The NW Disconnect

[JDCH]

The pitch per hour ratio may be less in the mountains, but you don't get to piss on a goat's head or wake up with a wood rat on your chest at the crag quite as often.

 

Cragging is a sport, alpinism is a journey, and love means never having to say you're sorry.

 

This is the best post I have read in a long time. Well said.

[Choada_Boy]

Some thoughts:

 

Tough to get past .10+ in the mountains unless you have copious natural talent and/or plenty of free time on your hands. Having a job and bills does not help the situation. Couch surfing and sleeping in the dirt does help but gets old as you get old, or at least it does for most people.

 

Pulling plastic is boring.

 

The Worthleavin' crowd is best positioned for pulling off what Blake is talking about, due to their proximity to the goods. This is evident in the fucking rad routes Sol, Jens, et al, have been establishing in that area. They can day trip what is a weekend with 5 hours of driving and $90 in gas for me. I don't see people putting up hard new routes on Nooksack Tower. Maybe I will. But it's a whole different ball game than strolling up the trail to Colchuck Lake.

 

I do it for the views of late, which can't be beat in the lower 48, that I've seen. Alone on a mountain surrounded by mountains in the middle of nowhere. Rock, snow, glacier, wind. Memories of summits past and aspirations for the future. Hours of solitude, just myself and the dog. Sore legs back at the car and no desire to get caught up in a dick-wagging contest. Changing expectations...

[G-spotter]

Maybe I'm off base in this impression, but it seems like the folks pushing the standards at the NW crags /bouldering areas (heck, really just anyone climbing the harder 25% of routes) seldom go into the mountains, and most folks who like alpine climbing seem to scoff at "projecting" a route at a crag, let alone going bouldering.

 

My non-scientific impression is that in other places, the folks putting up hard routes in Eldo or repeating the testpiece climbs along the area's crags are the same ones doing new routes in the Black Canyon, pulling down hard on the Hulk or the Diamond, etc.

 

Is our alpine climbing just not inspiring enough to attract the really strong local climbers ro leave Little Si, the LTW, Equinox, China Bend, Smith, etc?

 

Is the jump from 5.12s at Newhalem to 5.12s just up at the road @ WA Pass a bigger change in required skills than (say) going from hard routes Boulder's cragging scene to hard routes in RMNP?

 

It's just a thought that struck me after seeing multiple folks working on 5.12-5.13 routes at Index yesterday, but not seeing many of those folks in the mountains.

 

Yeah those guys who climb hard free routes at Squamish, like Kruk and Stanhope and McGee and Furneaux and Trotter and Maddaloni, what have they ever done in the mountains. eh?

Edited October 2, 2012 by G-spotter

[Sol]

Yeah those guys who climb hard free routes at Squamish, like Kruk and Stanhope and McGee and Furneaux and Trotter and Maddaloni, what have they ever done in the mountains. eh?

 

G-Spotter, I think that's the whole point of Blake's thread. In Squamish the local crushers are venturing into the hills and putting up sick new alpine lines, and repeating the hard lines that are already up. In WA state, there's chalk all over the test pieces at Index, but phenomenal free climbs like Thin Red Line and Let it Burn get climbed only by a handful of folks. I would indeed agree that the alpine rock scene and the cragging scene are quite disconnected. Why that is, i'm not so sure.

[TeleRoss]

I think there is a rich history of hard alpine climbing that can trace it's roots back to the crags of the PNW.

Paul Boving, Jim Nelson, Bruce Carson, Dave Anderson, Pete Doorish, Bryan Burdo, Steve House...those are just a few from past generations off the top of my head...and now with the new generation of PNW climbers like Colin Haley, Jens Holsten, Sol Wertkin, Blake Harrington, Ben Gilkison...etc....

 

[layton]

Still a very small group when compared to Boulder or SLC.

 

Having excellent cragging minutes away vs. hours makes a HUGE difference, as does weather and length of season. Also, a good gym makes a difference. Seattle and portland have OK gyms (sorry guys), but nothing like Boulder and SLC do.

 

I can get 6 **** pitches in before or after work almost every day of the year, not to mention our gym is world class, and we have ice and mixed super close. The skiing and mtn biking around here is too good, and drags down the climbing community a bit more than the Boulder crew.

[dberdinka]

Agreed. Have world class cragging 15 minutes out of town and 300+ days of sunshine a year is going to make for a technically more competent climbing culture. I'm not sure the ratio of crag-to-"alpine" climbers is any different anywhere else. At least thats what I blame it on everytime I going climbing with my friend from Boulder.

[boadman]

I think the SBP is actually as good as any of the gyms in Boulder or SLC.

[G-spotter]

Yeah those guys who climb hard free routes at Squamish, like Kruk and Stanhope and McGee and Furneaux and Trotter and Maddaloni, what have they ever done in the mountains. eh?

 

G-Spotter, I think that's the whole point of Blake's thread. In Squamish the local crushers are venturing into the hills and putting up sick new alpine lines, and repeating the hard lines that are already up. In WA state, there's chalk all over the test pieces at Index, but phenomenal free climbs like Thin Red Line and Let it Burn get climbed only by a handful of folks. I would indeed agree that the alpine rock scene and the cragging scene are quite disconnected. Why that is, i'm not so sure.

 

I didn't know Squamish wasn't PNW.

Other than that it probably has to do with guide exams. You have to do a bunch of alpine stuff to get your ACMG. Yanks don't have the same requirements.

[Tyson.g]

"I didn't know Squamish wasn't PNW."

It's not it is SW BC......get off our coat tails beyotch.

 

[Rad]

Since you left we have three new gyms in the Seattle area that are all excellent.

 

A completely new VW Seattle

A new Stone Gardens in Belevue

And SBP

[skykilo]

This is not a WaWa thing. Wherever you go, it is a small subset of the number of people climbing at a certain level who climb at a similar level in more adventurous terrain.

 

But moving somewhere with year-round outdoor climbing has had everything to do with climbing harder for me!

[Tyson.g]

This is not a WaWa thing. Wherever you go, it is a small subset of the number of people climbing at a certain level who climb at a similar level in more adventurous terrain.

 

 

[astrov]

Where, LA? Just looking for suggestions

[skykilo]

LA for Los Alamos, New Mexico. There are plenty of people who climb really hard here but almost exclusively sport. But there are also people who get after it in the mountains. I don't think the climbing demographics are so different, but the weather sure is!

[TeleRoss]

I do think that part of it in the Cascades in particular is the fact that there just isn't that big of a supply of big steep lines with good rock out there.

Stuart Range has a few areas, but other than CBR, NE Butt of Dragontail, and areas on Stuart there isn't much.

WA Pass has E face Liberty Bell, S Face SEWS and some areas on the Silver Star massif.

So I think Blake's initial assertion may be closest to the truth...the alpine rock potential in the cascades just may not be enough to entice those who climb at a high standard to endure the approaches and lousy rock to put up hard alpine routes.

 

 

[TeleRoss]

I also think that some climbers like to only climb hard. Cragging and bouldering provides this opportunity for many climbers.

You can walk up to a crag and climb a dozen 5.12 pitches in an afternoon. To get a dozen 5.12 pitches in the alpine might take a whole season...more likely longer.

And I think that a lot of climbers who enjoy climbing for the pure difficulty of the climb do not want to endure what can be brutal approaches, and long routes with many pitches in the more moderate to easy grades. In the Cascades there might just not be too many walls that can support that level of continuous difficulty to attract such climbers.

 

 

Edited October 4, 2012 by TeleRoss

[Buckaroo]

The pitch per hour ratio may be less in the mountains, but you don't get to piss on a goat's head or wake up with a wood rat on your chest at the crag quite as often.

 

Cragging is a sport, alpinism is a journey, and love means never having to say you're sorry.

 

YEEEEE HAAAAAA!!!!

 

Cragging is just training to climb in the mountains.

[dfrost]

The mountains are totally different in NM also--fewer alpine options, but a lifetime's worth of hard cragging! Still nobody cranking at the Old New Place or the harder lines at the Playground? That's too bad...

[skykilo]

The mountains are totally different in NM also--fewer alpine options, but a lifetime's worth of hard cragging! Still nobody cranking at the Old New Place or the harder lines at the Playground? That's too bad...

 

Nobody said that, but there seem to be many more people climbing hard regularly at the Dungeon.

 

It seems exactly the same to me. There are many 5.11s and 5.12s in the Sandias and I don't see people on them when I go. I see people getting scared shitless on sparsely protected 5.9 with loose blocks.

 

Similarly, I know plenty of people here who haven't climbed Questa Dome, which is immaculate granite in the mountains.

 

Mmmmmm Sandias show me some pink

 

Personally, I'm not so enthusiastic for a long hike with a big rack myself either.

 

Blake, what is the idea behind this thread? Do you want to understand why less people climb trad and less people climb in the mountains? (Surely you already understand that?) Isn't it a blessing that you don't have to share the hard alpine routes? I like having a cliff to myself.

^^Sorry if the way I had written that sounded like too much trash talking.

Edited October 4, 2012 by skykilo

[Blake]

 

Blake, what is the idea behind this thread? Do you want to understand why less people climb trad and less people climb in the mountains? (Surely you already understand that?) Isn't it a blessing that you don't have to share the hard alpine routes? I like having a cliff to myself.

^^Sorry if the way I had written that sounded like too much trash talking.

 

I was just thinking out loud (or on screen) about why the very talented crushers from WWI, Index, local boulders, etc aren't active in the mtns. So many of these folks could climb circles around basically anyone I know who is into local alpine rock climbing, and the routes are so good, how could they not catch the eye of these climbers?

 

I see Dru's example of the Squamish crew that takes their cragging skills into the mountains, as Sol pointed out, to be further evidence that the NW scene is unusual or disconnected. Squamish seems more like Colorado, less like WA.

 

I guess it's a combination of reasons.

 

Ross' list of our very few alpine features that hold hard freeclimbs seems like a pretty likely one.

[dberdinka]

Ross' list of our very few alpine features that hold hard freeclimbs seems like a pretty likely one.

 

But again thats not some much different from anywhere else. CO and CA might have a lot more alpine granite but the number of features getting any traffic is still small.

 

Seems to me that projecting a well protected pitch of 12b on the LTW is way different than sending a multipitch 5.12 on the UTW which is way different from clipping a scary rusty fixed beak under a 5.12 roof halfway up a grade V in the mountains. Each increase in commitment results in a magnitude drop in the number of climbers willing to bother.

 

Ultimately I don't think the disconnect is any different here than elsewhere just a lot less climbers climbing at that level.

 

 

[OlympicMtnBoy]

I still see 5.12 crag climbers get shut down by a 5.9 offwidth in the alpine once in a while too . . . not exactly the same skill set.

[glassgowkiss]

One is the weather, second- walking/shwacking to climbing ratio is bad, third the rock quality is so-so compared to other places. If I have 3 or 4 days off I usually will try to leave and go somewhere else. If I only have 2 days and the weather is good I choose Index or Squamish, because I am not wasting my time on drive/hike time.

N Cascades are not a world class destination in summer, but they would be really good for winter training.

[matt_warfield]

Boulderers and sportos climbing at their limit don't want to lose energy getting to their goal. A 10 mile approach for a 2% body fat high end climber is draining when their goal is 5.14. A 10 mile approach for an endurance athlete to do 5.10/5.11 is invigorating. As I have said before, it like a swimmer who chooses 100m vs. 400 m. or track athletes choosing 100m. vs. 10,000K.

 

We as climbers do what makes us happy and that is usually what we are best at.

 

And in the PNW, we do have the Chief in BC and Liberty Bell, but don't have the Diamond, Chiefshead, Incredible Hulk, or other incredible walls with good weather and no bushwacking. There is a reason why Peter Croft moved to Bishop CA from Canada and Eli Helmuth moved to Estes Park from Bellingham.

Edited October 5, 2012 by matt_warfield