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Reardon Screwed By Climbing Mag


powderhound

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For those of you who have not seen the new issue of climbing; they gave the golden piton for soloing to Mr. Sharma, for his new 5.Hard, water solo up that arch.

 

I can't believe that they think this is more progress then Reardon's On-sight First ascent solo in the needles. They are not even in the same category. Might as well stuck Sharma's in the bouldering section.

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I thought that was pretty crazy too. Lets see, we have one guy FA free soloing 5.hard way off the deck, another guy soloing hard high altitude alpine routes, but instead they give it to a glorified boulder problem without any of the risks associated with soloing. I think they just wanted to give Sharma something, and they figured no one would care if the better soloists got slighted. Otherwise, heaven forbid they'd have to take the piton away from another beloved boulderer or sport climber. (BTW, I think Sharma's climb is still awesome)

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I saw Michael Reardon's slideshow at ABS Nationals in Maryland this weelkend. It was pathetic.

 

Sure some of the pictures were nice, and the climbing was cool and all....but all he did was ramble on and on and on and on and on and on about himself and how cool he is.

 

Some of his slides sat on the screen for 5 minutes because he couldn't stop talking about himself.

 

Worst show ever. The funny part was that no body was paying attention, everyon was just hanging out by the free beer having their own conversations.

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I kind of like the Golden Pitons - its an attempt to recognize significant accomplishments in the sport without the b#llsh!t that has come to the Gold Piolet. Climbing admitted the first year that the awards were completely subjective, to be taken with a grain of salt, and their mentioning of "Honorable Mentions" shows it.

 

Perhaps they should give out three awards for each category, and eliminate the Honorable Mentions.

 

Either way, I think of the awards as a "Highlights of the Year" and appreciated the intent in recognizing achievement.

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I am enormously impressed by what Reardon has accomplished, but I question whether he controls his free-soloing or whether it controls him. I strongly suspect the latter and that significantly diminishes my respect and admiration for him as a climber. I feel folks like Bachar and Kauk never let it get to the point of the out-of-control addiction I sense from Reardon as I did from Hershey as well.

 

As for awards - awards of any kind for climbing are weak as far as I'm concerned, but if you are going to recognize folks for their accomplishments then it's just plain weird to lump free and deep water soloing together.

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...if you are going to recognize folks for their accomplishments then it's just plain weird to lump free and deep water soloing together.

I agree - perhaps Sharma's ascent shouldn't have been included for consideration because the consequences of deep-water soloing are different (like the likely-hood of dieing when you foul up is less).

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I am enormously impressed by what Reardon has accomplished, but I question whether he controls his free-soloing or whether it controls him. I strongly suspect the latter and that significantly diminishes my respect and admiration for him as a climber. I feel folks like Bachar and Kauk never let it get to the point of the out-of-control addiction I sense from Reardon as I did from Hershey as well.

 

As for awards - awards of any kind for climbing are weak as far as I'm concerned, but if you are going to recognize folks for their accomplishments then it's just plain weird to lump free and deep water soloing together.

 

don't neg on him because of assumptions. from his website he seems like a cool enough dude, definitely amped (and i'm not gonna second guess his motives, which so many freely do).

 

i found myself emailing Climbing, cuz i thought sharma getting the nod (a debate about the award itself is another issue) was a bit ridiculous.

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I am enormously impressed by what Reardon has accomplished, but I question whether he controls his free-soloing or whether it controls him. I strongly suspect the latter and that significantly diminishes my respect and admiration for him as a climber. I feel folks like Bachar and Kauk never let it get to the point of the out-of-control addiction I sense from Reardon as I did from Hershey as well.

 

don't neg on him because of assumptions.

 

I'm not. I just tend to trust my instincts on matters like this and I've been around long enough to get a reasonable feeling for the difference between exploit and addiction...

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Last weekend at the Holiday Inn Reardon gets up from the bar and starts soloing this huge brick pillar in the lobby. He made it all the way up into the rafters, about 50+ft (five stories or so), and the bartender came out and freaked on him! So he came down and got another beer.

 

Interesting fella. I enjoyed bullisting with him because it was he couldn't care less that I was just a nobody climber in a big room full a sombody climbers. And that was pretty cool. Talks about himself alot though, that's for sure.

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