What did your Eldo progression to 5.10 look like?

Personally I don't think the yellow spur compares to some of the classic 5.10a routes in eldo. Blind faith, white lightning, hand cracker are all solid G rated crack climbing, and green spur may fall into that as well. Yellow spur has a tricky start and is more face climbing with less gear than what some may feel comfortable with along with a lot more exposure. I think routes like werks sup, anthill direct, heavy weather may be good. These are all routes that have tricky gear placing and may require you to climb a touch above your gear comfortably. I also think long John wall, sooberb light, positively fourth street, sister morphine are all good grades to feel more solid on the eldo style and start slowly breaking into what the easier 5.8/ 5.9s feel like. As mentioned before from other people, following in eldo can help the head a lot. I know lots of people who completely followed the naked edge before feeling ready to lead it. In the end, I think the 5.10a grade in eldo is less heady, usually more G rated, and probably has more crack climbing than most of the other 5.9/ 5.9+ grades in Eldo. Once you're through 5.10 a/b, the 5.10.c grade I think gets a lot more strenuous such as grandmothers challenge, sooberb, and of course tagger. 

I think eldo is a really good training ground for the alpine, but just remember you're climbing that grade at 10,000+ feet. Altitude adds. 

Welp there's the spray down. Have fun! 

I found taking a break from trad climbing to focus on harder sport climbs was quite helpful - a lot of climbs in Eldo are quite sporty.  I was skeptical until I tried it… and I can’t recommend it enough.

Getting into that grade in Eldo is a ton of fun, you've got lots of great routes ahead!

As you suggested, I think Handcracker is a great first 5.10 multipitch route to see how the grade feels. The crux pitch is really well protected and it's relatively short. If you're feeling great on that, I'd say a bit more comfort on some sportier 10- routes where you risk a fall onto gear and you should be more than ready for YS.

To get that part done, I'd say some West Ridge cragging is the best way to get mileage at the grade and in the Eldo style. Darkness til Dawn, Over the Hill P1 (good for getting your eldo lead head on straight), Break on Through (nice roof pull similar to P1 of YS), and other classics like Darkness til Dawn, Chockstone, and White Lightning will get you really comfortable at the grade.

Generally, I'm sure you're strong enough to do the yellow spur today but i think it'd be a good idea to get used to climbing above gear and maybe even take some falls. have fun!

No sure if this will be popular opinion but from my experience you just have to push on harder routes. I think most people have more of a mental block than actual physical or technical blocks. This was my first summer climbing Trad, before this i had just climbed a bunch of sport in CCC up to some 5.11s. My trad journey this summer basically started just climbing 2-3 times a week in eldo and pushing grade as often as possible. Started with wind ridge then bastile crack (probably close to 10 times) and kept pushing to stuff like gambit, yellow spur, ruper (Upper/lower), long john wall, werk supp and ultimately decided to just go for outter space last month before it got too cold. Ended up leading it 2 more times after that just to prove to my self the first time wasnt just luck. Alot of people are focused on just ticking off a bunch of routes but I found if there was a route, regardless of grade that i found challenging i would go back to it and climb it a handful of times until i felt zero hesitation on it. Ive climbed with a lot of people that lead well below what they're capable of not because they cant technically but because they psyche themselves out and convince themselves that the route is too difficult for them with out even trying it. Moral of the story, sometimes you just have to push your self beyond your comfort zone to really find out what your capable of even if it means taking a whip. 

Last point is try to lead as often as possible, it builds a ton of mental confidence. I always volunteer to lead as much as possible because i know ultimately thats whats going to make me a better climber both physically and mentally.  

Here’s a progression from some of the harder Eldo 5.9’s into the .10’s.  In order of difficulty,  based solely on my opinion, so take it as a very general reference.

P1 Tagger 9
P2 over the hill 9
P1 Hair City .9
Emerald city .9
Strawberry shortcut .9+
P1 Rincon .9+
Yellow spur .9+
Morning Thunder .9+
W. Buttress.9+
5.10 crack 10a
Ichiban arete 10a
White lightning 10a
Handcracker direct 10a
Chockstone 10a (both pitches)
Blind Faith 10a
Xanadu 10a
Deviant 10a
The grand course 10a
P1 darkness til dawn 10a
The metamorphosis 10a
Laughing at the moon 10b
Break on through 10b
Backtalk 10b
Wide country lite 10b

If you worked through this list you’d be ready for yellow spur direct, rosy crucifixion, outer space, and the casual route.   

It helps if you climb with a stronger partner who is willing to sandbag you.  I still remember getting sandbanged into leading the crux pitch of  Super Slab.  Not really recommended, though…

5.8, then 5.9, then 5.10

Where's Waldenwrote:

5.8, then 5.9, then 5.10

Then 9+

7

8

9

9+

10b. 

My buddy tells me if I’m leading 9+ I might as well lead 10b. He was right.

10a

10c

11a

10d.  

I still can’t get the upper part of Terminal Velocity clean. Supposedly 10d.

8 

Had knee surgery, bought a company. Climbing is in the shitter for a while.  Big life changes

9

10

10c

.

.

.

.

Rinse and repeat. 

Thought I'd come back here to this (EXTREMELY helpful) thread after onsighting Yellow Spur and share what got me there in case anyone cared or found this in the future!

In short, I just climbed a lot of sport lol. My trad climbing largely took a backseat after I made this post as my friends were climbing sport and I pushed my grade to solidly onsighting 5.11s in BoCan and CCC, and recently sent my first couple (probably soft) 12s. My overarching goals are still to be solid on 5.10 trad in Eldo and alpine, but my logic was that if I was climbing 12s, 5.10 trad would probably feel a lot easier. I did climb Gambit last year and Ruper earlier this spring to make sure I didn’t get too rusty, which felt chill, but that's pretty much all the trad I did since the OP.

Turns out that not surprisingly, climbing 5.12 sport makes 5.9 trad feel pretty easy. Cruised Yellow Spur with very little stress which was a massive confidence boost and looking forward to trying some of the 10s on this list soon! I did feel that Yellow Spur is overly sandbagged and that aside from P1 and the bolted P5 variation (which is super safe), the gear was straightforward and there wasn’t really anything harder than Ruper on there. Hope this helps someone!

nbrownwrote:

Sounds familiar. We did Vertigo on my first trip to Eldo. Not at all a big deal coming from Carolina...

LMAO - How can you tell someone is a North Carolina climber, don't worry they will tell you (and bonus points if they talk about how so much more sandbagged Carolina stone is than your humble crag) 

So cool to see you chime back in after accomplishing a big goal, Shay! Way to go.

I think there are a thousand ways to progress in Eldo, but the one through line is that the more time you spend there, the better you get. Especially if you're challenging yourself (just a little at a time). With enough time, there's no reason your hardest eldo sends can't be nearly as hard as your hardest sport sends (especially with headpointing tactics).

BTW, I find RMNP routes to be much more similar in style to the gear routes in Boulder Canyon or Lumpy. I'm hoping to spend some time climbing in those spots this month before peak alpine season arrives.

Not to treat this thread as my personal climbing journal, but thought it would be fun to check in again! 

I have now climbed Outer Space 2x and led all pitches clean onsight, as well as onsighted The Barb, Blind Faith and Handcracker! I did get on Pervertical with a stronger friend and onsighted all the 9 pitches on lead, but got pretty spanked following the crux pitch (probably 4-5 falls) and just barely managed to send the OW pitch clean on follow (I would have almost certainly whipped on lead). I also attempted the Edge with the same friend and led P1 (albeit not clean, took my first trad whips there!), sent P2+3 clean, fell 2x following the Bombay, and got destroyed on the final handcrack. Barely made it up without aiding. Oh well. Things to work towards I guess lol. Next on my list are Darkness til Dawn, Rosy, Tagger, Grandmother's Challenge, Grand Giraffe, and Hair City, as well as Escape Artist and maybe Scenic Cruise in the Black.

I was supposed to do Casual Route this summer too, but had some family obligations take up more of the summer than planned and just barely missed the season (I doubt I'll get another shot this year). 

That being said it's cool to look back on my original post and see how far things have come along :) maybe there is hope for us noobs after all lol. If there is one piece of advice in this very helpful thread that I found most helpful it would be this:

Sam Chalkleywrote:

Best advice I ever got on routes that I thought were above my ability -- Just go try it, because you may not get the chance later. 

I think about this comment often, especially getting older and having life responsibilities pop up. The time I have to waste doing pointless things like climbing does not feel as infinite as it once did. 

Appreciate the advice and hope this helps someone else break into 10s in Eldo as well!

Shay! Way to stick to a multi year plan to achieve your goals. I agree that climbing hard sport makes Eldo progression much smoother and is a sure bet.