El Rito Traditional Area

Gary Clark's excellent online guide to the El Rito Trad area has moved to a new location within the Los Alamos Mountaineers website. Enjoy!

How can any route on this wall possibly receive four stars or classic status?

This is a nice wall in a great setting with ok albeit fun routes, but they are not classic compared to true classics in Yosemite, The Gunks, South Platte, North Cascades, etc, etc.

Hey Brett...I always considered the rating system on MP to be a relative intra-area rating system. Indeed likening "Packrat Dihedral" to "Crest Jewel" is not something anyone would do. But as far as the El Rito Trad area goes, "Packrat Dihedral" is the gold standard there. Do you really believe it's deserving of only one star (have you climbed it?) or did you just rate it that way to bring it down from four stars. If the the latter is your answer, that's pretty silly.

And, to be fair, maybe I've have a misconception of the rating system and, in fact, we should be comparing the quality of routes between El Rito conglomerate and Yosemite granite.

I have climbed Packrat and all other routes that I have commented about on Mountain Project.

You are assuming that the star quality is relative to each area, and I am assuming (and rate routes) based off best routes and areas around the world. Is one view more generally accepted here than the other? I honestly don't know, and for that matter hadn't thought about that until you presented a different view. As my mom always says, you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me" when you assume : )

Has there been debate about how to quality rate climbs? I think it would be interesting to hear what others have to say.

I would agree that Packrat is "classic" for the wall, but if it was in any of the other areas I mentioned in my previous post, I think it would only be considered "ok", so I rated it one star because I truly believe that is a fair rating for it -- not to bring down its total rating. I have rated routes of mine and friends that are on this site in a similar fashion trying to be fair and consistent. But obviously star ratings are highly subjective. The "classic" off-width at Veadoowo (Horn's Mother) kicks my ass but I would still give the first pitch 3 stars and the next pitch four stars. Yet, I love slab and vertical climbing, but I wouldn't rate the routes at Red Rock Canyon Open Space as anything but one star (with only a couple of exceptions, but certainly no four star routes here).

A nice reply, Brett, thanks. I understand and see where you're coming from. And I do know that old saying about "assuming". Damn. :-)

Brett,

This topic has been debated (look in the forum in the MP-related issues section). However, there isn't a really clear consensus. Some judge routes relative to an area, some relative to the known universe. IMO, the problem with judging routes relative to the known universe is that its pretty impossible to know what a 4 star route is, relative to all routes in the universe, unless you've climbed all or many of the routes in the universe. In reality, everyone's universe is unique to them. Someone who has climbed 10 routes has much less experience than someone who has climbed 10,000. How many routes does one have to climb to be an authority on the value of 4 stars?

From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, it seems the only logical system is relative to each person and each area.

On the other hand, difficulty ratings are supposed to be absolute, so I guess quality ratings could go the same way, but only if you had an open-ended scale like we use for difficulty.

Hey Mono and Jason,

There is not an easy answer to this, but I appreciate that we can have a discussion with everyone being respectful -- all too rare on the Internet these days.

I don't think it necessary to have climbed 10 thousand routes around the world to be able recognize quality. Obviously the guy who has climbed 10 thousand routes will have a wider-range of experiences from which to draw than the guy who has only climbed 10. But, isn't that true for route grades too? As a community, the people with the most experience sway the grade and quality rating more than those with less time on the rock. Also, we come to know that X climber tends to rate X type of climb easier/harder than most, and this is just part of the subjective process.

I am not sure that an opened ended system is necessary either. Instead, a short description of route criteria for each star can help a person narrow down the star level. This is subjective, but a place like MP where votes are collected and averaged creates a community consensus if we are all trying to judge by the same standards. Over time, a route's grade and quality rating will stabilize and a consensus will be reached, but we all need to be at least trying to operate from the same framework for the quality ratings to mean anything.

I personally don't care if X route is a classic for the area. I want to know if it is a classic by world standards (whatever that is?). I would want to climb in an obscure area even more if I knew that it had even one "classic" route.

I will look in the forum when I have some time to see what other people had said about this.

Again, thanks for the thoughtful responses.

Indeed, my quality ratings are intended to be taken in the context of the general region the climb is in. This was not my original assumption, but rather what I have gleaned from reading mountain project and in discussions with other users. For example, by rating the two climbs here with four stars as I did, I mean to suggest simply that they are among the best, for their grade, in this area. I don't assume that P2 of "Packrat Dihedral" is exactly "High Exposure", but it is certainly fun and, at least to me, exemplifies all that is good about climbing. The same can be said for any route I have rated as such.

Hey Mark,

It just seems that if ratings are for each area, then only a local who has climbed most if not all of the routes is qualified to give it a star rating.

I removed my ratings for the El Rito trad area, and I was even of thinking of giving Packrat four stars because I would agree that it is a classic for the wall, but I just couldn't do it because it does not truly feel like a classic in my gut when I compare it to other routes that I would give classic status.

Brett

A more general perspective would be to say that the quality ratings are based on one's own experience. However, the beauty of this forum (or at least one appealing aspect of it) is that it aggregates the quality ratings (and the difficulty ratings, but those seem to be more objective). This feature makes it possible to come to a consensus on the quality of a route that is quite independent of any one person's subjective opinion. So, I would encourage you, who has necessarily much different experience than I have, to give the routes whatever rating you feel is appropriate. This will help the rocks to speak for themselves, so to speak.

Mark, well said.

This is a great conversation. Both of you have made great points and I have enjoyed reading your opinions. One thing that comes to my mind, however, is that if you are giving star ratings based on all the routes in the world or all the routes that you have climbed, the vast majority of the routes in New Mexico would be no more than one or two stars. Because of this, the star ratings I give have always been based on each individual area.

I think you are selling New Mexico climbing short, and don't you think that the majority of routes in the world are only worthy of one or two stars? I have climbed my share routes in places like the Verdon, Bouox, Dolomites, Squamish, Yosemite, etc. that are only one star routes at best.

I have done routes at El Rito sport area, Tres Piedras, Questa Dome, Polomas, and Enchanted Tower that I would call world class, and I have climbed throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia.

Awesome words, everyone.

Taking George's line, "when I have only a few days to spend in a place like Eldo with lots and lots of routes, I'm only going to climb the most highly touted climbs in the area", this is the reasoning why I've always considered the star rating system here on MP to be intra-area--If I was from out of town and headed to the El Rito trad area for a day or two, I'd want to climb the best there. So my hope would be someone here on MP had rated the best climbs at El Rito trad area as "great" (3 stars) or "classic" (4 stars). I'd look for those routes and aim to climb those on my trip.

Sure, we could all just post a comment on the route's MP page saying, "this is the best route at El Rito trad" but if the El Rito Trad page at MP had tons of routes added to it, digging through all the route comments to find that comment would be tough. (El Rito Trad is a bad example here because there are only 15+ routes there but at places like Eldo, digging through all the MP route pages for the good comments would be a chore!)

Anyway, this has been a great discussion thus far. Thanks. (And, Brett, I apologize if I came off like an a-hole in my first response to you. I didn't mean that and consider myself a non-a-hole kinda person.)

I agree totally with Tony's sentiment. This site would be far less useful if the routes in NM were quality rated relative to all crags in the world. A crag like the Tunnel would have all 1 or zero star routes with maybe a few exceptions. Of course, this would be useful in the sense that it would help out-of-towners avoid a marginal crag like the Tunnel, but for those of us with no other choice except to climb at the Tunnel, it would be pretty difficult to judge the best routes from the worst if they all got 1 star.

One potential solution that has been used in guidebooks is to give each crag a quality rating. So Eldo would be a 4 star crag, and Palomas would be a one star crag. You could reasonably predict that a 2 star route at Eldo will likely be better than a 3 star route at Palomas. However, I've experimented with making suggestions for improvement to the MP.com aristocracy, and I usually get the "USA: love it or leave it" argument. Touche!

As far as personal experience, what I like to do occasionally is look at the climbing experience of some of the folks that have posted rave reviews. If I see that RaDcL!mbr5.16j has given a route 4 stars, I will check out his/her profile and see if they've rated any routes I've done. If I discover that they found every route in Socorro to be 4-stars, I'll probably take their opinions with a grain of salt.

I agree as well that most people award far more 3 and 4 star ratings than 1 and 2 star ratings. I think some of this has to do with people's psychological outlook. I really like climbing, so its rare that I will not like a route even if its mediocre. And the sort of uber-climbing-nerds that spend hours debating topics like this on the internet are generally very enthusiastic. If my girlfriend took the time to rate routes, there would be a plethora of bombs in NM! But mostly I think the imbalance is due to the fact that most people seek out and climb the best routes. You can't (shouldn't?) rate a route you haven't done, and most folks don't go out of their way to do a route that looks and sounds like crap.

Jason, thanks for the kind words -- no offense taken.

Mono, I like your suggestion of giving crags quality ratings and then route quality ratings would be subjective to each area. Too bad people didn't want to consider that.

My intention was not to sell NM climbing short. I certainly enjoy the climbing here and always look forward to more. I agree that there are some world class climbs around here. Enchanted tower and Questa are two named examples. However, I still think that if I had to compare my personal experiences in world class areas to the majority of climbs here in NM (and you are correct in suggesting even many places outside of New Mexico), most would be 1-2 stars. For example, trying to compare the Sandias with what I have climbed in the Wasatch Mountains, Yosemite, or Squamish; or El Rito to Maple; or Mentmore sandstone to Red Rocks, the new river gorge, or Indian Creek; or the basalt cracks around Los Alamos to those in Paradise Forks or the gorge at Smith Rock. You get my point. Those places would be where all my stars would go!

So, as monomaniac stated, making quality ratings relative to everywhere else seems to make them less useful. It also gives good credibility to the idea of giving quality ratings to each area. I will suggest that on the administrator forum. Not sure if it has already been suggested, but I will see what happens!

Those are just my thoughts,

Tony

Sorry Andy, didn,t mean to offend. I truly appreciate the quality and quantity of content on this site. If it weren't for this site, I would have to do work when I'm at my desk.

Tony wrote:

"My intention was not to sell NM climbing short"

Good to hear. NM climbing is short enough already!

Monomaniac said: "If it weren't for this site, I would have to do work when I'm at my desk."

I know! That would suck. :-)

Supplemental directions: To get to the trad area travel north on FR 44. At the intersection for road 248 stay to the right (the sign for 248 was in the middle of the fork and unclear which road was 248 and which was FR 44). Continue on FR44, you will pass spur road 44A on the left. Go about .6 miles further and you will come to an unmarked road on the left. This is the road to the trad area. Take this left and drive about a mile until you get to the gate mentioned in the guide book and park on the right (obvious parking area). Look for the fire ring on the southeast corner of the parking area and follow the cairns to the wall. The trad wall is east and south of the fire ring.