observer.

I do trust bolts, but I was just saying it is a dangerous mindset to blindly trust a sport bolted route. In general, we, as a community, blindly trust bolts. This allows our minds to be at ease when climbing sport, which was more to the point of what I was saying. I trust bolts and so will whip on them with little anxienty. This is not always true of gear I have placed. Again, an argument that degrades with experience and varies from route to route. There are some bolts at Purple Valley that I wouldn't hang my rack from, and some easy cam placements that I'd whip from all day. However, when it really comes down to it, I can't forget that a strong cam is 14kN or so, and highly dependant on the rock quality. A bolt is 24 kN or so, and I trust that the bolter evaluated the rock and did enough of his homework that I can be pretty safe. Hence I'd rather fall on a bolt, stupid as that may be.

Though thinking about it, I don't know anyone who would rather be sketched out 10 feet over a C3 than 10 ft over a bolt, holding everything else constant. Maybe in NC though

I was saying the 8+ is harder than the 9+. Read some of Larry Day's posts on the original ratings of early trad climbs in the Red. Many "easy" climbs are notoriously difficult due to a reluctance to rate anything hard, and by using Seneca as a metric. There's a brief mention of it in the guide book too. So climbing easy trad routes can be difficult, because a 5.8+ in the 70's would sometimes be a 5.9 or 5.10 if the FA was today. This is what I meant by compression, a small number range to represent a wide variety of difficulty. This could be fixed be re-assesing the route grades by today's extended YDS. I am not advocating that happen though. Getting thoroughly spanked on a 5.8 is an experience every climber should have.

I stand by my statement that 10c and 11a routes can be beastly hard in comparison to sport. Almost no one thinks the Inhibitor is easy. Look up generator crack in Yosemite for another example. I am not saying all 10c and 11a trad is beastly hard as compared to sport. Actually, I often find that much of the climbing is the same. Often, but not always. Trad can just be full-body in a way that sport very very rarely is. I still think hand size still matters. True, more at Indian Creek than anywhere else. This is such an incalculable variable though. I proabably shouldn't have brought it into the discussion.

absolutsugarsmurf wrote:JR,

On an onsite attempt, you do not know where good placements will be found, or were the best stances to place from will occur. Many times on a trad line, you will place a secure piece, just to find another great placement waiting for you in just one foot. Should you then place another piece? Is this your last placement for 10 feet? You simply cannot know.

I disagree. I can nearly always tell from the ground where the stances and gear are, on one pitch trad climbs. What you can't tell from the ground, you can usually see from the stance below.

absolutsugarsmurf wrote:Though thinking about it, I don't know anyone who would rather be sketched out 10 feet over a C3 than 10 ft over a bolt, holding everything else constant.

I can't say I'd "rather" be in that position, but it really makes no difference to me one way or the other what is below me, as long as I know what it is. If I commit to going above it... then its good enough.

absolutsugarsmurf wrote:So climbing easy trad routes can be difficult, because a 5.8+ in the 70's would sometimes be a 5.9 or 5.10 if the FA was today.

Again, lace of technique/experience/mental strength. I've yet to find a route in the Red, or Vedauwoo, or Yosemite, or JTree, or NC, that I would call "grossly sandbagged". All the routes here that people yap about being sandbagged are because of a lack of that particular technique.

absolutsugarsmurf wrote:I stand by my statement that 10c and 11a routes can be beastly hard in comparison to sport.

See above explanation...

absolutsugarsmurf wrote:Almost no one thinks the Inhibitor is easy.

The Inhibitor IS easy... if you know the technique. I've done it in gym shoes, and it still didn't feel harder than 11a. There is one hard move on the entire route, right after a no hands rest. Struggling through easy climbing by not using the correct technique doesn't make the route harder... it just means that you're not proficient yet.