Preplaced draws on a sport route

csproul wrote: Yes, in most cases it'd be easier. But for most sport climbers, it is easier in an aspect that is irrelevant to the goal of sport climbing; that is climbing harder, not clipping harder. If you place value in clipping as part of climbing, then by all means don't pre-hang your draws. Just don't be surprised when nobody else cares.

i dont care if people leave draws or hang while climbing or whatever they want, but if the goal is purely to climb harder why not just TR the route (if its not overhanging). you would save even more time/energy by not having to clip the rope into the pre-hung draw.

again i think this whole debate is stupid. who cares what anyone else does. a lot of the "conversations" on MP remind me of old retired guys talking politics or religion.

Reboot,
Of course Dawn wall had tat all over the place - it was mostly an aid route. Free climbing is a different animal.

Fehim Hasecic wrote:Maybe I'm trying to compensate for my mediocrity in climbing by asking frivolous questions. All I wanted to know was would it be harder to lead sport while placing draws on lead vs leading on hanged draws. I guess I hit the cord with some folks and they think that I'm trying to downplay level they think they're climbing at. Mission accomplished.

I think you're getting the responses you're getting because it's glaringly obvious that it's at least somewhat harder to place draws on lead compared to having them pre-hung, so a reasonable reader may infer that you're actually getting at something else.
But perhaps you really did have an inability to perceive that placing a draw on a bolt requires at least some effort, and so it is more difficult to expend that effort than not, and you needed other people to explain that to you?

(I could see that if you've never climbed anything that is at all challenging, for you, then you may not perceive that it requires some effort to place the draw, as the effort could be so low that it doesn't make the slightest difference.)

Jake wander wrote: i dont care if people leave draws or hang while climbing or whatever they want, but if the goal is purely to climb harder why not just TR the route (if its not overhanging). you would save even more time/energy by not having to clip the rope into the pre-hung draw. again i think this whole debate is stupid. who cares what anyone else does. a lot of the "conversations" on MP remind me of old retired guys talking politics or religion.

Agreed. But there are also a lot of climbs where top roping takes more effort, and if steep enough can actually be harder than leading. And TRing on many sport routes is just plain not possible.

So does this mean that the 5.11 autobelay rt at the gym is only 5.10? Or is it 5.11 cause that webbing in your face makes it hard to see your feet sometimes? Or iis it harder if i climb it with a full trad rack?

Ironically, it's only harder when you have to climb it with the gigantic brass balls of a 5.10 leader.

J Q wrote:Ironically, it's only harder when you have to climb it with the gigantic brass balls of a 5.10 leader.

Spoken like a true eunuch.

Don't worry, it only took me five days to come up with that. Zinging them off over here.

We all know that getting your partner to hang the draws and guinea pig the route for you is the leading tactic for a great sport "onsight". And we all know that nobody who sport climbs frequently is very impressed you onsighted the sub warmup choss rig while hanging your very own clippity doos.

If it's easy enough to onsight, you're obviously not climbing hard enough.

csproul wrote: Yes, in most cases it'd be easier. But for most sport climbers, it is easier in an aspect that is irrelevant to the goal of sport climbing; that is climbing harder, not clipping harder. If you place value in clipping as part of climbing, then by all means don't pre-hang your draws. Just don't be surprised when nobody else cares.

I don't know about that. Placing protection is part of most climbing. To say it's irrelevant to the goal I think is a mistake.

Trad climbing is harder, grade for grade, than sport climbing, because of the effort it takes to place gear.

I'm not saying climbing at a high grade isn't impressive with pre-placed gear, it most definitely is. But It would be MORE impressive without it (in a one-up-manship type of way).

Whether or not it's worth the effort of attempting, or practical, is a completely different question.

Yeah, this whole thread is rather silly. Even if you hang your own draws, you're hanging them in pre-placed bolts that were probably drilled on rappel...why draw ( ;) ) the line there? If it bothers you that much, climb trad. Sport climbing is inherently contrived from a point A to point B standpoint, the point of it is the physical and technical ("sport") qualities of the climb.

Ted Pinson wrote:Yeah, this whole thread is rather silly. Even if you hang your own draws, you're hanging them in pre-placed bolts that were probably drilled on rappel...why draw ( ;) ) the line there? If it bothers you that much, climb trad. Sport climbing is inherently contrived from a point A to point B standpoint, the point of it is the physical and technical ("sport") qualities of the climb.

people keep saying the point is to climb as difficult as possible, but as i said earlier, if thats the case why not TR the route (when not too overhanging). You could surely climb even harder if you dont have to clip the rope into the draws....

again this is all stupid. why does anyone care what anyone else thinks about personal style. if you climb something and feel proud of what you did thats what counts. who cares what some yahoo online or the dudes at the gym think. climbing is about personal fulfillment and trying to push your limits. if that means getting your head strong to trad climb a 5.9 or getting on a v6 boulder or whatever, just do it, be proud and dont care what others think. if youre climbing for others approval, you should probably find something else that you actually feel passionate about.

Tim Lutz wrote: Motherlode relevance These 'not part of most climbing' lines are cake for the 5.10 trad leader, cuz it so much easier when you don't have to place gear~!

I'm not saying it make's the climbing moves itself easier, I'm saying if you climbed it, and place the gear, I'm more impressed then if you just climbed it, and clipped pre-placed gear. Is that really that hard to understand?

Placing gear makes a climb harder. Given two people who's climbed a route, I give more props to the one that placed the gear.

If you don't think so, then do you give the same credit to someone who top roped a route, vs the leader?

If no one has ever placed gear on the route, then it's a moot point. But if someone did, I'd give them respect for it.

Climbing the route with a watermelon hanging from your harness also makes it harder. Still doesn't make it a relevant objective.

JCM wrote:Climbing the route with a watermelon hanging from your harness also makes it harder. Still doesn't make it a relevant objective.

I think you've just invented a new form of sport climbing!

Really, 'cause I give "props" to the person who had the sense to not put the extra effort into hanging the draws but instead put it into climbing a harder route. And they did not "place the gear", the bolts were already there.

csproul wrote:Really, 'cause I give "props" to the person who had the sense to not put the extra effort into hanging the draws but instead put it into climbing a harder route. And they did not "place the gear", the bolts were already there.

So, if two people climb the same route, one placing gear, and one "following" (leading on the gear already placed), you give more "props" to the follower?

csproul wrote:And they did not "place the gear", the bolts were already there.

That's a red herring argument. The definition of sport climbing is basically free climbing on pre-placed bolts. You're still hanging draws, and that's what I mean by placing gear - and you know that.

Karsten wrote:While I would say the prehung draws are the accepted method ascent for sport climbing it sadly appears that this is no longer limited to the realm of sport climbing. Exhibit A: Dawn Wall

Arguably, the hard pitches with pre-hung draws were indeed sport pitches.

Brian L. wrote: So, if two people climb the same route, one placing gear, and one "following" (leading on the gear already placed), you give more "props" to the follower? That's a red herring argument. The definition of sport climbing is basically free climbing on pre-placed bolts. You're still hanging draws, and that's what I mean by placing gear - and you know that.

I'm not sure you understand what "following" means. Hint, the word "following" is well defined in climbing and it is not leading on preplaced draws. And no, I could not care less if one climber placed the draws or not. Your scenario is also artificial. This is more like it: If we have two people and person A uses all their effort to hang draws and climb a 12b while person B uses that same amount of effort to climb a 12c with preplaced draws, which would you be more proud of?

csproul wrote: I'm not sure you understand what "following" means. Hint, the word "following" is well defined in climbing and it is not leading on preplaced draws. And no, I could not care less if one climber placed the draws or not. Your scenario is also artificial. This is more like it: If we have two people and person A uses all their effort to hang draws and climb a 12b while person B uses that same amount of effort to climb a 12c with preplaced draws, which would you be more proud of?

Quite often, if climbing at ones personal max limit, the difference between 12b & 12c are he draws. I'd be proud of both.

Realization will not have had an actual ascent until someone does it placing the draws on lead. Then, for good measure, they should clean those draws on rappel.

I just shit my pants thinking of how awesome that will be.