New route or variation and tagging summit?

[Jedi]

I was just on Climbing's website. http://climbing.com/news/

I was just wondering what the offical rules are for a new route?

What percentage of terrain makes the difference between a variation to a route verses a new route?

 

How far below to the summit are you allowed to stop before it is not considered a route?

Should you complete at least half the distance to the summit or at least intersect an exsisting route to make it a variation or new route?

Should the summit be considered important on a new route or variation? Seems less and lees so.

 

What if you intersect an existing route more than once? Variation or new route?

 

Is clarification important?

FA: First Ascent

FANS: First Ascent No Summit

subcatagory:FANSDTW, First Ascent No Summit Due To Weather

FANSDTLOF First Ascent No Summit Due To Lack OF Food.

FANSDTPWHTCAPTSTYP First Ascent No Summit Due To Partner Who Had To See The Yankees Play

and the reasons go on..............

 

Have you climbed the Moose's Tooth (summit included) or have you just climbed Ham & Eggs? Is the summit not important? If not, should First ascentionist just stop when the climbing eases "the summit was just an easy 10 minute stroll," and still get credit for an FA? Just because they did a high percentage of the route or the hard part.

Or "because the summit (last 50') was too difficult?" To difficult for them maybe. When someone else repeats it and does climb the short difficult section to the actual summit, do they get the FA?? Can they rename it? FATTAT:First Ascent To The Actual Top

 

Yeah, I know this has been going on for a while but I think it is important to remind people that there is a difference in summiting and just climbing a route that stops somewhere on a peak. If not, the future alpinist might come to disregard the summit in the pursuit to get their name in the guidebook.

I am talking about alpinism and not sport climbing.

 

The grey area seems to be growing and spreading.

 

On a final note. I am not trying to take away from anyone's great climbing feat. I am questioning the actions of much better climbers than I. I would just like some answers. Maybe I want to climb a new pitch next to Deprivation, then climb the rest of Deprivation until the angle eases, then rappel and call it a new route. Yeah! being sarcastic now.

 

 

Jedi

Edited June 23, 2005 by Jedi

[Thinker]

Hi Fido.

[catbirdseat]

Nah, I doubt it.

[Dechristo]

Longtime AAC member and past Board member Carlos Buhler attempted the unclimbed

North Face of 23,500-foot Menlungtse in Tibet this spring and came away with a

31-pitch "near miss." Buhler was making his second attempt on the face, along

with Russians Yuri Koshelenko and Nikolay Totmajanin. "We gave a mighty

alpine-style attempt between the 14th and 20th of May, but we turned around at

about 6,400 meters (21,000 feet) when Yuri became ill," Buhler recalled. This

was all the more disappointing because the team had successfully climbed the

imposing north wall of the giant peak, and they could have reached the summit

and returned with only a couple of days of moderate climbing. But, Buhler

reported, "In this world of almosts, near misses and "we were right theres," it

is both Yuri's and my view that a "new route" is accomplished only when the

summit is truly reached." For more on the climb, see www.mountain.ru/eng/

[forrest_m]

I think Carlos is a little over the top, in the sense that I think it is pretty well accepted that routes can end at points that are not the geographic summit – but only if it’s clear that what the first ascent party has in mind from the outset. Beyond that, I think he’s right on. I mean, this whole climbing game is made up rules anyway, right? So the measure of success and failure should be “did you achieve your objective?”

 

If the honest answer is, “yes, we wanted to climb this cool ice line to the ridge,” well, that’s a new route. If the answer is “well, we wanted to continue to the summit but the weather crapped out,” well, I’m sorry my friend, but that is called an “attempt.”

 

If you say “yes, we flew all the way to Alaska/Pakistan/Patagonia with the specific objective of climbing halfway up an established route and then climbing some new pitches to end in the middle of a wall before traversing over to descend the standard route - in a single push - and that’s our new route called megaclassic VII 5.11 M9,” then I guess you should get busy writing the next press release for your sponsors.

[chris]

I've been thinking that the distinction between a variation and a new route is 50% - if the new line covers at least 50% or more new ground, then its a route; if less than 50%, a variation.

For example, if a 10 pitch line shares 4 or less pitches with a previously established route, it would still be considered a new route, but if it shared 5 or more pitches, it would be a variation.

Thoughts?

[Dru]

What about sit starts

[Kraken]

watch out, you might get reamed like I did when I asked "what truely counts as a summit."