crimper

please tell me you did there y'ar in the corner. and does rolling thunder not have a pretty hard crux for 10d?

trout creek is soooo boooring.....jam repeat jam repeat jam repeat.

when we first started to put up sport routes at ozone, we all expected masterpiece would be super-popular, and we all made a point of getting the send and putting our friends on this route. it seemed to stay pretty popular after that, so i'm surprised to hear it's anything but well-chalked and travelled. i think you can even hang/aid your way through the one lower crux, and there's nothing harder than 11a (at most) the rest of the way, so it's hardly a committing kind of route....

eldiente/nate: no, seriously, i did "the line" and two weeks later did free for all and thought it was just as good. OF COURSE i'd rather have lover's leap 45 minutes from home instead of beacon, but that doesn't mean some climbs at beacon aren't as good or better than climbs at the leap. i'd put free for some, dastardly, windsurfer, second pitch of blown out and bluebird right up there with the best crack climbs anywhere.

i'm getting all warm and fuzzy to hear that those cracks are getting climbed. and yeah, i think eight is enough is easier if you are taller. but there's still that attention-grabbing finish no matter how tall you are...

free for all is the best sustained 5-8/5-9 crack climbing within 100 miles of portland. (once you're past the short sharp 10minus corner right off the ground) back in june i did the 4 pitch "the line" at lover's leap, supposedly one of the best 5-9s anywhere, and while it was stellar, i found free for all even better a few weeks later...

hey moonlight, the other week i threw out a tick list of neglected ozone (mainly) trad routes. here are the good moderates from that list; go put some chalk on them! opdycke crack at 9plus. eight is enough at 8. (hardest 8 around, next to little wing) there y'ar at 9 (corner hand crack, a second pitch above jacob's ladder) tipp-topp at 9 (another second pitch, fingers in a corner) ripper at 9 (more fingers, on the old school wall)

thanks! i led helms deep a few weeks ago in hopes of TRing this one as well and was dismayed to see how filthy it had become. the start is a bit stout for 5.9, no?

Ivan, you don't babysit your own kids. it's called "meeting the minimum requirements of fatherhood." i think I used the phrase "babysitting" during the first week of my first child's life, and my wife made clear just how wrong I was. I haven't used that phrase since. then again, what with all your rad trip reports, you seem to have the planet's most sympathetic wife and that makes kevbone (and i'll admit me to an extent) insanely jealous. and for the records, i love your trip reports. PS - you can't hope to control or stop kevbone, you can only ignore him. but that's like ignoring a 3 year old tugging on your pants.

what joseph said. opdycke claimed he did the FA back in the 70s, before i did a little retro ascent in 2005. i thought it was hard 9/easy 10a at that time, and "we" agreed that given all the above we'd use the retro grade of 9plus and give opdycke the FA. (i guess kev thinks it's barely 5.9, but we all know he's jacked)

actually, anything john stewart put up at ozone is not soft, and generally has the crux on gear. but i bet most of you don't even touch those routes because they're not fully bolted. lead meatgrinder at 10b and tell me it's soft. or wine and cheese at 10c. or the rauch factor at 10c. (mixed but sporty) or opdycke crack at 9plus. or 8 is enough at 8. (hardest 8 around, next to little wing) helms deep at 9 (mainly bolts but well-spaced and needs a .5 in a horizontal) there y'ar at 9 (great vertical corner hand crack, go do it) screaming for change at 10c (another mixed route) why must i cry 10a (mainly bolts) PS - I edited this post to pretty much make a tick list of worthy and generally (i think) stout climbs at ozone that i wish saw more traffic, as they'd only improve, and also would show another side to ozone than the closely bolted and big hold routes that are most popular. There are so many routes at broughton and Madrone that hardly get done anymore because they aren't fully bolted or are a bit spooky that and so now they are covered with moss - it would be a shame to see the above routes suffer the same fate.

i think that ozone is soft - or at least friendly - from 11a on up. by friendly i mean that since the holds are huge, you usually only need endurance to send a route - there are very few tricky or low percentage crux moves out there. the md route being a glaring exception. vicious being another i guess. i think ozone is pretty right on below that grade.

just sayin....

kev, why are you even asking me if jason accurately graded his routes? go look at what i've already written. as they say, "it's all there."

i'm just determined to downgrade my "12a" sends at ozone. or else have someone - besides kevbone - validate them. how many climbers have sent both of those but could never send 12a sport at joshua tree or index or even broughton?? (count me in that club)

dracula at broughton is at least 1 grade harder than the humbling or crumbling. and it's 12a. where the wild things at madrone is - to me - about as hard as the humbling/crumbling and it's 11d.

i've gotten spanked on the md route even though i can do both 12a climbs i mentioned. but it's a one-move wonder route, and i basically have a mental block about the one move. it ain't no 12a, it's just a 5.11 crack move above a bolt, and i don't lead 5.11 crack.

I've always wondered whether the Crumbling and the Humbling at Ozone were really 12a. They were both bolted by a guy who only got the FA of the Crumbling, as the Humbling was never led and redpointed by the time that the 7 of us published the Ozone guidebook - so we gave it kind of a "topropse consensus" grade. (out of respect, "we" were waiting for this guy to return from an injury and then be the first to try for the redpoint). Have any of you punters climbed these routes, or better yet, redpointed them and have an opinion about how they compare to other 12a sport climbs in Oregon/Washington? feel free to praise/slander the grading of the other harder routes out there, i'm curious to see if we inflated, sandbagged, or got them just right. PS - i know "beyond the glory" seems to have gotten a lot easier with some rock breakage, and that might have happened with other routes and thus account for some grades being a bit off by now.... PPS - it's totally in vogue to rag on ozone, so let's read some good zingers.

on another note, what is the difference between letting your hand settle and rest on a cam, while in a jam - as opposed to simply grabbing the cam? the latter obviously ruins a free ascent, but the former is more nebulous. if it's an accidental brush, who cares? but if you find yourself pumped, and letting your jam "rest" on the cam, then aren't you aiding???? i guess the bottom line is that generally we live up to our own standards, and we only compete against ourselves. like nate said, if you think that you aided the climb - even accidentally, like through rope tension or my cam example - and that this aid is the only reason you freed the climb, you probably won't count your ascent as a free one, and you'll go back and try again.

hearing some of these comments makes me glad i threw the question out there. i am only talking about instances where touching the gear actually made your handhold feel better. (if it felt worse, i wouldn't be wondering if i was being "aided" or "aiding" on the gear) this happened to me somewhere on wrong gull yesterday - i think on a .5 below the crux and i distinctly did NOT move my hand off the cam because as i did the hold felt worse. so i made the move, glad for the extra security offered by a cam that served as a horizontal ledge below my pinkie finger. PS - i have sent this climb before, which might be why i didn't hesitate about taking the slight aid offered by the cam. if it was an onsight, i might have quickly moved my jam back up...

g spotter, i hear you but that's not what i am talking about. i'm talking about placements big enough to fit both, but you realize that by sliding your hold down the crack until it touches the cam that you can create a better jam, and it feels "contrived" to move your hand up and feel less secure..... does a "free" climber move his/her hand off the cam like it was a burning coal? or just keep climbing with the "aid" of the cam?

call it whatever size you want, my only question is whether having your handhold/jam improved because it happens to touch a cam - or a nut, which won't rotate into a "junk" placement if you put downward force on it - is aid climbing? if stepping on a pin in a crack is aiding, because you get a better foothold then having just part of your toes in the crack, then why isn't the above scenario also aiding?

Picture this: You are onsighting an all-gear climb that is at your limit. At the crux there is a 6 inch long parallel crack - say orange metolius width - and no crack above or below it, so you stick that cam in there. Yet you also need to use this part of the crack for your hand, as this was the only way you could even hold on long enough to place the cam and there are no face holds. As you insert your hand to jam, the lower part of your jam sure feels locker as you torque down against your cam - but it feels less secure if you flinch upwards so you are no longer contacting the cam. So you reluctantly let your hand "cam" against the cam to create a better jam, and move through the crux. Did you onsight the climb, or did you aid through the crux? or is the only opinion that matters your own? If tommy caldwell does this one while "freeing" a route on El Cap, does he have to add an asterisk to his "free" ascent? (And I know this is a silly question, but it's happened to me enough times now that i'm curious what others think)

oh, and a yellow or orange metolius (if you can reach high enough) fit 2-3 feet above the pin from a good stance befoe you enter the crux - so there's no reason to ever fall on that pin.

you can all laugh but i placed 17 or 18 pieces on that climb yesterday. the gear is there. and i sent it. no ground falls for me! (i backed up 2-3 pieces from good stances, and also placed 2 nuts right off the ground before i started up, but still, that's a lot of gear) to each his own though - i'd climb a lot harder grades on gear if i placed half the gear i place.