Mixed = Trad ?

june mwrote:

Single pitch Trad with bolted  anchors such as at Indian Creek is sometimes considered sport/ trad or because you can lower off and because of the lack of commitment of doing multi-pitch.

Sure, June, it's helpful to specify when single pitch trad has bolted anchors and I can see how that gives it a sportier feel, but does anyone say that Indian Creek climbs are just sport climbs?

Marc801 C wrote:

What you're doing is indeed bastardization and not evolution simply because the existing terms have been (relatively) well understood for decades. It seems the newer climbers are the ones having a hard time understanding the terms.

The existing terms are clearly not currently universally used the historic way that people in this thread are defending. I don't think the newer climbers have a hard time understanding. I think it's just that ground-up vs. rap-bolting is no longer controversial or all that relevant to what the top climbers care about. The hardest climbs in the world that get all the press are being established with top-down rehearsing and bolts placed on aid or rappel, whether sport or trad.  

I read the Tom Higgins 1984 article that Cherokee Nunes posted upthread. (Thanks, Cherokee!) It was a fascinating time capsule. Most of the "trickster" techniques that Higgins talks about are now well-established parts of the style of sponsored climbers: previewing and rehearsing the moves, pre-placing protection, bolting on rap or aid, and sieging. What world class trad line has been put up in the last 10 years ground-up in a single push without any of that? Are they therefore not actually trad lines? Is the Dawn Wall Free a sport climb? Hell, Caldwell and Jorgeson used porters to carry their supplies. 

If people are truly offended by using sport to mean "only bolts" and trad to mean "trad gear is required", then I'd have nothing against finding new terms for this. I think that however it happens, those terms will exist because they have functionality. Sport and trad are close enough to those meanings that I predict the words will be commonly overtaken (evolved) within the next 10 years. 

In old Yosemite Valley guidebooks a "mixed" pitch meant it had both free and aid on it.

The I don’t think many people think of the dawn wall as a “trad” climb but I could be wrong. Established on rappel. The crux pitch is (entirely?) bolt protected (with a 6’ sling on a bolt that is not in the path of the climb making an onsight unfeasible). obviously what they did is utterly badass. But it was far from a traditional ascent.

Anyone who believes trad climbs only count if they are ground up onsights should meet with mountain project admins to change the terminology to gear protected route because apparently all the routes on mountain project are misidentified since it matters so much. Or just complain on here and do nothing?

Princess Puppy Lovrwrote:

Anyone who believes trad climbs only count if they are ground up onsights should meet with mountain project admins to change the terminology to gear protected route because apparently all the routes on mountain project are misidentified since it matters so much. Or just complain on here and do nothing?

Nick Wilder doesn't care, but people have been complaining about the confusion caused since nearly as long as MP has existed.

L Kapwrote:

This way of thinking about sport climbing is damn dangerous. There are places where a fall is harmless and places where a fall is potentially injurious or fatal and the climber and belayer need to evaluate that no matter how the climb protects.  An experienced climber died due to a groundfall he took in Boulder Canyon just last May when he slipped while clipping the 3rd bolt of a sport route. 

Wasn't that in Poudre Canyon?

Would you really want to call very runout but bolted slab climbs 'sport climbs'?

I do agree that to think of all bolted climbs as sport climbs seems dangerous.

Princess Puppy Lovrwrote:

Anyone who believes trad climbs only count if they are ground up onsights should meet with mountain project admins to change the terminology to gear protected route because apparently all the routes on mountain project are misidentified since it matters so much. Or just complain on here and do nothing?

Not just MP. Also the world's top climbers, their sponsors, climbing magazines, guidebook authors, and pretty much everyone producing new content in the climbing industry.  

Take this list. If this is not trad climbing, then the term doesn't have much present-day utility. gripped.com/news/top-16-har…

NickMartelwrote:

The I don’t think many people think of the dawn wall as a “trad” climb but I could be wrong. Established on rappel. The crux pitch is (entirely?) bolt protected (with a 6’ sling on a bolt that is not in the path of the climb making an onsight unfeasible). obviously what they did is utterly badass. But it was far from a traditional ascent.

You're focusing on two pitches of a 30 pitch route and in the process ignoring the thousands of feet of trad climbing, including run-out 5.12. While certainly not the purest of trad style (which Tommy fully agrees with), it definitely is trad as compared to sport. Inspection and pre-protection placed on rappel is hardly new for trad climbing. There are routes in the trad-centric Gunks that were established and/or pre-protected on rappel when the FA was done in the 60's.

Edit to add: From the Gripped link above in L Kap's post, consider this grading:

The Dawn Wall 5.14b (trad) 5.14d (sport) in Yosemite by Tommy Caldwell, Kevin Jorgeson, Adam Ondra

Mark E Dixonwrote:

Wasn't that in Poudre Canyon?

The fatality I'm referring to was at Animal World in Boulder Canyon. Was there another in Poudre? 

Would you really want to call very runout but bolted slab climbs 'sport climbs'?

Yes, I'd call them sport and give them an R or X.  Or if that feels wrong to folks, call them "bolted" instead of sport. I would have no problem switching to "bolted" and "gear" instead of trad and sport.

Bolted PG, R, and X
Gear PG, R, and X

That system makes more sense to me if "trad" only applies to routes that were established ground-up onsight, and "sport" means rap-bolted routes where you should be able to whip anywhere without dying. Clearly there are lots of routes that don't fit either of those definitions, as others have noted upthread.

We need a simple labeling system that is, in consultant parlance, MECE (Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive). In other words, the system can describe every route and every route only fits in one category.

I do agree that to think of all bolted climbs as sport climbs seems dangerous.

Sure, if you think of sport climbs as ones where you should be able to take risks and big whips without evaluating injury potential.  

L Kapwrote:

Sure, if you think of sport climbs as ones where you should be able to take risks and big whips without evaluating injury potential.  

Only fools take that approach. Sport means that taking risks and big whips are relatively much safer and relatively minimized, typically significantly lower. But there's always injury potential.

The silliness of some folks' trad label pearl clutching is why I generally try to use the terms "on bolts" and "on gear"

L Kapwrote:

Not just MP. Also the world's top climbers, their sponsors, climbing magazines, guidebook authors, and pretty much everyone producing new content in the climbing industry.  

Take this list. If this is not trad climbing, then the term doesn't have much present-day utility. gripped.com/news/top-16-har…

Um most those climbs were not ground up onsights...

None of us get to decide what 'sport' and 'trad' mean. 

That will be determined by usage.

The general public now believes that climbing is safe.

New climbers, taken from that general public, will believe (falsely) that climbing is safe.

Advocating for sport climbs to actually be (relatively) safe and for calling runout bolted climbs trad climbs rather than sport climbs, will keep some folks from getting hurt. 

Characterizing climbs as trad because they were put up onsight ground up is archaic usage.

@LKap- that's right, Animal World. IIIRC there was a somewhat similar case in Poudre a few years ago.

Fehim Hasecicwrote:

Slab climbing is sport climbing, it’s just that men with big egos ruined it for the rest of us.

LK sport climbing

A foreign perspective:

In Switzerland and France we would use the terms "semi-trad" or "semi-equiped" mostly to describe a route with the anchors in place (pitons, cordelettes, bolts) but no or almost no bolts in-between. 

As a matter of fact, in the alps, its rare to encounter a route where you don't have at least a couple of old rusty pitons or torn up cordelettes at some point. I know the ethical debate is more vivid in the US about this topic that's why I m always saying on this forum that I don"t climb "pure trad" even if, from an european POV, that's what I m doing.

As far as terminology goes I also think that calling routes with a few bolds "mixed" is confusing, mixed is rock+ice, nothing else.

Darn.... I thought this BS was all settled back in the C4 parking lot.
change the terms, do it if you will. Get confused (sorry for the person who died) about it.

But if you can’t tell the two apart when you see it you are blind.

And there are no such things as “X” sport.

And manky old fixxed nuts, cordeletts, other tat, cant and should not be any part of a sport climb.

If we don’t have common terms that describe something what good is language?

Guy Keeseewrote:

Darn.... I thought this BS was all settled back in the C4 parking lot.
change the terms, do it if you will. Get confused (sorry for the person who died) about it.

But if you can’t tell the two apart when you see it you are blind.

And there are no such things as “X” sport.

And manky old fixxed nuts, cordeletts, other tat, cant and should not be any part of a sport climb.

If we don’t have common terms that describe something what good is language?

We can always go back to grunting and pointing!

Drederekwrote:

We can always go back to grunting and pointing!

What do you mean “going back”?

We are grunting, pointing and farting in the year 2020. 

Here’s an example of a mixed route :)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=emb_title&v=BPQcNxNC5j8

Fehim Hasecicwrote:

Here’s an example of a mixed route :)