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It's not about what's hardest, man, but what takes the greatest skills set. Technical skills. And in the great skills set continuum, with scrambels at the bottom, and high altitude big walls somewhere near the top, hard trad outranks hard sport, by fucking miles. Every time.

that and getting out of the house before your girlfriend's husband makes it up the stairs.

And to beat all, the super alpinist has to pull off his climb while mentally and physically debilitated by the lowest blood oxygen levels ever measured in living human beings. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science ... 98495.html

All those who have read Tammi Knight cartoons know that insane crazed WI-6 ice climbers are beyond any measure of sanity and difficulty known to mankind. Ice ruled the world, and will soon be back again to slide over our continent so let's all be ready for it.

A-MEN L K DAY!!!!

Larry, I think you're dead wrong. Sport climbing requires a much larger skill set. Trad techniques are simple in comparison. I once read an article quoting Steve Hong, Todd Skinner, and Tony Yaniro saying the same thing, and I thought they were nuts. Then I started sport climbing... and realized they were absolutely correct.

I think you're talking about different types of skills. To a large extent sport climbing skills are precise body position, muscle usage, angle and balance. And it is common for these specific skills to be practiced over and over on the same route and different routes. I think the skill Larry is referring to includes a bit of this but is more a matter of organization, mental toughness, problem solving and determination skills. You might be able to climb a difficult mountain but not able to onsight a 5.12 and vice versa. It's simply 2 different things. If you are comparing single pitch 5.13+ sport to 5.13+ trad there is less of a difference in the skills needed, but they are still different. I'm not saying the trad route is harder, but it does require different skills. There may be some techniques of moving up the rock that are more common in sport than in trad but it seems that all of these could be part of a trad route. From my experience trad routes tend to have more variety in techniques for moving up the rock than sport routes, but there aren't enough hard trad routes around here to compare the variety at the higher grades. Then there is the whole deal with predicting what gear you need, racking it, and placing it which are all additional skills. Regardless of which style requires the larger skill set, the skill sets are, on average, pretty different. I admire anyone who has skills, regardless of what they are.

512OW - Where you're wrong is in assuming that the cutting edge super alpinist is not also a bad assed sporty. All his big wall, ice climbing, and high altitude experience is stacked on top of his ability to climb 5.13 when he's clipping bolts. Tomo Cesen comes to mind.

Jammer wrote:I think you're talking about different types of skills. To a large extent sport climbing skills are precise body position, muscle usage, angle and balance. And it is common for these specific skills to be practiced over and over on the same route and different routes. I think the skill Larry is referring to includes a bit of this but is more a matter of organization, mental toughness, problem solving and determination skills. You might be able to climb a difficult mountain but not able to onsight a 5.12 and vice versa. It's simply 2 different things. If you are comparing single pitch 5.13+ sport to 5.13+ trad there is less of a difference in the skills needed, but they are still different. I'm not saying the trad route is harder, but it does require different skills. There may be some techniques of moving up the rock that are more common in sport than in trad but it seems that all of these could be part of a trad route. From my experience trad routes tend to have more variety in techniques for moving up the rock than sport routes, but there aren't enough hard trad routes around here to compare the variety at the higher grades. Then there is the whole deal with predicting what gear you need, racking it, and placing it which are all additional skills. Regardless of which style requires the larger skill set, the skill sets are, on average, pretty different. I admire anyone who has skills, regardless of what they are.

Seems I've used the same skills of delicate balance, thin moves and exact footwork, repeated moves and falls on many a trad climb too over the years. We don't just plug gear in a crack and climb up with no thought or effort. And I never took one of those repeated falls on gear with anything near the confidence or comfort of a sport fall with bomber bolts every few feet. Trad' often made you think like the climbers of the mid 19th century ,,'the leader must not fall' was their philosophy.

Oh my god, are you guys wizards or some sort of voodoo priests? That is so crazy about the amount of skill you have!!!??? WOW! Do you carry magic wands when you climb? I thought I remembered seeing a bunch of tinkerbells flying around this guy leading Inhibitor once. Now I know what they were doing. They were helping him with his wizardry.