Shockley's Ceiling Short Guy Beta

Marc801 wrote: Do you mean Broken Sling?

Ha! Let's not get started with climbs that start with a boulder problem off the ground...

john2.71 wrote: I can see the logic in that, because the primary purpose of grades is to advise onsight leaders. If I'm onsighting, I want to know whether it's safe and wise for me to get on the route in the first place, not whether I can theoretically do the move after working on it for a long time. Instead, what we currently have is a comparative grade that reflects the difficulty of the crux if you already know, have it dialed, and the pro is not factored in. It's effectively a top-rope grading system.

^^^^ :)

Bob Johnson wrote: Plenty of pumpy sequences in the Gunks! At the risk of stirring up the hive, I'm interested to know people's opinions. How many of the classic "Gunks sandbags" are really sandbags? How many of those "sandbags" are fairly graded but have non-obvious moves in pumpy positions which makes it practically impossible to onsight them efficiently? Or are these questions just exploring the semantics of "sandbag"?

Mix of both I would say. Certainly a very valid point to consider.

rgold wrote: Ha! Let's not get started with climbs that start with a [manufactured] boulder problem off the ground...

Fixed that for ya!
I wasn't really bringing that route up for discussion, just that I've never heard of "Blue Sling".

Chris Duca wrote:I agree, rgold. Routes like Try Again, Star Action, TransCon, 2nd pitch of Feast of Fools, and Nurses' Aid all seem more difficult due to gear, and somewhat cryptic sequences. Some of those routes, over time have gotten easier for me because of my memory of the route; however, others have not.

Agree on all of the above, particularly FoF p2. Also much harder on the sharp end:

Creaky Joints and Trigger Points
Wasp
Welcome to the Gunks
Doug's Roof
Commando Rave
Winter
Carbs & Caffeine
Tennish
Amber Waves
Mother's Day Party
fetus
...

Then again, there are a few routes I feel are easier to lead than to second:

Last Frontier
Stannards Roof
Erect Direction p3

My take on Shockley's for the OP: I agree with others that it is fair for the grade, once you figure it out. And being able to figure it out is part of being a solid leader. Anyone can turn a 5.7 into a 5.10 (thin slabs anyone?) if you don't read the route correctly, and taking the time to figure it out is a learned skill. With experience comes routefinding/beta-figuring while onsighting - which makes pushing your grade when onsighting more do-able.

The new-ish climbers tend to panic more and start wildly slapping for holds and pulling on the first thing they deem decent, which could take them out of position for making the move at the grade. On shockley's, a solid 5.6 or easier hand-jam makes moving up into the roof much easier, which is a skill in any well-rounded climber's arsenal. Same for laybacking - which makes the move remarkably easier once you throw the high foot.

Jamming and secret holds on Shockley's? Maybe I've never done it right. But I can usually avoid using the knee, as I half-jokingly suggested above, and it feels 5.6 to me.

FWIW I think the Gunks' reputation for sandbagging is overblown. The grades have crept up significantly over the years.

If you can get your knee there you can get your foot there, and it is a much easier position to move from, also you dont have sticky rubber on your knee

Dana Bartlett wrote:It does have a style of its own (as do most places) but the rock structure is predictable and easy to read and esoteric techniques aren't necessary; it's straight ahead face climbing for the most part.

+1
I don't care what area it is; if you're doing a heel hook (as some suggested) on a 5.6, you're probably missing something that will keep it at 5.6!

Nice one, Sara. On par with the difficulty of Sixish I see! (Which shouldn't have been upgraded, by the way!)

Marc801 wrote:I don't care what area it is; if you're doing a heel hook (as some suggested) on a 5.6, you're probably missing something that will keep it at 5.6!

(aside from the detail that the trick foot move on Shockley's is not a heel hook) ... seems to me the low first crux on
Dennis (Gunks Trapps) is most easily done with a heel hook (and last I looked that was rated 5.5) - though my opinion is that Dennis is significantly harder than 5.5 for climbers much less than 5ft 6in with normal reach (but not because of the heel hook).

Far away from the Gunks, couple of days ago leading near the top of the West Buttress of Cathedral Peak (Tuolumne / Yosemite N.P.), I found it natural to use a heel hook for a move -- and that's mainstream California 5.6 YDS.
It did not occur to me that I should have first looked for some supposedly "easier" way to do it. Throw my heel up - pop over the edge - Done!

Heel hook is just another technical move (easily practiced in indoor gyms) that happens to show up a lot in the Gunks.
Get over it: Learn it and practice it until it feels natural.

The ceiling crux "trick" on Shockley's is fundamentally an indoor move -- just with a foothold that many indoor climbers at first won't recognize and then will find difficult to make themselves trust. But once you trust it, the move is rather non-strenuous.

Ken

P.S. A Gunks route with a crux often found rather tough for non-tall climbers ... with a worse "sucker hold" problem than Shockleys ... and where the "trick" for non-tall people is very much an outdoor move (not practice-able in any indoor gym I know):
Something Interesting.

sara pax wrote: Might want to check that link again Kevin. Boom!

I see your childishness and raise.

kenr wrote:Something Interesting.

I thought about that one earlier in the thread, but figured one sandbag at a time. ;-)

sara pax wrote:When people say "I can climb 5.X at the gunks, which means I can climb 5X+2 anywhere else," is that true?

Not sure +2, but definitely +1 all the time, especially out West. This is a blanket statement, there's certainly some places I've been and/or already have a reputation for being as hard as the Gunks at a given grade (Eldorado Canyon, for example). The West gets a reputation for being soft, and in my experience it is softer than here (the East in general). I'm finding it difficult to come up with many examples where an area/crag out West was or seemed harder than the Gunks. Going back to earlier posts, I think a lot of the Gunks difficulty comes from the steep angle of many of the climbs, even moderates. But knowing why they're more difficult doesn't somehow make them easier. It's just an explanation for why they're hard.

It's tough to generalize these things as they're as much about impression and style than actual difficulty. There's walls and routes in the ADKs that are sandbagged, but on a whole I would say the ADKs are more in line with modern ratings, than the Gunks. This seems to be the consensus I read here and elsewhere, as well as anecdotal info gleamed from discussions with other climbers.

Refresh my memory, where did the yosemite decimal system originate? I could have sworn that it was out west, not the gunks.

The YDS originated out West. Areas such as Index, the Needles (SD), Joshua Tree, City of Rocks, are all considered sandbagged areas located out West and are all WAY more sustained in nature (Index, especially!) than the Gunks' quick-boulder-problem-to-a-rest scenario. What also makes the Gunks seem hard, as Kevin alluded to, is its sporty climbing+gear placement equation. It scares people, I believe. The Gunks, IMHO, is a more mentally demanding locale than it is physically.

Places like Poke-O, The Web, Moss Cliff in the Dacks all share at least some of the same unique (read: roof/overhang climbing) features of the Gunks, plus they're sustained. For that reason, many of the routes (the older ones, in particular) on these cliffs feel hard when compared to the more modern routes at other areas in the Dacks.

Did the term "non-tall" just start in this thread, or have I missed something?

The only thing that makes Gunks harder than anywhere else that people tend to climb there in the middle of the summer in 90F and 90% humidity. Of course, climbs would feel hard!

Chris Duca wrote:The YDS originated out West. Areas such as Index, the Needles (SD), Joshua Tree, City of Rocks, are all considered sandbagged areas located out West and are all WAY more sustained in nature (Index, especially!) than the Gunks' quick-boulder-problem-to-a-rest scenario. What also makes the Gunks seem hard, as Kevin alluded to, is its sporty climbing+gear placement equation. It scares people, I believe. The Gunks, IMHO, is a more mentally demanding locale than it is physically. Places like Poke-O, The Web, Moss Cliff in the Dacks all share at least some of the same unique (read: roof/overhang climbing) features of the Gunks, plus they're sustained. For that reason, many of the routes (the older ones, in particular) on these cliffs feel hard when compared to the more modern routes at other areas in the Dacks.

Absolutely right, the stance - to action - to stance, style of the Horizontal striated rock builds an ability to keep one's poise, given that every move up brings one closer to an intimidating barrier that you can't see over. This occurs on almost all the climbs. The thing that makes starting to climb out doors at the Gunks such a good recipe for success is this, otherwise hard to convey . . . ? Teaching? or getting the climber used to, or, less spooked by, steep /unknown above climbs, - really has a historic legacy of producing the strongest climbers.
this is the case from the easiest of the Ginks climbs.

The Gunks is my home and I really love it. The area has a unique style, which can make it an intimidating place for the first-time visitor. The horizontal cracks produce many roofs and (on the harder face climbs) long mystery gaps between holds which can stymie the climber and also raise the commitment level as you are forced to work out the moves with the gear at or below your feet.

But as challenging as the Gunks may be for the uninitiated, over the years as I've visited other climbing areas I've come to believe that the limitations of the Gunks style also make it hard for the Gunkie to adapt to other "normal" climbing areas with vertical cracks. Jamming, slab climbing, sustained routes with similar moves over and over-- we just don't have a lot of these things at the Gunks. Even steep climbing (vertical to slightly overhanging), such as what you'll find in your average sport crag like the New, is not very common at the Gunks except at Lost City. In the Trapps and the Nears, most of the climbing is less than vertical, with relatively brief crux sections which go through bulges or overhangs.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I've not felt that the Gunks prepared me to crush at other crags. It has little to do with the grading. It has more to do with the unique and somewhat limited variety of the climbing. I'd be curious to hear if others have had similar or different experiences.

SethG wrote:All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I've not felt that the Gunks prepared me to crush at other crags. It has little to do with the grading. It has more to do with the unique and somewhat limited variety of the climbing. I'd be curious to hear if others have had similar or different experiences.

I'm in my third season at the Gunks and am still moving through the grades. For sure, I'm still learning how to climb and the Gunks is always ready to humble me whenever I think I have things figured out. This happened most recently this weekend when I had a lot of trouble with Thin Slabs Direct even after I was able to cruise the hand traverse on Directissima earlier this season. And oftentimes even after leading a 5.4-5.5ish Gunks climb for the first time, I'll come away feeling that it was quite harder than expected. So I did ask the question about "Gunks sandbags" because I'm still learning what the grades mean there and am trying to avoid labeling things as sandbags when in reality the climb is just pumpy and very unforgiving if you have to hang around to figure out a move or place gear. If Thin Slabs Direct is really 5.7+, I need to go back to it and figure out how to climb it at that grade!

I agree that the Gunks hasn't taught me much crack technique. However, what the Gunks has taught me (although sometimes I forget) is that no climb (regardless of grade) is a gimme. I find that this is something that is very transferable to other areas. The climbs I've done at Eldorado Canyon, Yosemite and Red Rock felt a little softer than the equivalent Gunks grade. Granted, I haven't led anything harder than 5.8 at those areas. But I think part of it is just the mental training that I've learned from climbing at the Gunks.

So I wouldn't say that I'm climbing much higher grades at other areas as compared to the Gunks. But I have usually felt mentally prepared.