Sandbagging does not make you tough

Also Trevor, didn't you literally just sandbag every aid climb in the world?

As long as the sandbags are safe it's all good. Grades are broad. I enjoy a good sandbagging!

Mike Stephan wrote:

I'd like to hear the referenced podcasts where climbers are saying that sandbagging makes you tough.  

I know right!?! The OP really should  have given links to what he was referring to... oh wait...

Trevor Puppy Lovr wrote:
Here are some links to a video , podcast (I think it is somewhere in this episode), and mountain project threads...

Oh. And it was only two posts above yours. 

Edit: Unless the OP edited their post to include the links after your post, which apparently is the case, in which case, I'm just an asshole. Actually, I'm just an asshole either way. lol

I'll just say it, a proper sandbag is dangerous, and the "Old Hardman" is a psychopath.

Jim Bridwell wrote about all this in and article called “The Innocent, The Ignorant, and The Insecure.”

Adam Young wrote:

Jim Bridwell wrote about all this in and article called “The Innocent, The Ignorant, and The Insecure.”

Text of the article 

http://www.edhartouni.net/innocent-ignorant-insecure.html

Commentary 

https://rockandice.com/features/the-innocent-the-ignorant-and-the-insecure-ascent-2/

To be clear I’m not anti sandbagging it’s just if someone calls a route a 5.9 or 5.10 or 5.11 it’s not a real reflection on their climbing ability, their toughness, or any other value you could attribute to them. Hard men don’t come from hard climbing grades they come from hard climbs the grade is irrelevant to grit.

Lena chita wrote:

In order for consensus system to work accurately, you should rate a route what you think it actually is, instead of trying to game the system by giving it a far out grade.

And even so, it doesn't work super well, because there is confirmation bias, and also, a lot of people are hesitant to upgrade a route, in order not to look weak (or something... I don't know... I think this is where Trevor is coming in with his "sandbagging makes you tough" take. It's not that direct statement that anyone makes, but I think it is a logical conclusion of the "grading a route that is consensus 5.X to 5.X+1 means that you are weak")

That’s a good point and I wasn’t advocating for doing this, just noting that I’ve seen people do this before. Good to know it’s based on median instead of mean so that is partially mitigated.

I’m curious if a pragmatic approach would ever be more appropriate. I think it’s definitely possible to have local consensus grades in some of the more “sandbagged” or traditional areas that start to get upgraded by visiting or newer climbers. If a community understands and works off of an internally consistent grading scale but the new wave of climbers from the gym or areas with their own self consistent grading scale come in and start upgrading the routes, is it ever justified to have the local climbers rate it a little lower to get the grade back to where the community things it should be? I saw a comment recently where the person did their first ever trad lead and rated a climb 2 letter grades harder with a pg-13 as well and that’s not uncommon. Now the new climbers local to that crag will be taught not to use Mountain Project because the grades aren’t accurate and the functionality of the site may go down. If that starts to become an issue, is there a way to address it? 

Euro system. 

Bryan wrote:

That’s a good point and I wasn’t advocating for doing this, just noting that I’ve seen people do this before. Good to know it’s based on median instead of mean so that is partially mitigated.

I’m curious if a pragmatic approach would ever be more appropriate. I think it’s definitely possible to have local consensus grades in some of the more “sandbagged” or traditional areas that start to get upgraded by visiting or newer climbers. If a community understands and works off of an internally consistent grading scale but the new wave of climbers from the gym or areas with their own self consistent grading scale come in and start upgrading the routes, is it ever justified to have the local climbers rate it a little lower to get the grade back to where the community things it should be? I saw a comment recently where the person did their first ever trad lead and rated a climb 2 letter grades harder with a pg-13 as well and that’s not uncommon. Now the new climbers local to that crag will be taught not to use Mountain Project because the grades aren’t accurate and the functionality of the site may go down. If that starts to become an issue, is there a way to address it? 

Nah, still won't change it really. The OP grade counts extra, so one person can't do much. Has to be a majority of PG13s too for that to be on the page.

If the majority of people who climb there upgrade it though, that's exactly the point. It gets upgraded.

Creed Archibald wrote:

The “old Hardman” sounds like an anti-social asshole. After he incapacitated the young buck, did the old alpha run into the jungle to mate with his harem? 

I think that was the general idea, yes. Whether it worked or not is another matter. Both of them went on to climb bigger and badder things. None of them went on to discus grades on MP, believe it or not. It was a different time, I've been told....

Princess Puppy Lovr wrote:

I hear it a lot that sandbagging some how makes you tough. I can give you specific podcasts where climbers from a particular region believe this. This concept is total nonsense, it mostly proves you might have issues counting or valuing something. If a route is called 11a or 12a it does not change the actual difficulty of the climb or how much grit it takes to send. I agree that achieving a 12a at a sandbagged crag is harder but climbing 12c at a soft crag can be just as hard. I think this concept is entirely born out of insecurity, people want to tell themselves they are somehow better than another group of climbers so they apply the label of tough to give themselves a sense of superiority. Sandbagging does not prove toughness at all, if anything it proves that people have fragile egos. Or people just wanna troll people into getting a little over their heads which is kinda funny.

Here are some links to a video , podcast (I think it is somewhere in this episode), and mountain project threads...

Watching people with egos climb sand bagged routes... haha, kinda funny 

Pete S wrote:

Euro system. 

This is actually a good point. Euros just don’t get their panties in a ruffle about grades like Yanks do.

 example1: Kalymnos is notorious for vacation grades, and visiting Americans trip all over themselves to downgrade everything. Euros just take the grade. 

Example 2: Osp is notoriously stiff, and Americans as a rule complain about how hard and polished it is. Euros just shrug their shoulders and go climbing. 

Sandbag, schmandbag. You will never understand why you didnt get picked for the kickball game. Now get off my lawn.

Erik Oles wrote:

Sandbagging should just be a synonym for honesty when it comes to grades (different story for gear, dangerous rock quality etc.). It has nothing to do with how tough someone is or isn't. If someone doesn't think a route is 5.9, they probably haven't climbed enough 5.9 to understand what 5.9 means.  To paraphrase a quote I once heard about granite mountain in Prescott, "If you climb 5.9, but don't climb 5.9 at Granite Mountain, then you probably don't climb 5.9.

The Syndica Graniticata, as I understand it, used 5.9 as the benchmark for how hard you could onsight. You may feel as if you are consistently going to peel off at any moment throughout the pitch, but you still make it clean. On a 5.8 you'd feel as if you were going to peel off on occasion, but still send. 5.10- you whip a few times, but eventually get the rope up. Years ago I got to follow P1 of Karl's Corner, which I believe was the first route at Granite Mountain to attain the audacious grade of 5.9. Stem hopping with fist stacks above my head I battled the gapping flare as it crashed down upon my fragile ego. I had been sending in Indian Creek grades harder just a few weeks prior. Bloodied and panting I was elated to simply follow the benchmark for 5.9 clean. 

Many seasons later I had the good fortune to rope up with Rusty Bailey down in Cochise. He was sharing some of the ethos of the early days on Granite Mountain and how the sandbagging was perpetuated throughout Arizona. We were cragging at a newly bolted sport crag, swinging leads across the walls various climbs, often mixing up which bolts were on which route and following our own aesthetic up the face. Lacking a guide we simply used this as our means to communicate how we found each pitch before pulling the rope and taking our turn on the sharp end. Rusty came down and declared 5.8 before pulling the rope for me. Another party had arrived at the wall with a topo at this point and was a little struck by our approach and chimed in..."old man, that's rated 10c" 

The formative years of climbing in Prescott with my friends really stoked the fire and passion that we've taken on our travels throughout. Some of this crew became guides, fathers, businessmen, or farmers. Really when it comes down to it, I don't think the number really matters. Its just all about communication, community, and stories we remember years later. 

I think everyone missed the point of what I’m saying. I don’t care about sandbagging, I don’t care about being sandbagged into oblivion, I don’t care if a route is soft. The point I’m making is if three people each grade a climb 5.8, 5.9 and 5.10 it’s not reflection of their climbing ability. I’m gonna call every climb 5.16 and v17.

7/10

Sandbagging makes you tough because if you can climb grade x at the most sandbagged crag you should be able to go anywhere and climb the same grade.

If you climb grade x at a featherbagged crag and go somewhere where they’re stiff, you could be in store for a rude awakening 

Trevor Taylor wrote:

The point I’m making is if three people each grade a climb 5.8, 5.9 and 5.10 it’s not reflection of their climbing ability. 

The dude who graded it 5.10 is the best climber. Because they climbed a 5.10 instead of a 5.8.

saign charlestein wrote:

Sandbagging makes you tough because if you can climb grade x at the most sandbagged crag you should be able to go anywhere and climb the same grade.

If you climb grade x at a featherbagged crag and go somewhere where they’re stiff, you could be in store for a rude awakening 

But does it actually matter if you can climb 5.9 or 5.10 or 5.11 at some crag that doesn’t make you tough it just means you can get up a climb? Assigning an abritrary value to something then having a bunch of other people assign an arbitrary value and then you caring about that value seems to prove the opposite of tough. A tough person isn’t gonna worship some climbing grade. There going to try something hard for them, if it’s called 5.9 or 5.11 they are gonna go out there and fight their way up it. Going from index 5.9 to tensleep 5.11 doesn’t make you tough.

Everyone who thinks calling a 5.10 a 5.9 makes you tough can you come help me dig a trail in the rain next week?