Cams - so essential climbing without them is just unthinkable

GabeO wrote:

I have to say, this is a pretty arbitrary line.  In most places in the US, how long was the time between when placing pins became a no-no, and the first cams became available?  I'd say less than ten years in most, and around zero years in some more out-of-the-way places.

You're correct, it was about a decade, but pretty much everywhere in terms of free climbing.

ome people were trad climbing before clean climbing became a thing, and people were still trad climbing when cams became available.  

Trad and aid climbing were the only roped forms climbing before sport regardless of protection.

So climbing with just nuts does not in any way define "trad".

At no point did I say "just nuts" defined trad climbing, but rather just clean climbing. And that's what trad still is today, the quiver just now has cams in it.

As to your other point - yeah, some people suck at nutcraft.  If you had led off with that, you would have gotten very little argument.  I've run into a lot of people over the years who don't even leave the ground with passive gear unless they know the route requires it.  If your argument is that that's stupid, well then yeah, duh.

My argument isn't that it's stupid, my point is that it's a worrying trend in 'modern climbing'. And rather (as some folks have suggested) that's it's just a matter of personal preference, it actually plays heavily into the safety of options on lead. It's one of those "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" sort of deals. It's also a case of nutcraft teaches you a lot of skills that also come into play in the use of cams. Bottom line to an older person is it's a very odd self-limiting behavior and again one that's likely to get you in trouble sooner or later.

Jake Jones wrote:

It's a good thing you don't have to lead the pitches that other people are climbing.  Just the ones you are.  Whew.  What a relief, right?  As a matter of fact, you don't really have to worry about anything outside what you and your partner do.  It's good that you're concerned for other people, but really it affects you exactly 0%.

Why does any one HAVE to lead his pitches?  Gun to their head?  Maybe if they wanted to lead them and have them equipped in a more sanitized manner they should have gotten there first....

Healyje wrote:

At no point did I say "just nuts" defined trad climbing, but rather just clean climbing. And that's what trad still is today, the quiver just now has cams in it.

This is a regional take - pincraft is still a necessary skill in our part of the world, and deaths have been associated with people's inability to test and replace existing fixed pins, or place new pins.

I love climbing with nuts...and with cams...I find in the basalt around Portland, there are tons of nut placements, and there is nothing quite like slotting in the perfect stopper.  But, having learned to climb at Donner, cams also make sense.  For something like panic in detroit, I used mainly cams, but the crux is protected by the most bomber nut in the world--you could hang a truck off the placement--which is a blind, cross-body placement!  (super fun, and if you're up for the grade, get on it!)...but when I was much stupider (and stronger), I ran up monkey paws on only 5 small TCUs...Maybe two or three of them would have actually held a fall...Now I try to think more about protection, where it's actually needed, and where I can keep moving...
But any debate harkening back to some halcyon days of boldness means we really should return to only slings and knots and hobnail boots...Since I'm headed to Germany in a few months, I guess I'll get to find out how fun that is!

Jake Jones wrote:

...but really it affects you exactly 0%.

Well, you're right on one hand: dead and mangled leaders don't affect me - their injuries are theirs. What does affect me on the other is if folks then calling for retrobolting 'dangerous' climbs because someone didn't exercise all the options that were at hand or didn't develop the requisite breadth of skills. Such a scenario recently played out at a crag here with a person breaking their pelvis on a fairly serious route. Some folks then called for it to be retrobolted despite the fact that it had seen lots of prior leads.

FosterK wrote:This is a regional take - pincraft is still a necessary skill in our part of the world, and deaths have been associated with people's inability to test and replace existing fixed pins, or place new pins.

Are you talking alpine? It's not a regional take in the vast majority of rock venues. As for pincraft being a necessary skill, sure for maintaining pins, but there aren't many venues where pins are still a part of free climbing.

Healyje wrote:

Ok, so how many of you who climb at that level think you could climb it with a passive rack?

Only if it were as passive aggressive as this thread premise

Jake Jones wrote:

What you're referring to here I'm adamantly against.  And I see the correlation you're making between the majority of climbers these days being inept in one way or another, whether it's relying too much on cams, or not realizing what the risk is, or not having a solid foundation of fundamentals, or thinking that a device will make them "safe" etc.

So, I'm on board with that.  

Glad to hear it.

But, unlike you, I don't really give a crap whether or not routes go up with a ton of bolts, or mixed or all on gear.  I do however think that the way an FA climbed and protected a route should remain- with the exception of pins going bad, I'm ok with them being replaced with a bolt over time, and I gather you're not.  

I generally don't have a problem with how folks do an FA. Bolts vs pins? Depends on the rock and the pin. Well-placed medium and long bugaboos and lost arrows will last 30-50 years in our basalt and have generally outperformed non-SS bolts at our crag. So for our crag I don't really think it's necessary whereas a lot of other places where pins don't weld or are subject to rock shrinking and expanding I'm ok with replacing them with a bolt. I just think blanket bolts-for-pins statements aren't well thought out.

And that's cool too.  Point being, I don't like retro-fitting climbs.  If someone had the gumption and the sense of adventure and see a line, and got a legit free FA on it, then I think it should remain in that state.  I don't believe in FURTHER dumbing down established climbs so that more people will get on them.  If the FA dumbed them down and attempted to remove risk by adding a bolt every 5 feet, then so be it. That's just my opinion.  And I'm certain we disagree and that's ok.  But it's important to point out that we can disagree on some things, and agree on others.  I personally don't think every route needs to be attainable to the masses.  You wanna go out and put up 5.12 R or X, good on you.  

Good again except the one thing. I'm ok with an FA dinking around with a climb for some reasonable period after it's put up, but I'm adamantly against FAs retrobolting their routes after they've seen hundreds of ascents.

I think you get so much pushback because you disparage styles other than your own, regardless of how the route was established.  And I'm also pretty sure you're ok with that, or else you wouldn't keep doing it.  I'm glad you staunchly believe in what you do, even though I often disagree.  It's better that than opposite: people that just go with anything like a blade of grass in the wind and take a stand on nothing at all.  At least you're passionate and have principles, even if they can be perceived as polarizing.  All this is just my opinion anyways, and doesn't matter.  I'm just some random person with an opinion that some might happen to agree with and others won't.   No big deal.

I'm not disparaging styles, I'm simply pointing out sport climbing on gear is a dangerous habit to get into and isn't and never was trad climbing. I'm also pointing out having a preference for cams over passive pro is dangerously self-limiting, indicative of someone who "doesn't get it" in terms of craft and options, and about like saying I prefer my red camalot or my pink tricam - inane and indicative of someone who's not getting the whole picture and not getting the whole picture is dangerous when it comes to trad climbing.

Healyje wrote: 
I'm not disparaging styles.

yeah, sure you're not. 

Healyje wrote: 
I'm not disparaging styles, I'm simply pointing out sport climbing on gear is a dangerous habit to get into and isn't and never was trad climbing. I'm also pointing out having a preference for cams over passive pro is dangerously self-limiting, indicative of someone who "doesn't get it" in terms of craft and options, and about like saying I prefer my red camalot or my pink tricam - inane and indicative of someone who's not getting the whole picture and not getting the whole picture is dangerous when it comes to trad climbing.

Fixed it for you:

I'm also pointing out having a preference for belaying off one's harness over belaying in guide mode is dangerously self-limiting, indicative of someone who "doesn't get it" in terms of craft and options, and about like saying I prefer my red camalot or my pink tricam - inane and indicative of someone who's not getting the whole picture and not getting the whole picture is dangerous when it comes to trad climbing.

Creed Archibald wrote:

Fixed it for you:

I'm also pointing out having a preference for belaying off one's harness over belaying in guide mode is dangerously self-limiting, indicative of someone who "doesn't get it" in terms of craft and options, and about like saying I prefer my red camalot or my pink tricam - inane and indicative of someone who's not getting the whole picture and not getting the whole picture is dangerous when it comes to trad climbing.

The difference is that in forty plus years I've never encountered a situation where belaying off the anchor as an option would have provided any advantage whatsoever as an option which is not the case in when talking active and passive gear. Rather just the opposite in terms of knowing what my partner is up to.

Healyje wrote:

The difference is that in forty plus years I've never encountered a situation where belaying off the anchor as an option would have provided any advantage whatsoever as an option which is not the case in when talking active and passive gear. Rather just the opposite in terms of knowing what my partner is up to.

So in forty years, you have never wanted to eat while belaying? Seems like you should be able to find some advantage at some point in an autoblocking method that lets you do something else while belaying. 

Alex James wrote:

So in forty years, you have never wanted to eat while belaying? Seems like you should be able to find some advantage at some point in an autoblocking method that lets you do something else while belaying. 

Sure, I want a sandwich and a blowjob while suffering the interminable delay of my second belaboring the pitch, but then wanting and needing are two different things. 

Belaying is absolutely the only thing I'm doing when belaying in free climbing, doing anything else is completely unacceptable AFAIK. I don't climb with anyone who has other priorities than that.

Alex James wrote:

So in forty years, you have never wanted to eat while belaying? Seems like you should be able to find some advantage at some point in an autoblocking method that lets you do something else while belaying. 

Joe doesn’t like alpine climbing

There are many tasks you can do while simultaneously belaying your second up, all of which save and efficiency:

• Eating
• Drinking
• Changing layers if needed
• Organizing the rack to make it simpler and faster to hand off when the 2nd reaches the belay

This could potentially make the difference between an 8 pitch day and a 10 pitch day. 

eli poss wrote: There are many tasks you can do while simultaneously belaying your second up, all of which save and efficiency:

• Eating
• Drinking
• Changing layers if needed
• Organizing the rack to make it simpler and faster to hand off when the 2nd reaches the belay

This could potentially make the difference between an 8 pitch day and a 10 pitch day. 

Great reply Eli, I have nothing to bust your balls over on this one. 

Healyje wrote:Sure, I want a sandwich and a blowjob while suffering the interminable delay of my second belaboring the pitch, but then wanting and needing are two different things. 
Belaying is absolutely the only thing I'm doing when belaying in free climbing, doing anything else is completely unacceptable AFAIK. I don't climb with anyone who has other priorities than that.

Healy, does the fact that you mainly climb alone ever make you reflect on life and where its taken you? Do you ever think about going to the local park and giving out sandwiches to the hungry?

eli poss wrote: There are many tasks you can do while simultaneously belaying your second up, all of which save and efficiency:

• Eating
• Drinking
• Changing layers if needed
• Organizing the rack to make it simpler and faster to hand off when the 2nd reaches the belay

This could potentially make the difference between an 8 pitch day and a 10 pitch day. 

Wouldn't ever do any of those things while belaying and I've never found it necessary for efficient ascents of any length.

T Roper wrote:Healy, does the fact that you mainly climb alone ever make you reflect on life and where its taken you? 

The long answer is I climb alone a lot because I really, really enjoy it, but I also climb with partners and I try to climb with and mentor a lot of new crossovers each year as well.

The short answer is no.

Healyje wrote:

Wouldn't ever do any of those things while belaying and I've never found it necessary for efficient ascents of any length.

My only thought is Dr Suess and the Grinch.

I made a comment calling Joe a trolling old crank, I don't understand why it was deleted as it's clearly objectively true. Over and over again he insists that the way he climbs is the right way, and all advances in technique, gear, and standards that have occurred since his golden days are wrong and dangerous. He's full of shit, we really should just quit engaging with his rants anymore.

After seeing a thread title that seemed like it would lead to a predictable string of answers and not clicking on it for days, I was finally sucked in because it just kept getting bigger and bigger. So I speed skimmed all the posts until I got to Eli Poss’s post, which made me laugh out loud. Thanks, Eli.

Hi Healy.  Long time no pee.

Whatcha up to?   Kicking a few noobs around for exercise, looks like.

Man, whacha want those bruises for?  I know you can take a fight, I know that you and I could go and have fun almost anywhere with almost anythign... we is funguys.  But these guys just want to beat the crap outta you right now.

Nobody on the internet actually wants to learn a damn thing, they want to tell you about how they got it all pickled and on the shelf already.  Your 50 years of actually surviving the stupid stuff we did with the crap we used to achieve it is so totally irrelevant to these guys you might as well be trying to teach them to knap rock.

You know something of my history, its a lot like yours and you watched what the cannibals at ST did to me,  So what do you expect will happen to you?

These guys not got even the commonality I share with you, they go no respect, can see no reason for that even,  Call you out for wanting to create a conversation at all, even.  You gotta want this beating, its too obvious its coming.   Climbers are pricks as a rule now, and those guys project it onto you, and it dont matter for a phuck that you feel the best interests of sport are being served or that you might save a life.  These guys think dying is their God given Right, and I cant argue with that.

Give up, the cannibals will eat your heart.

SO DUDE!
Other than that, you ever get North?   I got a few secrets that could give you a couple pictures and a grin... and I dont tell the guys on this forum shit, so my playgrounds still dont show up on Instagram, facebook or the database of this corporate monolith.  I got a couple good giggles hidden away and they may stay that way with Gods Grace.