Being Comfortable with Run Outs and R Rated Climbs

ViperScale wrote:

 LOL.. yes that’s a crack, all three feet of it. A micro nut right before the belay ledge? After that runout? BAHAHA.. I notice your red line doesn’t go the rest of the 97 feet to the ground. 

 Edit.. 9.5/10 troll. You got me :)

Bill Kirby wrote:

 LOL.. yes that’s a crack, all three feet of it. A micro nut right before the belay ledge? After that runout? BAHAHA.. I notice your red line doesn’t go the rest of the 97 feet to the ground. 

 Edit.. 9.5/10 troll. You got me :)

So is that not a bolt 10ft below that red line? Your picture doesn't really show much =/ so it is hard to tell but it looks like there is a bolt not far below the red line.

ViperScale wrote:

So is that not a bolt 10ft below that red line? Your picture doesn't really show much =/ so it is hard to tell but it looks like there is a bolt not far below the red line.

You're hallucinating again, seeing demons where none exist!

Marc801 C wrote:

You're hallucinating again, seeing demons where none exist!

So that red circle is not the rope changing directions from being either in a crack or what I was thinking a bolt?

Russ Walling wrote:

Lulzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It is counted as hiking or rambling until you get up to about 5.7 before the term "runout" can be used without a snicker

Not hiking once you hit class 3 it is normally scrambling until you hit class 5 than it is considered climbing.

leaving the trailhead is runout!

ViperScale wrote:

Clearly a crack in the picture... got to learn pure friction! 

What you need to do for runouts is just keep saying to yourself... Just keep climbing, Just keep climbing, Just keep climbing.

Looking at this made almost made me shit my pants.  Thanks.

Still not got the nerves up enough to try this other route there because it is so runout.

Christian wrote:

Yeah - I think it is pretty easy to get hung up on the numbers. Still, I do know sport climbers where this fits.  But it also does not matter in a personal sense as mastering easy run out is not in their interest. Nor is it likely they will get on something that demands that.

Videos are so deceptive - you can't tell how steep it is at all. Most of the Block Route is just about a walk up. 

The Pulpit has some ridiculous no-pro pitches (that are generally pretty easy) but starts off well protected to get you in the zone before it starts sticking you on no fall pitches. I remember somewhere on P2 there's a broken piton that used to protect a mildly committing move that left me feeling a strange combination of sad and angry as I sucked it up and climbed past with nothing between me and the anchor. That moment at 2min in is a good example of why Stone is one I place I get *really* bent out of shape if my belayer starts short roping me.  :) 

I started up P2 of Great White Way on lead and got about 10 feet below the lone bolt and realized that the crux was likely between me and that bolt. I downclimbed back to the anchor and bailed. In hindsight I don't think I was in over my head/unable to do it but I definitely started thinking "this is not worth it" (risk versus reward). My partner didn't want to do it either so I never found out how bad the move actually is. First pitch is good, and actually reasonably well protected by Stone standards, but felt kind hard. 

Matt Westlake wrote:

Videos are so deceptive - you can't tell how steep it is at all. Most of the Block Route is just about a walk up. 

I didn't review the video, but fisheye lenses are the worst. Walking to the mailbox looks precarious.

Matt Westlake wrote:

Videos are so deceptive - you can't tell how steep it is at all. Most of the Block Route is just about a walk up. 

The Pulpit has some ridiculous no-pro pitches (that are generally pretty easy) but starts off well protected to get you in the zone before it starts sticking you on no fall pitches. I remember somewhere on P2 there's a broken piton that used to protect a mildly committing move that left me feeling a strange combination of sad and angry as I sucked it up and climbed past with nothing between me and the anchor. That moment at 2min in is a good example of why Stone is one I place I get *really* bent out of shape if my belayer starts short roping me.  :) 

I started up P2 of Great White Way on lead and got about 10 feet below the lone bolt and realized that the crux was likely between me and that bolt. I downclimbed back to the anchor and bailed. In hindsight I don't think I was in over my head/unable to do it but I definitely started thinking "this is not worth it" (risk versus reward). My partner didn't want to do it either so I never found out how bad the move actually is. First pitch is good, and actually reasonably well protected by Stone standards, but felt kind hard. 

Very true on block route not hard but still by the time you get to the roof if you were to fall you probably would be taking close to a 100ft slide all the way back down to the start.

Christian wrote:

So, my friend Noah climbed on the junior team at the local climbing gym for a few years -- sport, speed, and boulder.  Could generally on-sight high 5.11s, project/red-point 5.12s.  

We took him up "Beginner's Route"  on the slabs at Whitehorse Ledge (NH), and gave him pitch 3 to lead, "Continue up an obvious, easy, low-angled groove (5.1) to a small belay stance on the right with another double-bolt anchor" (Ed Webster).  He placed 4 pieces on this pitch, and whimpered about the run-outs the whole way up the thing.

So, yes, sometimes you can be strong and still not have the head/experience for run-out climbing.

David Gibbs wrote:

So, my friend Noah climbed on the junior team at the local climbing gym for a few years -- sport, speed, and boulder.  Could generally on-sight high 5.11s, project/red-point 5.12s.  

We took him up "Beginner's Route"  on the slabs at Whitehorse Ledge (NH), and gave him pitch 3 to lead, "Continue up an obvious, easy, low-angled groove (5.1) to a small belay stance on the right with another double-bolt anchor" (Ed Webster).  He placed 4 pieces on this pitch, and whimpered about the run-outs the whole way up the thing.

So, yes, sometimes you can be strong and still not have the head/experience for run-out climbing.

I wasn't denying that such people exist, only wondering whether they are outliers or quite common ("many", in RGold's words) within the group of "younger" climbers. There's a couple of quite popular multipitch routes around here with mandatory 35-40 foot runouts on 5.4, and I see young 5.10 climbers do them all the time.

I'm also talking about runouts without a guaranteed groundfall, so we may be talking apples to oranges. 

I mean a wide range of "younger" climbers who grew up with access to a gym (ie they'd presumably not be bothered to go run laps on 5.2 if they could go train and get strong in the gym). They could be 50 years old, it's cherry picking to only include younger climbers who are teenagers/twentysomethings now AND grew up climbing mostly overhangs AND grew up with helicopter parents that never took them climbing on slabs outside.

A well written survey could be telling about the numbers.

Free solo easy stuff. You'll get a new head space. That, coupled with being strong in sport climbing, has been helping me get up 10+ trad. And that's after a 25 ft trad accident. Takes years, for most people. 

Christian wrote:

I wasn't denying that such people exist, only wondering whether they are outliers or quite common ("many", in RGold's words) within the group of "younger" climbers. There's a couple of quite popular multipitch routes around here with mandatory 35-40 foot runouts on 5.4, and I see young 5.10 climbers do them all the time.

I'm also talking about runouts without a guaranteed groundfall, so we may be talking apples to oranges. 

I mean a wide range of "younger" climbers who grew up with access to a gym (ie they'd presumably not be bothered to go run laps on 5.2 if they could go train and get strong in the gym). They could be 50 years old, it's cherry picking to only include younger climbers who are teenagers/twentysomethings now AND grew up climbing mostly overhangs AND grew up with helicopter parents that never took them climbing on slabs outside.

I have nothing even approaching reliable survey information, so have no basis for the "many," other than a certain amount of personal observation spread over a few years and a few climbing areas.  I have no doubt that the phenomenon I described is real, but honestly can't say how pervasive it is.   Climbers who include some type of alpine climbing in their activities get used to regularly climbing essentially X-rated easy ground and wouldn't be subject to the asymmetric experience I described, so the location of the climbing area and the way in which the local environment influences climbing perspectives could account for a lot of variation.

Dana Bartlett wrote:

Rainy Day Women, yes?

Yes, I have top roped  it and know I can climb it but I don't have the nerve to lead it yet.

Christian wrote:

I wasn't denying that such people exist, only wondering whether they are outliers or quite common ("many", in RGold's words) within the group of "younger" climbers. There's a couple of quite popular multipitch routes around here with mandatory 35-40 foot runouts on 5.4, and I see young 5.10 climbers do them all the time.

I'm also talking about runouts without a guaranteed groundfall, so we may be talking apples to oranges. 

I mean a wide range of "younger" climbers who grew up with access to a gym (ie they'd presumably not be bothered to go run laps on 5.2 if they could go train and get strong in the gym). They could be 50 years old, it's cherry picking to only include younger climbers who are teenagers/twentysomethings now AND grew up climbing mostly overhangs AND grew up with helicopter parents that never took them climbing on slabs outside.

Yea there are really 4 major types of runouts. Ground / ledge fall runouts, slab but no solid ledge runouts, vertical swing back into wall runouts, and complete overhang won't hit anything runouts.

ViperScale wrote:

Yea there are really 4 major types of runouts. Ground / ledge fall runouts, slab but no solid ledge runouts, vertical swing back into wall runouts, and complete overhang won't hit anything runouts.

That's also how I classify my run-outs, from a practical climbing perspective, from worst to all-right. Maybe I would switch slab-but-no-ledge & vertical-swing-back runouts. I guess that when I'm on a runout slab, I tend to think vertical run-outs are better, while on a vertical runout I miss slab runouts...