Trends that have fallen out of style

Eric Craig wrote:

Hi Allen, the picture/quote as used here is out of context. I am pretty well acquainted with this method of rappelling. I set up and took this picture yesterday. 

Or maybe your post is for the benefit of all those who don't know.  In that case, my apologies. Yeah, people should know this. But it is harder to set up with modern asymmetrical carabiners. Especially the itty bitty ones.

What's a Garmin?

While a touch harder to setup with asymmetrical carabiners it is still quite safe if using two and two.

Garmin - as in Garmin inReach. 

Allen Sandersonwrote:

That is a carabiner brake rappel. Which should never fall out of style because if one does not have their spiffy self-locking gismo one can use a carabiner brake rappel instead of calling for a rescue on their Garmin.

Or just use a Munter, which only requires 1 biner

True dirtbagging and pink pointing 

Putting your for sale post in the for sale forum

Raw Bertwrote:

Or just use a Munter, which only requires 1 biner

Super munter if you value your rope at all

Quick draws with 'biners facing opposite directions.   

Burnt Orange.  That seemed to be the official color of outdoor outerwear and packs of the early 00s.  That and the 2-tone color scheme on shells.  Like a strong primary color for most of the jacket and black shoulde and elbows.

Marc801 Cwrote:

FTFY. At the time they were popular there was no such thing as sport or trad climbing - it was just climbing.

yeah but the number of years after hexcentrics are invented before sport climbing in europe is like... 5 years?  6 years? maybe ten at most (depending on when "sport climbing starts").  It's not decades or even a generation of climbers. It's a handful of years.  I think it's '75 or '76 when they are first sold and europeans were bolting all over france by '81 and '82 with the famous comp being a few years after. 

Raw Bertwrote:

Or just use a Munter, which only requires 1 biner

Just out of curiosity, I looked up the biner brake in Mountaineering, 9 Ed.

It only mentions the advantage that a biner brake would not add twists to the rope like a munter would.

It also shows an improvised variant requiring only three lockers!

J Lwrote:

Just out of curiosity, I looked up the biner brake in Mountaineering, 9 Ed.

It only mentions the advantage that a biner brake would not add twists to the rope like a munter would.

It also shows an improvised variant requiring only three lockers!

A super minter also does not twist the rope!

Or if using two strands, the modification shown on alpine savvy also does not twist

Rob Dwrote:

yeah but the number of years after hexcentrics are invented before sport climbing in europe is like... 5 years?  6 years? maybe ten at most (depending on when "sport climbing starts").  It's not decades or even a generation of climbers. It's a handful of years.  I think it's '75 or '76 when they are first sold and europeans were bolting all over france by '81 and '82 with the famous comp being a few years after. 

I looked it up and you are correct.  Verdon is generally regarded as the birth place of sport climbing.  In 1980 or 1981 is what most would agree on.
I had thought hexes have been around forever but apparently not!
Almost equally amazing is Modern SLCDs were invented by Ray Jardine in 1978 (US patent 4,184,657).

Modern “Nuts” were made famous in Bastogne, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge circa 1944.

I'm also not clear on exactly what point Rob D. is trying to make upthread. Hexcentrics were merely one 'tool' in the clean climbing 'tool chest', but during the days when they first appeared--early '70s, the 'divide' was between 'clean climbing' and pitons ( only relatively rarely 'bolts'--which were still considered to not be 'kosher' in most US areas). 'Clean climbing' won out, pretty quickly---except on walls or alpine situations, piton use virtually disappeared ( at least in North America) within just a handful of years. Though today, the phrase 'traditional climbing' describes more how a route is established rather than the specific equipment used to protect it.
Sport climbing as we currently define it, had a very long 'gestation' period---and it evolved from the long-established tradition in much of continental Europe to leave pitons in place once they were originally placed, in contrast to the 'Yosemite' style where the second was expected to remove any pitons for use higher up, even though, in Europe into the 80s, those fixed pitons often were used for aid. The idea of using that fixed gear only for protection took quite a while to to become accepted there. While some very hard free routes were done in Verdon and elsewhere by the early 80s, it was still a few more years before sport climbing became established as it's own 'thing', and everything that had come before, of which hexcentrics were just a small part, was labeled as 'traditional'.

apogeewrote:

Hard to imagine anyone who started climbing in the last ten years owning even half that many oval ‘biners.

I started climbing in 2017

The sport climbing mentality existed much earlier than 1980.  Those of us wimps that were looking for stress free ways to tick higher graded climbs looked for “fixed” “clip-ups” so we didn’t have to fiddle with gear.  Things like Papa Woolsey (sp?) out west or Never Neverland in the east. All before 1980

Aaron Kolbwrote:

I started climbing in 2017

Those are “D”s, not ovals. n00b.

 ;)

If people are saying that modern sport routes got their start in 1980 then I would say the route Mission Impossible at Mission Gorge in San Diego may be the true first sport climb. Rick Accomazzo bolted this on rappel in the middle 1970's. It is 5.11d, now called 12a. Hard slippery face climb. No way to stance drill. Other early sport-type climbs were old bolt aid-ladders that people freed. Mission Impossible was bolted as a free climb from its inception.

D

O

Todays lesson is now concluded.

Gaiters. Definitely the least cool item of gear these days. 

Graham Johnsonwrote:

Gaiters. Definitely the least cool item of gear these days. 

Wear them when you place your screamers