RRC Archives

Good point LK Day! French Free is an important skill. You can really see the "beauty" in it when you are tired of belaying. Nothing is more frustrating, when shadows are getting long, than watching a lollygagger.

And free french starts to look really, really good when you realize you're going to be spending the night on the Diamond in the rain and snow unless somebody can keep pushing the rope to the top regardless of conditions.

im not sure who is trolling who in this thread.

if everyone is trolling everyone else, is anyone being trolled? is everyone?

let me break it down spike....as each of us ages, we live in our dreams of 'the good ole days"...happens to all of us..we become delusional to the purity of what we did in the past.

when change comes, which is just like breathing, we become aghast (aghast, I say) that others have found a different set of rules or interpretation of an activity that was made up to start with.

we feel left behind and decide to hold up some arbitrary standard of how things are "supposed to be"....when others deter from that, we become bewildered and start throwing out buzz phrases of "purity", and "style" and "before MTV and sticky rubber".....

pigsteak wrote:let me break it down spike....as each of us ages, we live in our dreams of 'the good ole days"...happens to all of us..we become delusional to the purity of what we did in the past.

when change comes, which is just like breathing, we become aghast (aghast, I say) that others have found a different set of rules or interpretation of an activity that was made up to start with.

we feel left behind and decide to hold up some arbitrary standard of how things are "supposed to be"....when others deter from that, we become bewildered and start throwing out buzz phrases of "purity", and "style" and "before MTV and sticky rubber".....

I think you're the one that has become more and more delusional there, piggie. There are many, many different rules in the crazy climbing game that we play or played by, different areas, different times, different rules. I've always tried to be completely honest and straightforward concerning the rules I played by in my time, and when those self-imposed rules were bent. I can't think of a single person in this discussion that has been aghast, felt left behind, or become delusional, unless that person is you. I have talked about the self-imposed rules that Henry Barber and Jim Erickson played by as well, but never implied that that was how things SHOULD be done. I've also tried to be clear about what "free climbing" meant in different times, places and situations. That's all. You keep trying to twist people's words while you pretend to clarify. You can troll all you want, and you can pretend that others have become upset or bent out of shape. That doesn't make it so. If I didn't think this discussion was fun I wouldn't be participating. One of your constant themes is that trad climbing is passe, meaningless, and anything but adventurous. I still challenge you to repeat some of the old fright-fests. You'll find there's plenty of adventure to be found. Nobody will be upset if you walk them and nobody will be upset if you continue to talk smack about trad while carefully avoiding the challenge.

challenge on sir day.....next summer my quest will begin. in all seriousness, give me a list of ten "must do" classics and i will do my best to get to at least 5 of them next year.

Cool. I don't know what you've already done, and all the routes I know are ANCIENT, so we should seek input from contemporary "trad daddies". But here's a short list to start.

Jungle Beat - Fun, sound rock, great pro, long (for the gorge), only one hard move on the whole route.
Last Day - Burly offwidth with an interesting crux, a little bit of steep unprotected face, three maybe four pitches, only the first one is long. Great adventure.
Meteor Maker - One pitch, a move or two of 5.10. Do not fall.
Wimp Out to Insanity Ceiling - Fantastic easy hand traverse with great exposure, somewhat sketchy 5.9 thin dihedral, short 11a roof to steep headwall.
Tower of Power - Ask Mr. Cammers.
Day Tripping - Modern continuation of my old one pitch route. Sounds like great fun.
The Quest - Crappy first pitch. Terrific crack climbing on sound rock above that. Maybe the best hanging belay in the RRG. Best done in four short pitches.
Wimpering Insanity - Greg Smith's inspired or possibly just insane creation. Stand at the base, look up, and ponder. No need to climb it, just imagine leading above the 1/4" bolts on that rock.

I'm sure there are a number of great modern routes. Anybody have suggestions for Mr. Pigsteak? Bonus points for adventure.

The thing is Larry, Pigsteak can't go repeat your routes and have the same experience you are advocating as he will already know too much about each route before he leaves the ground. The only way he can understand what you love about rock climbing is to try and replicate your experience elsewhere; and maybe he already has and is simply trolling.

I don't know how pigsteak goes about developing new routes but I have done just a few myself and know this; absolutely nothing is as fulfilling as walking up to a gear line, becoming inspired, racking up and sending it with no inkling of what you might be getting yourself into other than what you can gather from the ground. You rely on your abilities to get yourself out of whatever jams you might get into. This to me is what defines the traditional form of rock climbing that emphasizes adventure, commitment, and the unknown above pure athleticism , rankings, and working toward attaining distant goals (which is also loads of fun and fulfilling). It is just another form of climbing like aid climbing, sport climbing, alpine and ice climbing, or bouldering; each with their own set of standards for how to approach them "fairly". The challenge shouldn't be to repeat 10 of Larry's routes but instead to go find 10 of your own gear routes that test your abilities and composure.

And then don't spray about them. New routes to onsight with absolutely no prior information are becoming less scarce all of the time. An argument could be made that by documenting your ascents and publishing them you are robbing the next generation of explorers of the opportunity to have the same experience you had. I was once told that I "owed it to the next generation of climbers" to document everything I have done so that they can know about these routes and follow them. I would argue that by documenting them I am assuring that a large portion of them cannot follow my experience because they will approach it with preconceived notions and too much information.

You wont find me disagreeing with you about "trad dads" on some accounts. Many of them simply hiding behind their inability to push themselves or reliving their old glory days (as is common in any recreational activity), but some of them are having experiences you can't have if you take out the element of the unknown.

Everything I have written so far is rambling and somewhat off topic but I have been looking for a way to express this for sometime and came to it by following the line of thinking that A) you shouldn't rap gear routes and take so much of the experience out of them and B) When you climb in an adventurous manner, and learn to not let your ego drive your climbing experience, but rather your sense of self fulfillment and adventure, then you won't give a shit who got the official First Fucking Ascent (I am assuming I understand the acronym FFA correctly).

Nice!

pigsteak wrote:let me break it down spike....as each of us ages, we live in our dreams of 'the good ole days"...happens to all of us..we become delusional to the purity of what we did in the past.

when change comes, which is just like breathing, we become aghast (aghast, I say) that others have found a different set of rules or interpretation of an activity that was made up to start with.

we feel left behind and decide to hold up some arbitrary standard of how things are "supposed to be"....when others deter from that, we become bewildered and start throwing out buzz phrases of "purity", and "style" and "before MTV and sticky rubber".....

I can't hear you over the sound of this really HOT new dub step song!