Desperately Seeking 8a

Tony Bubb wrote: So let's get personal....no holds barred. What keeps us from achieving better communication, and what are the secrets of the zen-meisters who stay on these forums for years without engaging in flamewars or trying to dominate a conversation completely? Personally. I have been on the internet climbing forums for 17 years, since rec.climbing. Having reached my mid 30's without finding that balance I am looking to expand my abilities in other ways. Unfortunately my patience for others has not always not progressed with age. It always seems though when I crank up the intensity I am courting either a flame war or a protracted, bullshit arguement. Maybe I need to cool it. So take it with humor, eh?

History sighs, then repeats itself.

Not to take away from you guys talking about each other... but let's get back to the discussion of difficulty. I would argue that the cutting edge difficutly in trad and sport is almost the same. Yes, there are way more sport routes in the 8c+ to 9a range but that is simply due to the number of people climbing sport routes. The upper end trad routes (Requiem, The Groove, The Promise and so on) are arguably as hard most of the 8c+/9a sport routes and there are, without a doubt, fewer people that could repeat them.

I'll take the easy ones first: I haven't tried For Turkey's Only...can't comment. Whada... is also easy to explain: it's sandbagged. I would rate it 11+ or 12-. Plus I think it has gotten polished over the years. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if people have stemmed out to the tree in the past. But you know what's interesting? I've never fallen at the "trad" crux of that route, but I have fallen, a couple times on the bolted arete (also rated 11-) above.

Tony...I suspect the reason you've had more success onsighting 5.12 sport routes is because the route had chalk on it, while trad routes (especially at that level) rarely do. It's not fair to make that comparison.

Funny you should mention Lurking Fear. I actually spent 4-5 days working the crux pitch a couple years ago. It was in June, which turns out to be way late in the season for a slab like that, so I gave up on it, but I would try it again if I could do it in a better season. Anyway, I thought it was probably a sandbag, but it was reasonable. In the time I spent on it, I had done all but one move several times, and I'm no super climber. I have, however, spent some time honing my slab skills, and I have some difficult ticks under my belt. It seemed like it would take as much effort to send a 13c sport route.

As for the freerider OW, I still disagree. In my hole life, I have probably climbed less than 10 routes that are even remotely similar to that pitch. Of course it's going to feel hard! If climbing gyms had stacks of 7 inch offset cracks instead of overhanging boulder problems, we would all agree that it's not that hard. Once you have the foot technique fiqured out for that pitch, it's just a matter of suffering through it. I don't know what the "perfect corner" pitch is. At the time I flashed freerider, my hardest on-sight to date was a couple 12c sport pitches, and I had failed to OS several 12c's. At the time, Steph Davis was spraying that the route was "13a for short people". I'm 5'7" (I think she is 5'5").

I can certainly see why there is this impression that trad is harder, becuase people tend to have a lot of personal data points of being sand-bagged, or not having the right technique for a particular pitch. A sport route is less likely to remain sandbagged for a long time, as they tend to get more repeats. I agree with your analysis of the compression of trad ratings, but that to me is sand-bagging, which is correctable. It's not a conspiracy to opress trad climbers.

Mike Anderson wrote:You all got this pretty well covered, but I'll just foot-stomp some things: -The Karn quote: Gold! -A project that gets you psyched is way better than a project that is nearby. (i.e. F___ clearcreek, but that's just my opinion) -Plan your day at the crag: Stupidly obvious to me, but most people don't do it. If this doesn't make sense to you, or you disagree, let us know so we can convince you.

Ok Mike,
Thank you for your comments. What's a good first .13 to work here in slc? I asked one friend and he said just go for center trinity but that scares the crap out of me. Crosseyed and Painless? Not .13, but close and it seemed doable the one day I tried it..? One guy said Birdland, but I've never been up there.

Do you have some good trad lines where falling on good gear is safe to do? That's always been a mixed thing for me. Sometimes its no problem, but other times I get so freaked out and climb very tight.

Skip a day, and see what you miss! Shame on me...

This is an interesting debate that is sure to never be resolved, but I agree with Mike. The 'differences' between trad and sport are all a matter of perception, access, and protection.

Magic Line hasn't been repeated because its not bolted, and its location is poor. By poor location, I mean, people don't dream of going to yosemite so they can mega-project a one pitch route. Only locals who are burnt out on the big stone will ever consider attempting Magic Line, and none of them are strong enough. Its not a big enough prize to lure the superstars.

As for difficulty, lets consider Indian Creek for a sec. Somebody mentioned that their trad onsight ability is much less than there sport on sight ability. My suggestion would be that you should go to ICreek and watch your trad onsight ability go through the roof. If this doesn't satisfy, try red rocks. One of the reasons trad seems "harder" is that folks often compare old-school sandbag trad areas like Eldo to new-school soft-as-hell sport areas like Cactus Cliff. There are sport areas in this country where (for me) on-sighting 12a is pretty damn hard, and there are trad cliffs where the same feat is pretty trivial.

RE: Lurking Fear, the cruxes are all bolt-protected face climbing sections. Nobody has trouble on the trad pitches. Its the heinous 13c slab on P2 and the V7 (ya right!) sloper boulder problem on p7 that shuts everyone down. Another reason it hasn't been repeated is that its really not fun climbing. Its really sharp, and the movement isn't enjoyable. The crux is a downwards dyno in which your body cheese-grates along the slab after your hands catch the objective hold. Additionally, its about a 1 hour hike from El Cap meadow to the base of the route, it only gets shade for a few hours in the morning, and it is probably the second most popular Big Wall on El Cap (meaning you spend a lot of time dealing with passing parties).

Anyway, a discussion about slab vs whatever would be interesting, but considering the nautre of the Lurking Fear cruxes, I don't think the route is relevant to a trad vs sport discussion.

As far as Yuji goes, check out the movie "The Professionals". He went on a trip to the US (with Francois Legrand) to send all of the hardest sport routes (Just Do It, Necessary Evil, Super Tweak, Kryptonite). Long story short, they both got schooled on anything that wasn't really over-hanging. These were all sport routes, but the point is, he wasn't limited by style, but rather, by the type of climbing (vertical razor crimping at Smith & the VRG vs. overhanging pinches and slopers at The Fortress & Logan). So I don;t think its appropriate to read too much into Yuji's experience on Lurking Fear. He's clearly not so great on his feet, which isn;t surprising for a career gym-competition climber.

Agree 100% with everything Mike just said.

I think Kevin is referring to the big dihedral below the Salathe Roof. This corner was easier for me than the Huber variation, but that's just one data point. I'm a good stemmer (and Mike can atest that I'm very good at flashing hard trad pitches when I'm following).

Mike Anderson wrote:As for the freerider OW, I still disagree. In my hole life, I have probably climbed less than 10 routes that are even remotely similar to that pitch. Of course it's going to feel hard! If climbing gyms had stacks of 7 inch offset cracks instead of overhanging boulder problems, we would all agree that it's not that hard.

Mike,

Great post, and I think your explanation of the lack of enough offwidth training routes is spot on. Back in the mid eighties, Charley Bentley and I tried a 5.9 offwidth roof called Brown's Fist. We worked on that thing for hours and failed miserably. Finally, we went over to IME and started telling some friends about how hard BF felt and that it must be a sandbad. The responses were laughter. I guess it was pretty funny to them because we both climbed 5.11 on most of the thin face routes that make up most of the climbing on Cathedral and Whitehorse.

The problem was that Charlie and I had never climbed anything like that, and we were trying to face climb the small edges outside of the huge crack. It was laughable, but we had no clue about offwidth technique, at the time.

"A conspiracy to oppress trad climbers" Classic! It's great to get the Anderson brothers involved in the conversation, guys who have actually cranked .13 sport and trad. BTW the Perfect Corner ( aka picturebook corner) are the two pitches above Sous le Toit. Anyways I agree that the discrepancy is mostly due to sandbagging ( intentional or not) more than anything else. Funny that Adam Stack thought the crux of the Salathe was the slab pitches on Freeblast.

Mark, the comments on Lurking Fear were not trad vs sport, but rather the fact that not all "Top Climbers" are capable of climbing all hard pitches. Slab climbing is a different animal than overhanging sport. I think Magic Line would also fall into the "slab" category. I agree that part of the challenge with these climbs lies in access and logistics, but considering LF can be easily rappelled you would think it would get done more often.

I think that you hit the nail on the head, the perceived difference in difficulty of trad climbs vs sport may well have more to do with the type of climbing than with the style.

LF can be easily rapelled?! You mean by hiking to the top of El Cap?! You clearly have not yet fully embraced the sport climber ethos if you think that's easy :)

I have scars on both of my ankles from the Monster OW.

Bob, re-read my posts..I never said that trad climbing was harder than sport. Just that certain pitches/climbs are way harder than the same graded sport climb.

Crazy to think that Jimmy climbed For Turkeys Only with only a stopper way below the crux and no Leavitation techniques or big cams. Most likely his fear of dying helped him send.

I haven't checked that one out Bob, I don't make it out to the Buffalo Creek area often.

Also I wanted to apologize to Ken Cangi for attacking him on this forum. He has given good advise and I respect his achievements. I went overboard with my critism and am sorry for my harsh words. I hope you can forgive me.

Heheh....well I did onsight toprope the top two pitches of your Aschert/D'antonio route on the Black Wall, and thought they were 12b at the most. But of course that was a TR...so doesn't mean much.

Maybe I will get back up there this year and give the start a try. Did you ever try the thin dihedral left of your bolt line on p.3 that crosses over to the right side and pulls through a flake/roof? It seemed to me that those last 2 pitches would go on gear with that variation. Also do you know of anyone starting on Good Evans and linking to Cary Granite? Seemed like it would be a worthy variation, the best of both routes.

Fun climbing location, although rappelling in from the top always seems like it makes it more like cragging than alpine climbing. I am sure the Rusty Dagger or Parrallel Universe would be a different story.

Bob says "Some people are not capable of climbing 5.13" my reply "I TR'ed a 5.11d pitch!"

I love it when I stick my foot in my mouth...