Join A Punter In His Wide Climbing Journey (Or Don't, Whatever)

Connor Dobsonwrote:

Hairshirt at snowshed is also a really good learning OW, or maybe it's hair lip? Whatever the 5.8 is. 

Put it on the list. Thanks, Connor! 

Also dolphin in Jtree is great and easy, don't use your hands to learn how to move better

You ever make it out to Red Rock and want to get on some Herbst stuff feel free to reach out. There's a lot of good wide here.

William Elliotwrote:

You ever make it out to Red Rock and want to get on some Herbst stuff feel free to reach out. There's a lot of good wide here.

Appreciate you, William. I may very well take you up on that. 

Hey Ricky, once you feel that you have "graduated" from this training course, I've got an offwidth route in the High Peaks at Pinnacles for you. It's a rare Pinnacles route because it includes some true offwidth climbing. Jack Holmgren put it up in the late 1980s and I'm pretty sure that my ascent was a the second and last to date.

I'll follow and clean it for you.  It's on Proclamation Pinnacle: Emancipation 5.10a. It's got no stars, but it's OK. You'll be proud of having done it for the rest of your life.

Brad Youngwrote:

Hey Ricky, once you feel that you have "graduated" from this training course, I've got an offwidth route in the High Peaks at Pinnacles for you. It's a rare Pinnacles route because it includes some true offwidth climbing. Jack Holmgren put it up in the late 1980s and I'm pretty sure that my ascent was a the second and last to date.

I'll follow and clean it for you.  It's on Proclamation Pinnacle: Emancipation 5.10a. It's got no stars, but it's OK. You'll be proud of having done it for the rest of your life.

Based off of your brief description I'm absolutely terrified and it sounds like a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. 

So count me in! 

PROGRESS

Day 2 report:

I met up with another Instagram provided climbing partner and his GF who were both extremely lovely, and then also took along the GF and met up with some friends besides. We ended up spending most of our time on the thin hands cracks which are another of my weaknesses, so I didn't spend much time on the wide yesterday unfortunately. And then when I finally got on Surprise I couldn't pull of the ground. Just like the two other 5.8 OWs there, this one is very wide and flared at the bottom which means there's no feet. I watched several people figure the start out and even after watching them I have no clue what they did or how they got up it. 

Eventually after much fucking around with chicken wings and fist stacks I decided my goal for the day was not to figure out the start, but just to learn some OW technique, so I pulled up a few feet and started from there. I really, really struggled, but eventually I started figuring out how to get my feet to stick and after much flailage I started getting better and better at getting my feet to stick. We're talking about maybe 10' of OW climbing that I did, but I frequently lost progress and it took me ages to climb those 10', so I feel that I did indeed get some really good practice in. Where as day 1 I don't really feel like I learned anything, yesterday I really feel like I learned a lot in the little bit of wide that I climbed.

Next time I'm going to try and figure out the start and spend more time on the wide trying to get that footwork dialed. But if anyone has suggestions on wtf to do when you've got OW upper body and chimney lower body I'm all ears, because the three easiest OWs there are all like that and I can't figure any of those starts out.

Well it's a start Ricky. I have vague recollections of those routes,  think 1975 is when I was last there.  Those starts are hard, don't worry about it.  I say get the basics working better before adding more to the puzzle. Once the knee lock/toe heel inside foot and toe heel outside foot and arm bar/chicken wing all start working together.....as in push up, reset, repeat......then you will have a base to work off of. Same with getting some flared chimney specific work in. Not sure where the closest to you top ropeable in winter flared chimneys might be. I could probably come up with something in the Valley. 

Ricky Harlinewrote:

Next time I'm going to try and figure out the start and spend more time on the wide trying to get that footwork dialed. But if anyone has suggestions on wtf to do when you've got OW upper body and chimney lower body I'm all ears, because the three easiest OWs there are all like that and I can't figure any of those starts out.

The dreaded BOMB BAY ..... eep

The Carhartts come in handy for these, usually find myself in a body position like this:

Really trying to make the froggy leg knee bar stick on the outside of the crack. This is also a good time to try and find any kind of edge or crimp to pull down on inside the crack, or push off of outside the crack.

P.S. Excellent list Jabroni! Love Arch Rock! Midterm is such a treat with a nice long stretch of chimeny up to the anchors.

Hell of a list alright. You missed a bunch you might as well have included. I was thinking more like Tweedle Dee, an excellent technique builder that isn't 5.10.

So Ricky, I reviewed your posts here, and looked at pictures of the mentioned routes (1 doesn't have a picture don't remember which it is). Yeah a bunch of those have a similar near bottomless start. Pretty sure I did one of those about 49 years ago, and remember having similar struggles before somehow making it. I recommend not spending too much time flailing. Pick one, give it a go, if it ain't happening go on to something else, or take a long break between tries. Or just come back another day. 

I think Stuggler looks very worthy of the effort to learn HOW to CLIMB it. It MAY be overall harder, but the transitions are less severe than those bottomless "5.8's". I say treat it like a boulder problem. Once you figure out how to do the first crux, stop. Let the lesson soak in. Come back another time, try getting to your high point as efficiently as possible, then start figuring out the next crux. Repeat. There appears to be a few changes including maybe starting left side in and switching to right side in higher up (just a guess based on looking at the picture). Again, based on what I see, if you spend the time to get that one route wired, you will have most of what you need to climb most offwidth cracks. You just need to get past the initial stumbling block and a whole new world will open up. 

I just looked again. The switching of leftside/rightside musta been a different route. Doesn't matter. Struggler looks good. 

Ricky Harlinewrote:

PROGRESS

Day 2 report:

I met up with another Instagram provided climbing partner and his GF who were both extremely lovely, and then also took along the GF and met up with some friends besides. We ended up spending most of our time on the thin hands cracks which are another of my weaknesses, so I didn't spend much time on the wide yesterday unfortunately. And then when I finally got on Surprise I couldn't pull of the ground. Just like the two other 5.8 OWs there, this one is very wide and flared at the bottom which means there's no feet. I watched several people figure the start out and even after watching them I have no clue what they did or how they got up it. 

Eventually after much fucking around with chicken wings and fist stacks I decided my goal for the day was not to figure out the start, but just to learn some OW technique, so I pulled up a few feet and started from there. I really, really struggled, but eventually I started figuring out how to get my feet to stick and after much flailage I started getting better and better at getting my feet to stick. We're talking about maybe 10' of OW climbing that I did, but I frequently lost progress and it took me ages to climb those 10', so I feel that I did indeed get some really good practice in. Where as day 1 I don't really feel like I learned anything, yesterday I really feel like I learned a lot in the little bit of wide that I climbed.

Next time I'm going to try and figure out the start and spend more time on the wide trying to get that footwork dialed. But if anyone has suggestions on wtf to do when you've got OW upper body and chimney lower body I'm all ears, because the three easiest OWs there are all like that and I can't figure any of those starts out.

No. One. Cares.

Matt Dwrote:

No. One. Cares.

Ricky Harline wrote:

Join A Punter In His Wide Climbing Journey (Or Don't, Whatever)

Ricky Harlinewrote:

So you start a thread…

So "Matt D" comes on a thread just to spread negative vibes? Does a person do that because they feel totally inadequate and need to try and make others seem low? What gives?

My older daughter recently taught me a new curse word: "Douche Canoe."

Ricky Harlinewrote:

<3

Jabroni McChufferson wrote:

Well other than the puke in the thread, how’s the wide climbing going? Puke yet yourself? Nothing compliments a mastosistic pursuit more than one’s own vomit 

Been taking advantage of this weird weather window to do a bunch of development as the area I'm developing is likely to get snowed in for a good while in a few weeks. I promise that my stoke for the wide is high and I will be returning to CRG for flailage (and quite possibly some vomiting) very soon! 

But lol no I have not vomited in my very brief wide climbing career thus far, but I'm sure it's gonna come sooner or later!

Puke means it's working 

Aaron Kolb wrote:

I am also not a good wide climbing and am in serious need of some sort of offwidth bootcamp as I often find myself climbing stuff with offwidth sections. When I did the North Chimney of Castleton in the fall of '23 I was mad because I onsighted everything except for a roughly 3 ft section where I had to pull on a #6. That's happened on a lot of routes. I generally feel good in chimneys, but as soon as it involves stacks and arm bars I start flailing. 

So far my best wide achievement has been climbing Blackjack in the Black Canyon, either onsighting or following clean on all the pitches, which involves 2 pitches of sustained wide climbing. But the actual OW bits had enough foot chips and crimps that made them pretty cheatable for someone like me. 

So recently I resolved to attack a couple local OW cracks - one of which I had laybacked past the OW crux when I sent it - and just toprope them and force myself to do the OW moves with no cheating. Now I feel like I have stacked hands relatively sorted out - until you have to change to hand-fists and beyond. Still need to make myself work on those.

Arm bars and chicken wings. 

FEET. 

push up

Reset

Push up

Reset

FEET!!!

Did I mention FEET?

Currently at CRG enjoying the good weather before the rains come. Flailing on Struggler per the recommendation up thread. Question to the wide wizards regarding #4s size OW: WTF is the footwork when you can't get your leg in the crack? If I'm doing butterfly jams with my hands how do I keep myself into the wall if I can't get my leg in there to lock me off and hold me upright? 

Images for reference of me struggling on Struggler