How many years does it really take to climb an 8a?

8a used to be considered elite and a big deal in the 1990s because that was the grade for World Cup qualifier routes. Keep in mind that this was onsight. Now, the qualifiers check in at 8b+ or 8c. So no, 8a is far from elite. 

Sam M wrote:

The point is, the rate of progression in climbing has been really amazing compared to other sports. I'm impressed, I'm complementing all of you who have trained so hard.

It’s really not that amazing or astonishing when you take into consideration that track and field events have been around since the 1800’s. If you want a fair comparison you should look at the progression from the earliest track and field days to today, as that is what you’re attempting to do with climbing. For example there is a recorded mile time in 1855 that was 4:28 while the current record is 3:43 (which was set over 20 years ago). That is a SIGNIFICANT progression. Cutting off over 30 seconds from a 4 minute mile is pretty substantial.

Context is also important if we are going to try and compare different sports that gained popularity in vastly different times. Climbing has developed quite rapidly, you’re absolutely correct. However, it’s also done so in a time where participants and technology have increased substantially faster than in previous decades and centuries (like in track). Thus, allowing for much, much more rapid development. 

I also fail to see how this relates to either the likelihood someone can climb 8a or how fast it may take them…

Sam M wrote:

A cutting edge climbing feat in the 1950s (eg John Gill climbing V8-ish in 1957) is now so pedestrian that you would suggest someone has a physical disability if they couldn't achieve it.

The lack of specificity in this thread (not picking on you, by the way!) is mildly triggering to me. V8 is a HUGE grade. For a given lean-ish athletic body type, there are 8s you could reasonably expect to crush in a few years, and others you might need a lot of luck to do before injuring yourself. So it really depends on which you pick.

Two that come to mind are Torque Spanner in the Valley and Impossible Wall in Berkeley. I did the former a few years into climbing. I never did the latter in years climbing in Berkeley; I barely even tried, because it was obvious to me that I was risking traumatic finger injuries just trying it. To me they are completely different grades, basically V5 vs. V9.

Can “anyone” climb Impossible Wall? Honestly, if you’re north of 190lbs or a 25 BMI, I kinda doubt it. Someone like Tanner Merkle could, but it’s going to be super, duper rare to find the requisite hand strength in a body that big.

Those are just two refinements I feel you have to make to defend the 8a/V8 thesis: 1) you’ve gotta say what exactly the goal is, because those grades are massive; and 2) you’ve gotta account for the time it takes to trim down to a size/strength ratio that makes it possible.

My opinion is that if you define the goal as achieving *any* climb of the grade, and allow infinite time plus the lifestyle flexibility to take advantage, then yes—most people could climb these grades. But you start adding limitations—family, work, starting athleticism, harder specific goals within the grade—and those ranks can thin out real quick. If that sounds implausible to you, then frankly I think you’re speaking from a place of enormous privilege and don’t really understand the constraints many are working under.

(And FWIW I’m eliding the genetics argument. I do think that genetics aren’t the limiting factor for very many people. Lifestyle and personal history are, though.)

Dan Schmidt wrote:

The lack of specificity in this thread (not picking on you, by the way!) is mildly triggering to me. V8 is a HUGE grade. For a given lean-ish athletic body type, there are 8s you could reasonably expect to crush in a few years, and others you might need a lot of luck to do before injuring yourself. So it really depends on which you pick.

Huge in what way? Huge as in lots of variety? Huge as in a very high/difficult grade? Seems you’re lacking specificity here   Additionally, I’m not sure how much specificity we can really cover when we are mentioning “anyone” being able to climb an entire grade. It’s a generalized question. Most ‘specificity’ mentioned is going to present itself as anecdotal. 

Can “anyone” climb Impossible Wall? Honestly, if you’re north of 190lbs or a BMI under 24, I seriously doubt it. Someone like Tanner Merkle could, but it’s going to be super, duper rare to find the requisite hand strength in a body that big.

I am unfamiliar with this climb, but what makes you think someone above 190 or under BMI 24 wouldn’t have the strength/technique/whatever to climb this specific boulder? Many strongest climbers in the world all have varying body types (Dave Graham vs. Jimmy Webb) so I’m confused as to how this would play a role in the debate at hand. 

Those are just two refinements I feel you have to make to defend the 8a/V8 thesis: 1) you’ve gotta say what exactly the goal is, because those grades are massive; and 2) you’ve gotta account for the time it takes to trim down to a size/strength ratio that makes it possible.

I still am not quite sure I understand what massive means in this context but I agree that training and planning to have the correct strength-to-weight ratio is important if you want to achieve a climbing goal of V8 and above. 

My opinion is that if you define the goal as achieving *any* climb of the grade, and allow infinite time plus the lifestyle flexibility to take advantage, then yes—most people could climb these grades. But you start adding limitations—family, work, starting athleticism, harder specific goals within the grade—and those ranks can thin out real quick.

I think some might argue that the latter are not truly motivated to climb/achieve that goal then. The possibility, hypothetically, would still remain the same in my opinion…with the obvious solution being prioritizing climbing over family, work, other hobbies, etc. Genetics are unavoidable family, work, other hobbies are. This particular part of the argument also has nothing to do with privilege. 

Frank Stein wrote:

8a used to be considered elite and a big deal in the 1990s because that was the grade for World Cup qualifier routes. Keep in mind that this was onsight. Now, the qualifiers check in at 8b+ or 8c. So no, 8a is far from elite. 

Okay, I can agree not elite but let’s at least call it advanced. It’s far from slightly above average 

Go Back to Super Topo wrote:

Huge in what way?

I mean that if you ordered all the V8s in the world according to how hard they felt to you, personally, the easiest would “feel like” V5 and the hardest like V10 (or impossible, due to some particularly weird or difficult move).

Many strongest climbers in the world all have varying body types (Dave Graham vs. Jimmy Webb) so I’m confused as to how this would play a role in the debate at hand.

Jimmy is trotted out as being a big guy, and he is for being a world class climber, but having met and briefly climbed with him in Tahoe, I think he ranges 155-165. He’s not “big” by any means even for an athlete.

I think some might argue that the latter are not truly motivated to climb/achieve that goal then. The possibility, hypothetically, would still remain the same in my opinion…with the obvious solution being prioritizing climbing over family, work, other hobbies, etc. Genetics are unavoidable family, work, other hobbies are. This particular part of the argument also has nothing to do with privilege. 

Yeah, I’m just speaking to whether the argument is “pretty much anyone right now could get good enough to climb any 8a/V8” (dubious) or “pretty much any 15 year old could climb one before they die” (trivially obvious IMO).

Dan Schmidt wrote:

I mean that if you ordered all the V8s in the world according to how hard they felt to you, personally, the easiest would “feel like” V5 and the hardest like V10 (or impossible, due to some particularly weird or difficult move).

Fair enough. I agree with varying styles being easier for different types of climbers (muscle hamsters vs ballet climbers)  

Jimmy is trotted out as being a big guy, and he is for being a world class climber, but having met and briefly climbed with him in Tahoe, I think he ranges 155-165. He’s not “big” by any means even for an athlete.

This seems contradicting, but my point was more to compare contrasting body styles can still be successful at any type of climbing, such as the boulder problem you mentioned being impossible for climbers over 190 or under BMI 24. Jimmy is burly and buff meanwhile Dave Graham struggles to do a single 1-arm pullup, yet both climb similar grades and climbs. You could plug in Sharma or Magnus Midtbo in place of Jimmy and it would further exacerbate my point. Though this is likely irrelevant to the conversation based on your answer to my original question lol

Yeah, I’m just speaking to whether the argument is “pretty much anyone right now could get good enough to climb any 8a/V8” (dubious) or “pretty much any 15 year old could climb one before they die” (trivially obvious IMO).

I haven’t interpreted anyone’s argument as the latter. Though, that is just likely my misunderstanding lol 

I don't have much insight into this other than to say that over the years I've come to believe that there are two development paths that climbers travel, with widely varying success depending on the individual within each track: 1. You started climbing and training in earnest as a child and 2. You started climbing at training as an adult. these two groups just experience progression so much differently it becomes messy to lump them all into one dataset. 

To the point that 8a is climbed all the time by local folks in places like CO that's of course true, but most of those people are in the former camp. For folks in the latter camp, I think 8a could absolutely be considered the cusp of elite climbing. I've been climbing for 15 years and have never sent an 8a, very likely never will. At this point I've got 190+ lbs and 40 years on my transmission and 8a feels hard as fuck, even as someone who has sent a small handful of 7c+. 

All this to say: if you're an adult climber who found the sport as a grownup and found training even later, pay no mind to the achievements of those who learned on a youth team at a modern gym under the guidance of a movement coach. I'm stoked for those folks, I love seeing what they can do, it's just not a reasonable comparison to someone who learned alone outdoors from a library book and some janky trad gear. Apples to lawn furniture. 

Dave Alie wrote:

I don't have much insight into this other than to say that over the years I've come to believe that there are two development paths that climbers travel, with widely varying success depending on the individual within each track: 1. You started climbing and training in earnest as a child and 2. You started climbing at training as an adult. these two groups just experience progression so much differently it becomes messy to lump them all into one dataset. 

To the point that 8a is climbed all the time by local folks in places like CO that's of course true, but most of those people are in the former camp. For folks in the latter camp, I think 8a could absolutely be considered the cusp of elite climbing. I've been climbing for 15 years and have never sent an 8a, very likely never will. At this point I've got 190+ lbs and 40 years on my transmission and 8a feels hard as fuck, even as someone who has sent a small handful of 7c+. 

All this to say: if you're an adult climber who found the sport as a grownup and found training even later, pay no mind to the achievements of those who learned on a youth team at a modern gym under the guidance of a movement coach. I'm stoked for those folks, I love seeing what they can do, it's just not a reasonable comparison to someone who learned alone outdoors from a library book and some janky trad gear. Apples to lawn furniture. 

So are you trying to say that V8 elite to some and not to others? ‘Cause I don’t think that’s how it works….

Not Not MP Admin wrote:

So are you trying to say that V8 elite to some and not to others? ‘Cause I don’t think that’s how it works….

No, I think he is saying that it is a goal more reasonably attainable for one category ( young start, gym trained) than the other. I think a number of others on this thread have said basically the same thing.

Not Not MP Admin wrote:

So are you trying to say that V8 elite to some and not to others? ‘Cause I don’t think that’s how it works….

This whole conversation is pretty loose and semantic; hinging at least as much on how we are all defining "elite" in our minds as on how climbers are distributed across the ability curve. So I think we can carve it up however we want. But to engage with your point directly, I guess I see what you're saying and it's true that you could just look at the set of all climbers, see what the top 5% or 1% climb and call that "elite" but I don't see any inherent problem for having different yardsticks for different climbers. Isn't that what we do with every other sport when we have men and women compete separately, or folks in different age groups competing principally against each other? Like, would you lump all Olympic marathoners together and conclude that there are almost no elite female runners in the world? 

We can slice this up however we want for the purposes of a thought exercise and all I'm saying is that cross-sectioning by when you started climbing might be a better line to draw than the traditional age and gender markers we're used to.

I just did some queries on thecrag.com database, which is in near-universal use in Australia instead of MP or 8a.nu.

The Blue Mountains region has 6,805 routes and 274,040 ascents logged in all styles (and for what it's worth, 220 by me)

If I filter to Ewbank grade 29 or higher (fairly uncontroversially equivalent to 8a) there are 1,626 ascents.

That's 0.6%. This includes climbs logged as attempts, top rope, "working", or "hangdog".

If I filter for clean ascents (redpoint, flash, onsight) there are only 404 - and 3 of those are by Alex Megos haha.

Of course this probably says more about the climbing ability and routes in a backwater like Australia rather than anything universal TBH.

Sam M wrote:

I just did some queries on thecrag.com database, which is in near-universal use in Australia instead of MP or 8a.nu.

The Blue Mountains region has 6,805 routes and 274,040 ascents logged in all styles (and for what it's worth, 220 by me)

If I filter to Ewbank grade 29 or higher (fairly uncontroversially equivalent to 8a) there are 1,626 ascents.

That's 0.6%. This includes climbs logged as attempts, top rope, "working", or "hangdog".

If I filter for clean ascents (redpoint, flash, onsight) there are only 404 - and 3 of those are by Alex Megos haha.

Of course this probably says more about the climbing ability and routes in a backwater like Australia rather than anything universal TBH.

This doesn't say anything of meaning.

What you should have examined is how many of them 6805 routes are grade 29 or higher, in conjunction with the ascent ratio.

So how many are there? 282. That's 4% of all the routes are 29 or higher. Of course if the ratio of routes is small, the logical conclusion is the ratio of ascent of those routes to total number of ascent is small as well. There is nothing meaningful to say beyond this.

In case you are wondering, for Ceuse:

ratio of 8a routes to total number of routes is 108/629=17%

ratio of 8a ascents to total ascent is 342/2854=11%

What does this say? Nothing really, besides the aforementioned conclusion.

Put it this way. If you want to use the Blue Mountains case to show that only 0.6% of the population can climb 8a or higher. I can use Ceuse to show 11% can climb 8a. See how stupid this is!

Jake Foster wrote:

This doesn't say anything of meaning.

What you should have examined is how many of them 6805 routes are grade 29 or higher, in conjunction with the ascent ratio.

Nah, the bigger problem is we are considering total ascents, not individual climbers, because anyone who logs redpoints of grade 29 has probably logged hundreds of easier climbs as well.

I suspect that actually looks worse though, as most of those 400 logged ascents of grade 29 or harder are by the same handful of people. Eg Tom O'halloran, Lee Cujes, Jake Bresnehan, Luke Hansen, etc probably cover half of those ascents by themselves.

Sam M wrote:

Nah, the bigger problem is we are considering total ascents, not individual climbers, because anyone who logs redpoints of grade 29 has probably logged hundreds of easier climbs as well.

Ok I worked it out by climbers, and 57 people have logged an 8a or harder ascent in Australia's largest sport climbing region.

Some world cup climbers and Olympians in there (Megos and Tom O'Halloran), and also working family people and at least one mum, even some local sport climbing pioneers from the 90s have been prodded into making an account (Justin Clark!)

Certainly some prominent local names missing from that list, I can think of 5 or 6 to start, and for sure there's a lot more, and some internationals as well (Steve Haston, Ondra).

Dave Alie wrote:

This whole conversation is pretty loose and semantic; hinging at least as much on how we are all defining "elite" in our minds as on how climbers are distributed across the ability curve. So I think we can carve it up however we want. But to engage with your point directly, I guess I see what you're saying and it's true that you could just look at the set of all climbers, see what the top 5% or 1% climb and call that "elite" but I don't see any inherent problem for having different yardsticks for different climbers. 

Am I to interpret this as meaning that to someone who doesn't climb viewing V5 as elite? Which hopefully we can agree is not an elite grade.

Isn't that what we do with every other sport when we have men and women compete separately, or folks in different age groups competing principally against each other? Like, would you lump all Olympic marathoners together and conclude that there are almost no elite female runners in the world? 

Huh? I would consider all those olympians elite and potentially some who did not qualify. I don't really get your whole male vs. female thing. As far as the whole V8 discussion goes though, I just fail to see how a grade literally 8 grades easier than the hardest grades can be considered elite. I am not taking into consideration the amount of people doing climbing V8 as much as the difficulty in relation to the hardest climb to date. In my opinion, elite climbing nowadays would be V12 and up. 

FWIW, my thought process focuses more on the level of whatever you're measuring, not the amount of people able to achieve it. For example, in my mind there are going to be far more elite wide receivers than QB's because teams at any level often have 2-3 starting WR's whereas they only have 1 QB. Circling back to climbing, IMO calling a V8 would be like calling a D3 or Juco athlete "elite" at their respective sport...maybe that makes sense...maybe it doesn't.

TL:DR I'm viewing V8 as not elite due to it being significantly easier than the hardest established climbs not because of the number of people doing it. 

Real life stats by Dani Andrada, one of the world's elite sports climbers.

1. Started climbing in 1989

2. First day of climbing on-sighted 7a

3. First 8a tagged in 1992

4. He has clipped over 4,000 routes out of which:

-800 range from 8a to 8b+
-418 from 8c to 9a+/b.                                           -70 from 8c+/9a to 9a+/b.

Bouldering: 400 problems graded from V11/8a to V14/8b+

Source:

https://woguclimbing.com/entrevista-dani-andrada-4000-vias-encima-octavo-grado/

In conclusion it isn't easy and quick as people think to on sight and/or redpoint an 8a.

Although Andrada is undoubtedly an elite climber, and has been for decades, you can no longer use him as an example of how much work it is to reach a certain benchmark (8a). This is because in the late 80s and early 90s, 8a truly was world class. Since then, training has improved, diet has improved, and most importantly peoples perception of what is difficult has completely evolved.  Whereas in 1992, Andrada would have run into very few climbers redpointing the grade, now in places like Ceuse and Margalef it is very common to see ordinary people warming up at that grade. 

giraud b wrote:

Real life stats by Dani Andrada, one of the world's elite sports climbers.

1. Started climbing in 1989

2. First day of climbing on-sighted 7a

3. First 8a tagged in 1992

4. He has clipped over 4,000 routes out of which:

-800 range from 8a to 8b+
-418 from 8c to 9a+/b.                                           -70 from 8c+/9a to 9a+/b.

Bouldering: 400 problems graded from V11/8a to V14/8b+

Source:

https://woguclimbing.com/entrevista-dani-andrada-4000-vias-encima-octavo-grado/

In conclusion it isn't easy and quick as people think to on sight and/or redpoint an 8a.

I’m not sure this is a great way to try and convince people 8a isn’t as easy as people are saying. Andrada is significantly below the most elite climbers currently and he still has almost 1500 routes, nearly 35% of his total climbs (just based on whatever database you cited) that are 8a or harder.

and btw very few, if any, people are saying 8a is easy. Most are just arguing it is not elite, at least at this point, and easily achievable. Maybe you interpret that people saying it’s easy, but I think most are implying hard work and dedication makes it easy, not the actual difficulty. 

Between 4-5 years for the lower quartile according to this study:

https://kate-d.medium.com/how-long-could-it-take-to-climb-my-first-8a-d841f2573518

For the average climber 6 years and the rest if ever, 7 to 8 years.

To sum it up: it isn't easy to climb an 8a regardless of what people think.