What makes "the Euros" better?

Chamonix is 45 minutes from Geneva, and you can take lifts to upper mountain areas. At least in the PNW, things that could take 1-3 days here are merely pre-lunch outings in Chamonix.

There is also the phenomenon of tons of people living in Cham without really working and still getting by. They basically spend their lives climbing/skiing and drinking. I have no idea how so many people manage to get by with such little life responsibilities. Although anybody who has traveled in Europe for any purpose, climbing or not, has probably seen a lot of young people living this sort of lifestyle.

Another weird thing is the significant risk tolerance climbers/skiers have there compared to anywhere else, but I think that may have to do with the general lack of life responsibilities people have.

Reasons:
-There are no Mcdonalds in every corner.
-People walk or ride a bike all the time.
-Most Countries are small and crags are close.
-Euro girls are Usually not pretty (eastern europe not included).
-Many now Cities and towns are near cliffs or hard to approach spots because in the past war started from breakfast to dinner all year (and centuries) around So the priority was safety over easy access.

Aleks Zebastian wrote:fun-time-euro dance party - myah

Damn, we can fix this. Who's with me??!!!

youtube.com/watch?v=FwG5j9K…

Check out those aerobic moves.

Good point that people bring up about the climbing clubs. I definitely saw a lot of groups over there climbing and teaching each other (including a large group of cops who I have to say seemed a bit fitter than ours). A friend of mine in England is part of a very active club that owns several houses across the UK that members can crash in on climbing trips. I think that the club was really important for him when he started out climbing too in terms of getting him set up with mentors and safe practices. They do various international trips together too.

Seems like that kind of setup would definitely help you improve, and maybe cut down on some of these rope management accidents that we've been seeing lately too.

I generally lead only 5.8 sport, sometimes I'll lead 5.9 sport when I'm feeling really confident. I went to visit a friend in Spain and while there we went to Rodellar, a really big climbing area. We climbed at La Fuente and El Camino, the easiest walls. The easiest stuff was at least 5c and I lead (falling frequently) up to 6b (5.10c). I climbed harder because that's all there was and the bolts were close enough to just go for it. Where I started climbing at Smith, the bolts could be super far apart and there was be tons of stuff I wouldn't go for within my range.

Because they don't place pro.

Tradster wrote:Because they don't place pro.

This attitude right here is exactly why the Euros climb harder than we do at both sport and trad.

Don't know if US climbers are different when compared to Euro , in skillness, weight, ....
But the multipitches routes are. 10 pitches fully bolted routes are very common in italia , austria, france and spain. And the majority of climbers prefers these long bolted routes. The crowd along long trad routes is rarely a problem (excepted for very popular classic). We are not better, we are only used to be well protected.

When climbing in USA, i do a serious downgrade the first days

I kind of said it as a joke and to get a response. They have a much longer history of climbing than we do and the general Euro public appreciates and understands mountaineering, climbing, alpinism much better than the American public. Here it is seen as extreme, there it is a very normal outdoor pursuit.
So, there is a wider cultural acceptance of 'extreme' sports such as parpenting, wingsuits for base jumping and that kind of cutting edge stuff. This results in their youth accepting and pursuing these sports on a larger scale than we do.

The Euros have a much more open attitude towards mountain access. They operate ski lifts all year for climbers, hikers, parapenting. We have a tendency to place more access obstacles in the path of the outdoor user.

Tradster wrote:I kind of said it as a joke and to get a response. They have a much longer history of climbing than we do and the general Euro public appreciates and understands mountaineering, climbing, alpinism much better than the American public. Here it is seen as extreme, there it is a very normal outdoor pursuit. So, there is a wider cultural acceptance of 'extreme' sports such as parpenting, wingsuits for base jumping and that kind of cutting edge stuff. This results in their youth accepting and pursuing these sports on a larger scale than we do. The Euros have a much more open attitude towards mountain access. They operate ski lifts all year for climbers, hikers, parapenting. We have a tendency to place more access obstacles in the path of the outdoor user.

+1

Tradster wrote:I kind of said it as a joke and to get a response.

You may have been joking, but the reality is that there are a lot of climbers on this side of the pond that truly think that they are so much more badass because they climb 5.9 trad then those euros who only clip their way up 5.13 sport routes and that there is no way that those euros could get up their super proud 5.9 sends because they are on gear.

At least in my experience, in Europe (with the exception of Great Brittan) they embrace climbing as climbing and don't have this big trad vs sport divide that we have over here and that alone helps them to climb harder.

Easy answer. Most of our real athletes do more high visibility sports.
The 1% of elite climbers aside, most of you engineers and marching band types are actually better suited for Pokemon Go than football or basketball

I think they have less of a sense of fear and consequence. I was at rumney a few months ago and there was these two euro girls next to me on a 5.10 something. I thought they were killing it until the belayer turned to me and asked if I could finish the route for them because it was too hard and it was getting dark. I was surprised they would throw down on a route above their skill level at the end of the day without thought to consequence.

When I climbed in France, they didn't care what you climbed or how hard. If you were groovin' in the mountains it all was good. Here on this site, lots of bitter comments about who is doing what and how its done. Over there, not so much. Plus they have much better outdoor stores like Sporthaus Schuster in Munich or Au Vieux Campeur in Paris. Everything about mountain life and recreation seems more advanced in Europe. Stores, gear, participation, competitions, access, attitude. Less provincial for sure. Here its less developed and more provincial. People here argue over Boulder versus SLC or anything else for that matter. Over there folks seem to say fuck it, just get out and do stuff.

Cigarettes

Mike Lane wrote:most of you engineers and marching band types are actually better suited for Pokemon Go than football or basketball

I snorted coffee out my nose. Thanks for that.

Tradster wrote:When I climbed in France, they didn't care what you climbed or how hard. If you were groovin' in the mountains it all was good. Here on this site, lots of bitter comments about who is doing what and how its done. Over there, not so much. Plus they have much better outdoor stores like Sporthaus Schuster in Munich or Au Vieux Campeur in Paris. Everything about mountain life and recreation seems more advanced in Europe. Stores, gear, participation, competitions, access, attitude. Less provincial for sure. Here its less developed and more provincial. People here argue over Boulder versus SLC or anything else for that matter. Over there folks seem to say fuck it, just get out and do stuff.

Things are different here for sure, but I don't know about better.

Let's start with access. I'll take the example of France since that's where I live (Bleau). Few people realize it but a good chunk of the land here is either private, or public but often awarded to hunters federations (which are extremely powerful, even though the number of hunters is steadily dwindling year after year). The latter means that for about six months of the year, there are places you'll be reluctant to climb at lest you might get shot (a long-distance runner was killed last year for instance). So that restricts the number of areas you can go to. Then there's the issue of access on private land. Basically, our climbing and mountain federation (FFME) has, for the past 30-40 years, signed covenants with landowners exempting them from legal consequences should an accident happen on their land; indeed here, for some very odd reason, it seems you can get prosecuted if something happens on your land and you didn't explicitly ban this sort of activity. So to make up for that the FFME had covenants signed. Problem is, this year a couple hurt themselves pulling a big block while climbing (the woman was left paraplegic I think or something like that). The insurance company of the couple turned to the insurance company of the FFME, asked for a million euros and has won. The FFME is going to the court of appeals so we'll see how that plays out; but you can see there's a problem: if this type of thing happens more and more often, the FFME will be ruined. So there's a risk the FFME will annul all those covenants, which means us climbers will no longer be insured when climbing. Lot of talk about this at the moment.

As for the differences in terms of the community, well, if you head to the main French forum camptocamp, you'll see a bunch of topics on politics at the moment, or on environmental issues, often on hunting, wolves, bird nesting, even Trump. I'm under the impression there's actually more talk about climbing here. UKclimbing also has a lot of talk about politics and misc, especially Brexit (obviously), though not so much about environmental issues.

On a side note, I don't know about BASE jump being widely accepted; recently some town in the French Alps banned it because someone crashed into an abandoned and out of town building. Though some places are definitely more accepting (Lauterbrunnen).

As for the suggestion that Europeans climb better, I've no idea whether that holds true, but I do think that the fact we have a lot more sport climbing than you means we can try harder and just get physically and technically strong without worrying too much about the consequences of a fall. Still, there's still plenty of situations where, even on a bolted climb, you don't want to fall (suspicious-looking bolt, sparsely bolted route, ledge, etc.), so the fear factor may not be as present as in the US but it's still there. Still I do wish we had more trad, though I haven't gotten into it due to where I live. But we have so much limestone that trad often doesn't look like a viable option.

The only climbing I've done in the US was bouldering so I can't say whether I'd have to drop my grade over here (probably though). Depends maybe more on rock and climbing types like Yosemite granite and splitters.

mandatory 6 weeks per year paid vacation.

I think a huge number of us could climb 5.12 or better if we trained more deliberately than dicking around at the climbing gym for 3 hours twice a week and then going to climb 5.8 trad on the weekend. Thinking "the best climber is the one having the most fun" is why we're all so weak. Few people actually really think that. They just use it as an excuse. The best climber is the driven son of a bitch failing again and again on 9a and putting up alpine first ascents.

Also I wonder about climbers who are multi-sport enthusiasts. I flat water kayak and bag 14teeers as I like that and they are activities my wife enjoys (she doesn't climb or mountain bike) and we can share experiences together. Its a happy wife happy life thing and it strengthens our relationship. Same goes for hiking and backpacking, too, as she likes those activities. I started spending more time mountain biking several years ago because I can ride from my house and I don't need a partner to do it. It became more of a focus for me because it is more aerobic and no hassle with looking for a 'partner' for riding. It was my climbing partner who got me into mountain biking, ironically. Also, living in AZ, I've gone canyoneering, which, of course, reduces the time for climbing. So, there is that lack of heavy focus on climbing that certainly limits my climbing ability. I'm a better mountain biker than a climber now as far as ability is concerned. A Catch 22 thing.