5.14a climbers

I would like to add to the discussion: how many had to hang their own draws, also how many lead it on gear.

I thought you said you wanted to add to the discussion, not post unrelated troll bait from under the bridge?

So for 5.15, round it to 20 for now. That's a proud club!

Phil, check out the link Jorde posted. It's a bit higher than that.

hank, you are no mere mortal ...!

slim wrote:hank, you are no mere mortal ...!

+1

20 KN wrote:I am willing to bet there is a greater percentage of sandbagged 5.9s than 5.14ds, or whatever "high end" consists of.

Yes, but that's just a lot of intentional ego stroking B.S.

Nah, climbing 14's is no big deal, I do it all the time. Granted, I go by the Ewbank scale, but I don't think that really matters.

reboot wrote: +1 Yes, but that's just a lot of intentional ego stroking B.S.

probably at both ends of the grade spectrum (and in the middle too for that matter) :)

There's probably more intentional sandbagging around 5.9(+), but even so, I think Mono's point is valid that there's probably less certainty/consensus around the grade of any given climb at the higher end, just because there are fewer climbers to weigh in! A nice example is Sharma's "Three Degrees of Separation": is it really 14d? Doesn't seem like it since it's gone unrepeated even with many notable attempts, but because the grade so far is determined by n=1, that's what it's called.

20 kN wrote: Fixed that for you. I am willing to bet there is a greater percentage of sandbagged 5.9s than 5.14ds, or whatever "high end" consists of. If there is one thing I have learned about sandbagging, it is that as the grade gets harder there is a much lower chance of sandbagging. I have climbed a whole shit load of 5.9s that went at solid 10+, but almost no 5.12-s that went at solid 5.12+. Granted I dont climb 5.15, so I cant honestly say if that continues through the .15s, but through .13s, no doubt. Far more inaccurate grades in the 5.10a and lower range IMO.

I, too, think there is more grade variation at the low end than at the high end, and for a few reasons.

Most of the people climbing at the high end of the scale are going to be climbers who travel a fair bit -- they will have climbed at lots of different areas on lots of different types of rocks, and can compare to a lot of climbs in different places at that grade range. Despite the fewer number of people supplying a grade at the very top end, this breadth of experience will provide a more consistent grade. In contrast, a lot of the people climbing the easier stuff aren't as likely to have climbed as widely.

Also, at the lower grades, especially in North America, there is the issue of the history of the YDS with (for a while) 5.9 being the hardest grade out there, before the grading was expanded. This compressed a lot of variance in difficulty into 5.8-5.9 range. And, other climbs that were near to a climb graded "old school" might be compared to such a climb for grading as well.

Also, grading on easier climbs has the issue that most of the people climbing and grading such climbs are newish climbers, therefor inexperienced at grading and with less breadth of comparison. Or, the ones that are not are grading well below their level. A 5.12 climber cleaning and bolting a beginner route may find that to them it is just 5.easy -- and it can be really hard from that level to distinguish between whether it is 5.5 (easy) or 5.8 (easy) -- whereas to a 5.7 climber, that range is vast and obvious.

I think this discussion about variation is missing something fundamental. When he says "high end" I don't think this means .14a, or even .14d. What it means is climbs on the cutting edge - .15a, .15b, and .15c. There is a pretty tightly defined consensus in the "well establish hard grades", as the discussion above this points out pretty well. Where this consensus and consolidation does not exist is at the fringe of difficulty. Is the route .15a, or .15c? The sample size of people able to climb at these grades gets very small very quickly, so the specific grade is more individual opinion, less group consensus.

Jorde wrote:This is a good site for the 15a question escalade9.wifeo.com/par-cot…

haha, that's hilarious, i recognized you by your big yellow asspic :) how's it goin' man?

why doesn't that list have jumbo love on it?

How dare you! my butt might be simpsons yellow, but it is certainly not big!

why doesn't that list have jumbo love on it?


I dunno, it's a french site

and its 9b, not for 9a+ punters
escalade9.wifeo.com/9b.php

5.14a seems to be roughly the equivalent of a sub 4 minute mile, based on number of people globally who have ticked a 5.14 climb. For example in the US there's been 423 sub four milers. Granted this list is shortened as collegians run the 1500, and many have sub-4 equivalents. How many people in the US have climbed 5.14?

Justin S wrote:5.14a seems to be roughly the equivalent of a sub 4 minute mile, based on number of people globally who have ticked a 5.14 climb. For example in the US there's been 423 sub four milers. Granted this list is shortened as collegians run the 1500, and many have sub-4 equivalents. How many people in the US have climbed 5.14?

Except you are forgetting something. There are FAR more runners than climbers, which means 423 runners at a particular speed does not translate to equal achievement difficulty as 423 climbers at a particular grade.

reboot wrote:Does 8b+ hold any arbitrarily special meaning to the euros? It's the mid-point between 8a and 9a, but the number doesn't have the same ring to it even though euro grades sound cooler in general.

8b has a special meaning to Germans since it is a sold "X" (Grade: 10) in UIAA rating.
The first route of this grade was "Kanal im Rücken" by Wolfgang Güllich.

13b = 8a = Fame and Glory in French Grades!
13d = 10 = Weißbier and Pretzels in Germany!

The escalade site lists 35 americans sending at least 9a (14d- edited to correct YDS...)

I'll say there are at least 350,000 'serious' climbers, aka folks that get out and rope climb twice a month, spring, summer and fall.

So that's 1 out of 10,000 climbers gets up 14d.

snowdenroad wrote:The escalade site lists 35 americans sending at least 9a (13d). I'll say there are at least 350,000 'serious' climbers, aka folks that get out and rope climb twice a month, spring, summer and fall. So that's 1 out of 10,000 climbers gets up 13d.

I am pretty sure the entire population of Boulder, CO (including underage kids and their grandmothers) can send 5.13d. 9a is 5.14d (just a touch harder, right..) and there are probably way more then 350 thousand "serious" climbers out there.

snowdenroad wrote: I'll say there are at least 350,000 'serious' climbers, aka folks that get out and rope climb twice a month, spring, summer and fall.

That's the mere definition of a weekend warrior. In fact, not even that, they are a subweekend warrior if they are only getting out twice a month. "Serious climber" can be defined a number of ways, but if defining it by climbing frequency I would say at least 2x a week minimal.

I'm sure it has occurred to people that climbers aren't necessarily getting better these days, they are just better at making the mental leaps to try out harder things thought impossible or at least very unlikely. The mental progress is what is significant, not only the physical, and you need both of them to do crazy new great things. Do you think they would have tried putting chocolate on bacon back in 1965? Fuck no!

David Gibbs wrote:Also, at the lower grades, especially in North America, there is the issue of the history of the YDS with (for a while) 5.9 being the hardest grade out there, before the grading was expanded. This compressed a lot of variance in difficulty into 5.8-5.9 range.

Similar in British trad with HVS (or VS in some areas) being 'defined' as the hardest grade before 'E grades' became acceptable. There's a lot of HVS sandbags out there. I've learnt to regard HVS in some areas as similar to 5.9+; that is, it could be anything up to about 4 grades harder...

Is the same thing evident in the French grades at the 5+/6a boundary? There's a qualitative change in the scale at that point, with the subdivisions into letter grades only coming in at 6a but is that because of an historical 'ceiling'?