Sport vs Trad

[Peter_Puget]

In fact, this route, Shaking Hands With The Govenor (5.10b) is a classic example of the difference between toproping and leading. Ya'll are invited to come on down and check it out.

 

Heard while I was belaying on that roof pitch: "Top Roping is really fun!"

 

Edited August 5, 2009 by Peter_Puget

[Off_White]

you're a total loon and no more worth talking to than Josh Lewis.

 

whatsup? he's an eager 16 year old kid, right? kinda cold, methinks.

 

Oh, he's a 15 year old kid with a bit of a disability, more of a compliment to him to suggest that mid fifties Joseph is on the same cognitive level. Seriously Kimmo, if someone asserts that climbing a ladder is no different than climbing a 5.13 sport route, do you think there is a cognitive ability worth engaging present?

 

I know you're one of the more zen and accepting individuals who has ever posted on this board, so maybe I only show my own limitations by declaring some perceptual threshold as a minimum for discussion, but there you have it. Just like Popeye, I yam what I yam.

 

(my forearms are smaller than his though, mores the pity)

[Kimmo]

Kimmo, I don't think that kind of climbing is dead,

 

yeah cuz it's about the individual's perception, and for whoever that perception still exists, it's "alive". and i think joe has become jaded and allows what he disagrees with to ruin it for him. he can't make climbing his own, so he's imprisoned by others. this mindset would follow him i think to the most pristine cliffs.

 

that's why dosing might help him, to let go of his imprisoning perceptions?

[Kimmo]

Seriously Kimmo, if someone asserts that climbing a ladder is no different than climbing a 5.13 sport route, do you think there is a cognitive ability worth engaging present?

 

yeah but to compare the perceived cognitive limitation to that of said 15 year old's.... oh well, it's the internet, right?

[billcoe]

Really, this is an open question to Joseph, Raindawg, or Pope: where and when have sport climbers deprived you of the essential first ascent experience you crave, stolen from you the singular moment of discovery and uncertainty that a first ascent offers? Repeating a route, whether bolted on rappel or established ground up, is all the same experience: the route is rated, the protection is known, and the line is established.

 

After the first ascent, all routes are the same. In an intrinsic absolute sense, the Bacher-Yerian = R&D. It's a known quantity that anyone who chooses to climb the route knows what they're in for. All this pissing and moaning is over the direct experience of two people.

 

Off... Sport-climbers have demeaned the climbing experience by plastering the rock with artificial accessories rather than using bolts VERY sparingly or avoiding them all together if a route can be top-roped, etc. or better yet, just leaving it alone. So if I'm deprived of a "first ascent experience", it's because I'm appalled by the callous lack of restraint in bolting that has become the status quo.

By the way, the Bacher-Yerian route is an excellent example of restraint in bolt usage. I suppose they could have made a sport ladder out of much of it but they didn't.

 

Billcoe....I'm way busy....ain't got time for a rude pissing match right now so I'm spending my free three minutes responding to Off.

 

Thanks Don, I'll wait for you to get a moment, I guess the horse made a miraculous recovery.

 

 

Don, I guess my angst about your posts on this stems from your apparent believe that all bolts should be banned from public land. In Yosemite, they have taken the best land (on the flats of the valley) and opened it up like a park to 60,000 people every weekend. They built roads, a pizzeria, hotels, bars, stores, laundry rooms, showers, movie theaters and on and on. Many people come, like the great Galen Rowell said, and they enjoy it too. With people come impacts. Some of it is unavoidable and much of it is self-inflicted for no apparent reason, yet climbers leave less than other groups. I dare anyone to FIND a single bolt on the Glacier point pics I copied, and those pics were taken from a few feet away. You can't see few if any of them from the ground unless you walk right up to the rock, and even then damn few. Yet contrast that with the park as a whole: I could easily find you a massive building and road structures running willy nilly from a satellite picture taken from the stratosphere. So to me it seems wildly disingenuous for you to rant about how horrible bolts are, when you don't say or do shit about these other huge, massive and widespread environmental impacts to the best, most productive for wildlife, land in the park. Having bolts allows humans to travel vertical paths, and it's much less destructive, and certainly more fun and interesting, than paths on the ground that the park service proliferates for the very same reason: to allow people to recreate and enjoy the place.

 

Truthfully, I like it all and that includes climbing bolted routes. I prefer gear routes, and long ones at that, but it's all good and I say that even though I suck at hard face climbs. Aid or free, bolts or gear or both: love it. Like others, sure it pisses me off when folks bolt where it's not needed. As Joseph said, a half pitch can and should often be left as a toprope, and on a cliff with 55-60 existing routes 90 percent of which take gear, why bolt the face 5' from a nice crack climb? Yet I have to agree with most of what Doug said as well. (hey, thanks for the invite too sir!) A via feratta is way different than a hard sport climb, and yet for many they are both fun to do. Go to Italy and tell me that place is tame, even after mega centuries of settlement, "development" and horribly destructive wars. For us, in the US - I think there are places where bolts are critically needed, and there are places where they are not only not needed but not wanted, and we need to be sensitive to the local prevailing ethic.

 

Off said it as well with this one as well "where and when have sport climbers deprived you of the essential first ascent experience you crave, stolen from you the singular moment of discovery and uncertainty that a first ascent offers? "

 

Regards to all:

 

Oh, and Kimmo, I'd tie in with you any day, love your balance, maybe we need to take off up on that offer:-).

 

[JosephH]

perhaps he can simply dose before climbing? do you really climb without chalk?

 

I appreciate you're being able to see what it is I do hold to. Not much different than being watching the old west slip away as the country headed into the 20th century. For me it's about what I'd guess it was like for an indian watching the Buffalo being slaughtered in a consumptive wave until they were all but gone. No point in fighting it, it's a lost cause; but that doesn't mean I'm getting onboard or start particpating in it. It's not my deal.

 

I do climb without chalk, and I do sweat like a normal human. But the real truth is that 95% of chalk use is purely psychological, particularly on most all basalt and sandstone. I'll grant you on a lot of polished granite like you find in places like the Valley it has real merit, but for the average climber on any-crag-USA, the reliance on chalk is a joke. But most climbers start with chalk day one or shortly thereafter and have no idea what they are capable of climbing without it.

 

Oh, and dosing - yeah, that on the otherhand is pretty much SOP.

 

EDIT: Kimmo, oh don't worry about me - I'm not jaded, imprisoned, ruined, or anything else. I climb what I want to climb and am enormously happy to be able to. The only thing I carry from place to place is the desire to do groundup, onsight trad FAs. Come down, rope up, and see for yourself.

[olyclimber]

 

i submit this as mascot of this thread

[Kimmo]

EDIT: Kimmo, oh don't worry about me - I'm not jaded, imprisoned, ruined, or anything else. I climb what I want to climb and am enormously happy to be able to. The only thing I carry from place to place is the desire to do groundup, onsight trad FAs. Come down, rope up, and see for yourself.

 

 

glad to hear that. nothing like climbin with a good vibe on!

 

 

 

just to add, i've been siked on all climbing, from solos to trad to big walls etc., each one appealing to me in different ways at different times. last few years it's been all about sport and bouldering though. i think pure physical difficulty has always appealed to me, simply because of the challenge it presents, and having that challenge evolve. i fully appreciate the different challenge that your pursuit offers too: engaging in a very different way.

[skykilo]

Not that I can climb for shit, but I've never carried any chalk.

[Kimmo]

I appreciate you're being able to see what it is I do hold to. Not much different than being watching the old west slip away as the country headed into the 20th century. For me it's about what I'd guess it was like for an indian watching the Buffalo being slaughtered in a consumptive wave until they were all but gone. No point in fighting it, it's a lost cause; but that doesn't mean I'm getting onboard or start particpating in it. It's not my deal.

 

i'd say that there are things you might do "for the cause" if you feel so strongly. i don't know what level your engagement is in a public policy process sense, but i'd rather a person work towards their ideals even if i might disagree with them. kind of a principle thing. joshua tree adopted a pretty sensible management plan, if i remember right....

[JosephH]

Kimmo, I do, mainly putting up FA's whenever and wherever I can. Locally I climb trad as well and also do get involved. From that perspective Eldo and the Gunks get 'it' right, but there's not much in interest in that sort of thing around here. Josha Tree did adopt a sensible plan but have no enforcement per se - bolts are flying just as fast and furious there as anywhere.

[tvashtarkatena]

Well, you have to take into account I'm a real throwback and have been anti-chalk, anti-bolt, anti-rating, and anti-guide all along. All of those contribute to what "is known" on lines.

 

i seem to be one of the few of what one might call sportos here who can at least sense where joe is coming from, and from that place, i would say climbing is dead. it isn't adventure in that sense anymore. it's a very different experience for most people, i'd say, but i doubt it was the way joe sees it for the majority even in his heyday. even so, i have great sympathy of sorts for what i see as the death of his vision. perhaps he can simply dose before climbing?

 

do you really climb without chalk?

 

The adventure comes from inside you.

[ivan]

Not that I can climb for shit, but I've never carried any chalk.

so, what, yer gonna figure out the answer to a rydberg formula whilst climbing W/O having to write nothing down?!?

 

sport vs trad is like fake tits vs regular tits - does it really matter that much so long as yer balls deep in the whore?

[olyclimber]

i use pink chalk

[JosephH]

sport vs trad is like fake tits vs regular tits...

 

Pretty much a spot on observation. But I'm pretty damn particular on that front as well.

[olyclimber]

its not a bad anology. the question is: would you hit it? if you're at the club and a girl walks up and checks out your size, would you first determine if her breasts were real or not? or would you immediately get on the internet and speculate about the sociological impacts of fake breast implants? or would you just do what is right for the scientific method and be more thorough?

[Kimmo]

Josha Tree did adopt a sensible plan but have no enforcement per se - bolts are flying just as fast and furious there as anywhere.

 

i'm surprised to hear that. j tree is one area i strongly support bolt limitations, if not even removal in many cases. perhaps some voices can make a diff.

 

the crags around here, not so much. nothing around here approaches j tree's sacredness, imo. my favorite crag at the moment is buried in a cluster of trees in the middle of a clear cut, 30 degrees overhanging for 60 to 80 feet, and it's a grid of bolts. hella fun, no one's ever gonna see it, and where it's at i support full grid bolting!

[kevbone]

I poop on this thread

[Pete_H]

Not that I can climb for shit, but I've never carried any chalk.

so, what, yer gonna figure out the answer to a rydberg formula whilst climbing W/O having to write nothing down?!?

 

sport vs trad is like fake tits vs regular tits - does it really matter that much so long as yer balls deep in the whore?

 

Dear Partner,

 

Just to let you know I have screwed a dame that weighs 300 lbs.

 

Your pal,

Jim

 

[Ponderosa]

I poop on this thread

 

that's because your large intestine terminates at the top of your neck.

[kevbone]

that all you got?

[olyclimber]

Not that I can climb for shit, but I've never carried any chalk.

so, what, yer gonna figure out the answer to a rydberg formula whilst climbing W/O having to write nothing down?!?

 

sport vs trad is like fake tits vs regular tits - does it really matter that much so long as yer balls deep in the whore?

 

Dear Partner,

 

Just to let you know I have screwed a dame that weighs 300 lbs.

 

Your pal,

Jim

 

some people are really into that type of thing

[Raindawg]

 

i submit this as mascot of this thread

 

I guess you neither read the "murder of the impossible" essay and/or have no respect for one of the most progressive climbers of our day.

[ivan]

 

some people are really into that type of thing

if you don't have a hobby, you're likely to get into no-telling what kinda wierd shit

[Raindawg]

its not a bad anology. the question is: would you hit it? if you're at the club and a girl walks up and checks out your size, would you first determine if her breasts were real or not? or would you immediately get on the internet and speculate about the sociological impacts of fake breast implants? or would you just do what is right for the scientific method and be more thorough?

 

 

If you have half a brain, you consider the consequences before "hitting it".

If you're a caveman, you see the closely-spaced bolts, you consider their convenience at the expense of the finite rock environment and you whip out your quick-draws and "go for it".

If you're contemplative, you walk away or top-rope the route in protest, or you look for the clean route nearby rather than taking the cheap way out.