Redpoint ratings versus onsight.

I am sure it has been written about before but I missed it and I am sure there are some new perspectives.

I did a new 12 face climb the other day. I barely got up it after TRing bolting and leading it. Went back a week or so later and fell at the upper crux. My buddy does it a different way so I tried it and it was reachy. As I hung there and looked at it a third way occurred to me and it is the easiest way yet for me. The low crux is a tad easier too because of some beta another friend found. Seeing these sequences while on the onsight is difficult but that should not change the rating. I will rate this route according to the finding and climbing the easiest sequences.

The next person up it may not get it right and call it a sandbag. But the person that finds the right sequences will say it is right on. Of course you may get it onsight and say it is harder than the rating but lots of onsights are done despite doing sequences less efficiently.

So, before you cry "sandbag" do it a time or two. Also, if someone says your route is "soft" perhaps you missed an easier sequence.

The only valid rating is the onsight lead. All other ratings benefit from rehearsal and, therefore, are totally bogus.

Ready your incinerator units...FIRE!!!

Not So Famous Old Dude wrote:The only valid rating is the onsight lead. All other ratings benefit from rehearsal and, therefore, are totally bogus.

What he said.

Yeah, but I didn't use those holds because they didn't have the green tape on them!

caughtinside wrote: I am going to have to disagree with that. The route should be rated according to the EASIEST WAY to do the route. This may or may not be the way you do it on sight. It should be the way you do it on redpoint, if that's the way you do it. It is easy enough to turn a .10d into an .11b on your onsight if you miss some key holds. You can pull those .11b moves but that does not make the climb .11b. Some climbs have more deceptive sequences than others, which may make them extremely difficult to onsight at the grade, but that does not change the grade.

I'll concede that a consensus rating from on-sight leaders make sense. But a consensus from hangdoggers is worthless.

Not So Famous Old Dude wrote:The only valid rating is the onsight lead. All other ratings benefit from rehearsal and, therefore, are totally bogus.

nope. you're wrong, sorry.

Jon Ruland wrote: nope. you're wrong, sorry.

And your citations for this? :)

Not So Famous Old Dude wrote: And your citations for this? :)

citations are so overrated.

caughtinside wrote: What about the opinion of leaders who flash with beta? Also worthless? Or is this a thread where we thump our chests and talk about how old school we are and so much better than the guys who are actually climbing 2 number grades harder?

I was being too provocative with the "hangdogging" comment. Sorry.

LMAO....

Eric, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you'd put on your trolling hat.

There is no answer to this question. Never has been.
And it's become even harder to answer with sport climbing where a route can often go from totally desperate to totally doable with just the right sequence.

The closest we'll ever come to getting a rating right is over a long time consensus. And even then it's fraught with errors. Finger size, hand size, reach, flexibility, beta, do the chalk marks show the right sequence, etc.... all contribute to how hard a route is one day for one person.

Heck, scrub the chalk off most routes and you'll probably bump the climb's grade for most climbers. Chalk certainly creates more of a climb by number feel to a route. But, it can also be misleading.

Besides, where does a rating come from in the first place ?
Generally, the guidebook writer, yes ? But many are not as conscientious as you and don't do a lot of the climbs before they write them up. They just take some number someone has told them and put it out there.

Route ratings are great, they give us stuff with which to pump or deflate our egos.

And then, there's the whole technology issue.
I gotta think that climbing the Steck-Salathe with pins while wearing Kronehoffers adds a couple of letter grades over today's gear.

Each climber is different. Just beucase a short climber has a harder time with a longer move does not justify bumping the grade up.
So 5.12 is 5.12 weather onsighted or redpointed. A consensus should be reached between the Redpointers and onsighters to determine the actual grade of a climb. Taking in to account pre-beta or working the route does not give it a lesser value. It just might be harder for YOU to do.
I dont down grade boulder problems when being tall and lengthy is used in my advantage. I just thank the powers that be that things are easier for me then you short fella's.

Edit due to pauls post:

I agree. where was the standard set and have we been following it?
they are very subjective and should be taken based on the "consensus" not from just the guy with the FA or the super human onsight ability.

the only pertinent item in this thread is my fired up incinerator unit. And that goddamn 5.2 rating I keep running into.

Ok, so if I climb a backcountry route in the Sierra that's rated class 4 but get off route and climb some 5.6, does that make it 5.6? I don't thinks so. I just means that that's how I climbed the route. The facts of this example are not dead on with the instant situation, but the theory is the same: you rate a route by the easiest way up it.

While some have tried to establish a difference b/w on sight and dogging attempts, if you're a good at on sighting, you've probably got a pretty good ability to intrinsically figure out the best sequence. That's certainly not true in every instance, but there's a reason why some folks are better at on sighting than others who perpetually dog. But I digress...

It doesn't sound like you gained some "secret" knowledge from hanging, only you saw a hold you didn't see previously but that someone else might see right away. I don't consider that sandbagging.

Fat Dad wrote:Ok, so if I climb a backcountry route in the Sierra that's rated class 4 but get off route and climb some 5.6, does that make it 5.6? I don't thinks so. I just means that that's how I climbed the route. The facts of this example are not dead on with the instant situation, but the theory is the same: you rate a route by the easiest way up it. While some have tried to establish a difference b/w on sight and dogging attempts, if you're a good at on sighting, you've probably got a pretty good ability to intrinsically figure out the best sequence. That's certainly not true in every instance, but there's a reason why some folks are better at on sighting than others who perpetually dog. But I digress... It doesn't sound like you gained some "secret" knowledge from hanging, only you saw a hold you didn't see previously but that someone else might see right away. I don't consider that sandbagging.

Actually i think you are wrong here.
You in fact got OFF route and climbed a NEW route that you rated 5.6 :) What will you name it?

The class 4 route is probably class 4. Assuming that the class 4 rating came from a consensus from those who did the route in the manner the first ascent was done.

In your example you simply just did somthing different.

Before I hike five hours to the base of some alpine wall, I want to know the rating on the route and I want to know how hard it is from the perspective of someone who has led it on sight. I couldn't care less about any other perspective.

And, once I've climbed something, the rating doesn't matter any more. It's a climb I can do, so I don't need any ratings information on it any longer.

But sport climbing is a different subset of climbing. It's more like gymnastics, so rehearsal is necessarily a part of it at the upper ranges of difficulty. Because it is subject to competitive events, and because it is more focused on extreme difficulty, the rating systems is naturally used to benchmark and make comparisions between climbers and their abilities. So, I suppose the rating system used for sport climbing embodies much more than the rating system for trad climbing.

So be it.

Fat Dad wrote:Ok, so if I climb a backcountry route in the Sierra that's rated class 4 but get off route and climb some 5.6, does that make it 5.6? I don't thinks so. I just means that that's how I climbed the route. The facts of this example are not dead on with the instant situation, but the theory is the same: you rate a route by the easiest way up it.

Funny thing happened to my friends a while back; they set out on classic 5.8; thought they got off route and into a 5.10a. Was it considered a new route? nope. What it needed was someone more noteworthy to do it 5-6 years later and make it a cover shot for a climbing rag; then it was a new route.

Not So Famous Old Dude wrote:Before I hike five hours to the base of some alpine wall, I want to know the rating on the route and I want to know how hard it is from the perspective of someone who has led it on sight. I couldn't care less about any other perspective. And, once I've climbed something, the rating doesn't matter any more. It's a climb I can do, so I don't need any ratings information on it any longer. But sport climbing is a different subset of climbing. It's more like gymnastics, so rehearsal is necessarily a part of it at the upper ranges of difficulty. Because it is subject to competitive events, and because it is more focused on extreme difficulty, the rating systems is naturally used to benchmark and make comparisions between climbers and their abilities. So, I suppose the rating system used for sport climbing embodies much more than the rating system for trad climbing. So be it.

Being a kind of old guy (at least for this sport), I do view trad and sport ratings as pretty different beasts. So I'm kind of with you there.

I still hold to my earlier comments though that, if dogging a route, you see a hold you didn't see the first time (but that someone else might see--especially after you've used it and chalked it) I don't think that's a big deal.

I think the biggest problem is that the issue is getting more credit than it deserves. We're talking about a sport route, TR'ed before it was lead, bolted on rappel, that people will likely leave their draws on to enhance their ability to "flash" it. It's a degraded form of trad climbing. We're not priests readying ourselves to enter a sacred temple.

Fat Dad wrote: We're not priests readying ourselves to enter a sacred temple.

LOL

Fat Dad wrote :
"bolted on rappel"

as an old partner once said, onsighting tests your ability to think. redpointing tests your ability to remember.

Darren Mabe wrote:as an old partner once said, onsighting tests your ability to think. redpointing tests your ability to remember.

Thinking takes time...
Onsighting tests your endurance, redpointing tests your power.

Actually, I think it goes more like this:
Climbers rate things within their ability for the on-sight difficulty.
Climbers rate things above their ability for the redpoint difficulty.
Climbers rate things WAAAAYYYY abover their ability by the hangdog difficulty.

So if I lead 11d, an 11a will feel like an 11a to me, a 12b will feel like a 12b, and a 13 a will still feel like a 13a. Just in different modes- lead, relead, and follow/TR.

No reason why it can't still feel consistent.