How long should pitches take?

If you are climbing at your or near your level, how long should each pitch take? Starting from leader climbing and finishing with follower reaching the next belay. How long should a pitch take on something below your level?

33 minutes

A complex question with a complex answer.

It really has to do with so many factors that it depends. What type of difficult? (Hard offwidth tends to take longer than hard face climbing) does the pitch wander? (Or is the gear finicky?) how well cleaned is the pitch? (Are you spending most of your time testing for loose blocks?) there are other considerations too of course.

There’s no one answer but I bet that most people in the Sierras would tell you that both people from one anchor to the next in no more than 40 minutes is pretty quick, that’s usually what I would anticipate at some place like lovers leap where routes generally don’t wander, rock is pretty solid, and the climbing is pretty straight forward.

As far as slow, heck, there are grade VI walls in Yos that are 10 pitches tall, what does that say?

Pitch an hour.

An efficient team can do much better, but if I’m unknown on team strength & route, one long pitch an hour.

usually works out pretty fair.

Daniel Kaywrote:

Pitch an hour.

An efficient team can do much better, but if I’m unknown on team strength & route, one long pitch an hour.

usually works out pretty fair.

This has been my experience as well. Large standard deviations, of course, but this is a good rule of thumb for planning purposes at least. Don't forget to add time for rappels/walk-off if you are planning a multi-pitch day.

The mustard is right on : 33-minutes.

4 hours 3000 feet

That's about 12 and a half minutes per pitch

No big deal

Also depends on how much and what kind of gear to place. I’ve found that my partners tend to clean cams fastest so I started using less nuts. Although if you’re good with nuts then they should be easy to clean. I typically try and avoid them on the really long days.

I feel like there's some sort of story behind this post that I would like to hear. 

On unknown territory, long Sierras pitches, including snack breaks, I average an hour. 

23 minutes...any takers?! 

Daniel Kaywrote:

Pitch an hour.

An efficient team can do much better, but if I’m unknown on team strength & route, one long pitch an hour.

usually works out pretty fair.

This is what I bank on when doing multi pitch climbing. That includes approach and descent and seems to work well for me. 

If my partner gets to the belay at 32 minutes I tell his ass to wait. 

"wtf is going on up there, you want me to send up the portaledge?!"