Hot Takes 2024

Grigri is 100% a hands free device 

John Clarkwrote:

This is all about the Movement vs Experience battle, sometimes called the Trad vs Everyone else battle

Hot take- even men don't like mansplaining.  If you don't have any insight into this, please don't just define the question.

José Flovinwrote:

Not sure what you mean by your setup, but webbing can be a safety hazard if something gets caught you want your harness catching your fall, not your ribcage or armpits. I’d take a slightly goofy-looking biner over a serious injury.

Tell me you're worried about micro-fractures without telling me.

Tom Rangitschwrote:

Can you expand on this? Genuinely curious and not trying to be offensive.  I just don't get how the existence of a bolt on a route that one chooses not to clip will diminish that climber's experience.  It seems more like a person that complains about a bolt they choose not to clip is trying to force their world view on others who might not be so bold.  It seems elitist and like bold climbers are saying that their way of experiencing a route is the only correct way.

You're forgetting how much climbing is a psychological as well as a physical problem. If you know you have an easy way to protect if you get rattled takes away much of the challenge of a route with minimal pro.

Tom Rangitschwrote:

Can you expand on this? Genuinely curious and not trying to be offensive.  I just don't get how the existence of a bolt on a route that one chooses not to clip will diminish that climber's experience.  It seems more like a person that complains about a bolt they choose not to clip is trying to force their world view on others who might not be so bold.  It seems elitist and like bold climbers are saying that their way of experiencing a route is the only correct way.

How do you feel about eliminate boulders/squeeze job rope routes/contrived variations/routes? It's much the same, where you have to intentionally make a decision to ignore a resource available to you. Add on that it also removes the actual excitement/thrill of the risk because you know that you could just go and clip that bolt anyways. It completely alters the experience. 

It's not an elitist thing. This kind of goes back to my earlier point about entitlement - all climbers shouldn't feel entitled to climb all routes. And this goes both ways - folks seeking bold climbing need to stop complaining about routes being bolted too closely, and climbers who are looking for safe climbing need to stop complaining that a route isn't bolted closely enough for them. 

It seems elitist and like bold climbers are saying that their way of experiencing a route is the only correct way.

Folks advocating for every route being extremely safely equipped are doing effectively the same thing though here. Why can't you just be happy TRing the route? Why does every line need to be equipped in a way that you would feel comfortable leading it?

Signed, someone who gets grief for placing too many bolts

Tom Rangitschwrote:

  I just don't get how the existence of a bolt on a route that one chooses not to clip will diminish that climber's experience.

Cool Take.... bolts are an offering, nothing more. take them or leave them

Connor Dobsonwrote:

I actually think that buying higher quality clothes (ideally secondhand, but for a secondhand market someone has to buy it first) is better for the environment than buying cheaper lower quality clothing. I've had my atom LT for 8? years now and I still wear it all the time. Same thing with some nice lefroy shorts that I have had for almost the same amount of time.

If anyone is selling any lefroy shorts in size 30 hit me up, I'm sad they got discontinued. 

I agree that high quality clothing is worth the investment, I just think no large company is making any high quality clothing 

Thanks for the well thought out replies.  This is mostly a semantic argument (for me at least) as I'm not advocating retrobolting or changing the nature of a first ascent.   Just not going to be doing any of that nonsense as I want to die in a nursing home after many years of worsening dementia.

Pre hung draws are pink points. If it counts as a red point, then top rope with slack should count as well. 

If you don't drill the bolts on lead from stances it's a pink point

Comments of the nature "where's the helmet???" on videos/pictures/posts of people climbing without a helmet are obnoxious

Tom Rangitschwrote:

Hot take- even men don't like mansplaining.  If you don't have any insight into this, please don't just define the question.

So there’s this search function on MP, through which you can find forum posts, and in these posts there are many many pages hashing this out

hot take: millenials are the best at internet searches

Tom Rangitschwrote:

Can you expand on this? Genuinely curious and not trying to be offensive.  I just don't get how the existence of a bolt on a route that one chooses not to clip will diminish that climber's experience.  It seems more like a person that complains about a bolt they choose not to clip is trying to force their world view on others who might not be so bold.  It seems elitist and like bold climbers are saying that their way of experiencing a route is the only correct way.

Reminds me of Cerro Torre, Aysen. (yes....another one...same name but in chile) when free soloing or attempting the 5.8 on the last pitch was a popular thing in 2018. The spanish former olimpic coach "pere" who lives in the area decided to put 1 bolt in the crux and a rap station...because people where dying. Strong climbers but not alpinist going to the Mountain and falling cause they underrated the short but expose climb under north ice field winds.

Connor Dobsonwrote:

I mean yeah super downturned shoes don't really matter on 5.8 or even 5.10. and they won't turn a 5.7 climber into a 5.13 climber. But they definitely do make a difference at higher grades when you have to stand on very small feet or hooks get more technical. They are just a more precise tool, but if you are a caveman it doesn't really matter. 

I must be a caveman. One day I forgot my shoes pretty far from the car so I decided to tough it out and follow a 5.10 route barefoot ( which is about as hard as I climb unless I'm having a really good day.) it worked well. but My feet got sore From the sharp edges. So the next route, I climbed using my hiking shoes, but of course they didn't edge at all. And then a woman let me borrow her shoes that were about three sizes too big for me and I still couldn't edge but I could still climb 5.10. I have to agree that it's mostly on hard granite friction that shoes make a huge difference.

Project draws should only be left on 5.13 and up

Not Not MP Adminwrote:

Project draws should only be left on 5.13 and up

What about really inconvenient 5.12

almostradwrote:

What about really inconvenient 5.12

Inconvenient 5.12 sound like gear, bud

Jaren W wrote:

Which one, that we’re apes? We probably don’t need to disturb the anthropologists just now, as they’re likely napping and wouldn’t appreciate being disturbed by a question such as this—forgive them, but they’re notoriously fussy.

That we evolved to climb? There, too, you need simply to observe what humans do to answer that question. Do humans climb? Yes. Rather well, in truth. Then our capacity for doing so is the result of evolutionary adaptation.

I’m sure there are some anthropologists lurking about, and I’d be interested to hear what they have to say on the matter. In the meantime, there’s nothing stopping us from consulting the literature ourselves. It’s a robust body of work, I’d wager.

Hot take: the merits of a claim are not dependent upon its source (would to god that this nation of political tribes would learn this one lesson—sorry for the tangent). I don’t need to be an anthropologist for it to be true that humans are apes whose capacity for climbing (and running) has evolutionary origins.

Hot take: Boyd Crowder uses less words than you

Attempting to flash routes, particularly routinely, makes you a worse climber and is just done to chase numbers / inflate egos.

Anonanomanom Yerpwrote:

Attempting to flash routes, particularly routinely, makes you a worse climber and is just done to chase numbers / inflate egos.

Attempting to flash routes, particularly routinely, is a really fun way to get good at reading rock on the fly, and introduces a wide variety of fun, challenging routes to your day. If one wanted to chase numbers, they'd spend 9 full days on one project