New Tech Advantages

Recently, I listened to John Long interviews where he says, ‘cams and sticky rubber’ are the most significant technological innovations in climbing.

I don’t doubt Largo, a hero I have never met.  But watching several videos of Dreamcatcher ascents, and Touching the Void, and listening to Jamie Logan interviews made me think…what else has changed the game.

My list. Add to it. Tell me I am wrong.

1. Cams: quoth Long

2. Sticky Rubber: quoth Long

3. Satellite weather reports: do Simpson and Yates stroll up and down if they know that all they have to do is wait out two separate days of difficult or bad weather in order to ascend and descend in the sun.

4. Walkie Talkies: Simpson and Yates presumably had access to CB radios but couldn’t or didn’t use them.  Maybe Simpson never goes off the cliff if Yates hears him say stop  

5. Fancy Shoes and Quivers: even shoes with sticky rubber were not nearly as good or comfortable when Sharma sent Dreamcatcher in Mocasyms as shoes are now

6. Kneepads: 5.16 climbers talk about kneepads A LOT  

7. Crack Gloves: Basically, I suck as a climber in all venues, cracks included.  Ocun crack gloves make my terrible and painful technique applicable in many many cracks. Technology at work.

8. Climbing gyms (and those very high pitched birthday parties): the population of DNA profiles attempting to climb is so much bigger.

I think your list suffers a bit from an unclear definition of climbing. Are you talking about technological improvements that push climbing grades in the sense of bouldering/individual pitch ratings, or the broadest sense of climbing, that includes alpine climbing and mountaineering? I think alpinism and mountaineering should be removed or at least separated, because the improvements are so different. E.g., modern weather forecasting minimally helped send the Burden of Dreams, but is absolutely critical to alpinism, where it allows carrying a lot less gear and maintaining some margin of safety.

1. Sticky Rubber: No argument

2. Battery powered drills: Critical to practical development of sport climbing, which supports learning to perform hard movements and pushing grades.

3. Climbing Gyms: Ability to train and practice year-round, particularly for youths, when they are capable of seeing structural adaptations through puberty.

4. Cams: Decades ago, probably higher, but today, with less emphasis on trad climbing, it's moving down.

5. Kneepads: Opens new movement techniques that aren't practical otherwise.

Honorable mention: Shoe specialization. 

Crack gloves don't make my list. I like using them, but it's a convenience factor rather than performance over tape. Same for handheld radios.

Without question:: Nylon and other synthetic fibers. Ropes, runners and draws, clothing and shelter without which none of the rest of it would have been possible.

Lax ethics are the biggest innovation in sending the the last 50 years when it comes to making sending the same thing now accessible.  

Garrett Swankwrote:

Lax ethics are the biggest innovation in sending the the last 50 years when it comes to making sending the same thing now accessible.  

Counter point: The ethics of smashing metal bits into cracks (along with siege tactics), permanently altering the rock with every placement, is not as ethical as much of the climbing we do today.....but also the reason so many lines in places like the valley are even climbable.
Thanks for leaving a trace forefathers!

I wrote this a few weeks ago in a thread not really suited for it. Chouinard Hexentrics, and Stoppers. The advancement of free climbing standards from 1971 to '77/'78, 5.11.a/b to 5.13a/b, is  almost exactly equal to the total advancement since. Might add EB's to that. 

Garrett Swankwrote:

Lax ethics are the biggest innovation in sending the the last 50 years when it comes to making sending the same thing now accessible.  

There is a point here, but, first, I wouldn't call it ethics becoming more lax. It was an evolution of how the game was played coupled with a relaxing of rules. I was going to argue against the 50 year claim. But after thinking about it,  base on what I observed, it's pretty close. I would say 48 years and a little change. The evolution part has always been present. 

The adoption of nylon ropes was far more of a game changer than anything else. With natural fiber ropes, leader falls were off the table. Even after the developement of the dynamic belay, they were just too risky. Nylon changed all that.

I've seen 68 years of evolution. My baseline is laid nylon ropes (Goldline Columbia), board-lasted kletterschuhe with non-sticky rubber soles, bowline on a coil around the waist---soon replaced by a swami belt but no harnesses, soft-iron pitons---soon replaced by chromemolly, and hip belays.

A very large number of small technical changes, none perhaps an enormous leap forward by themselves,  still add up to some major shifts.  I think some of these minor changes are showing up on people's lists.  

I think there have been five big game-changers.  By far the most consequential is the increasingly portable battery-powered drill, and after that comes nuts and "clean" climbing,  Long's observations about cams and sticky rubber, and finally chalk (for its pervasive environmental impact, not for advantages conferred).  Although not tech, the profusion of climbing gyms and increasingly sophisticated training methods have had a huge impact.

"Ethics," as has already been emphasized, is a misapplied term.  What has changed is the rules of the game, restrictions climbers voluntarily impose on themselves in order to make the enterprise meaningful. "Meaning" has shifted from means to ends, something that is has been an ongoing progression since Americans came forward with an unambiguous definition of free climbing in the late 1950's.

Kneebar pads are not knee pads.

Kneebar pads are for knee bars, where the pressure is against the top of your knee and higher up the calf. You want sticky rubber and minimal padding. There is a fair chance you would only wear one if you knew where you were going to use it. There is a fair chance you would hang dog a route repeatedly figuring out where you even could use one before putting one on.

Knee pad are for crusty trad climbers and offwidth fools. The pressure is on the boney part of the knee or sometimes below, mostly while in a chimney, but also sometimes while kneeling in awkward belay stances instead of standing or crawling on hands and knees through some small and narrow passage. You want medium to a lot of padding... unless its a really tight offwidth. No rubber necessary. Can be worn below or above your pants. You would typically put them on if you knew there was going to be a section of chimney at all.

Get it right.

Re: nylon - I agree.

Shout out to LED headlamps. Approaching and climbing in the dark is a lot more fun with a near-weightless light source that is reliable for several days. Carrying a million batteries for an incandescent light is no fun and makes big days during the dark times of year less safe and appealing.

raincoats! They may be loaded with pfas and forever chemicals but they’re way more waterproof and lighter than waxed canvas 

Climbing Weaselwrote:

raincoats! They may be loaded with pfas and forever chemicals but they’re way more waterproof and lighter than waxed canvas 

And they're primarily made out of nylon. Imagine redpointing 5.12 with a hawser laid hemp rope in your wool knickers.

Wool knickers wouldn't be any problem. When I led my first, and last,  5.12's, I still had wool knickers,  for alpine stuff. One light pair, one heavy. 

While nylon democratised things there were silk ropes that performed similarly to later nylon ropes. I believe they were coveted by the French. 

Gyms I think have had by far the biggest impact. Are they tech? Idk, there certainly is technology involved. 

Offsets, both cams and nuts, were both of great benefit when they came along. 

Just looking at the top grades, the proliferation of sport climbing (not in itself a technological change, but greatly accelerated by battery powered drills) has had by far a bigger impact than gyms. 5.14d was already climbed in the pre-gym era, where if I recall correctly the last "new highest grade" to be climbed on gear was the Phoenix 5.13a. And that route was already  a departure from traditional tactics towards sport tactics due to the use of hangdogging.

Aaron Kwrote:

Just looking at the top grades, the proliferation of sport climbing (not in itself a technological change, but greatly accelerated by battery powered drills) has had by far a bigger impact than gyms. 5.14d was already climbed in the pre-gym era, where if I recall correctly the last "new highest grade" to be climbed on gear was the Phoenix 5.13a. And that route was already  a departure from traditional tactics towards sport tactics due to the use of hangdogging.

Yeah,  and I believe the second ascent of Phoenix was lead with hexentrics,  as was the first ascent of Grand Illusion. So what exactly actually constitutes an "advance" in climbing, and what actually constitutes an advance in equipment?

Don't get me wrong, there is a certain level of "cool" when better equipment allows a higher percentage of people to experience what previously few people could. It's not just climbing either. I have a distinct memory of being over on the "High Traverse", Sun Bowl specifically (Alpine Meadows),  in some challenging soft-ish breakable crust, and watching a guy on the new short fat skis making decent linked stem turns all the way down. That's "pretty cool" was my instant reaction. But the skis didn't make him a better skier. They helped him go places that previously would have been beyond his ability. 

Aaron Kwrote:

Just looking at the top grades, the proliferation of sport climbing (not in itself a technological change, but greatly accelerated by battery powered drills) has had by far a bigger impact than gyms.

I disagree, you need to look much more recent, it's hard to believe Ondra would be crushing as he does without the training facilities provided by gyms. Wolfgang Gulich understood this well and arguably made the first ascent of 9a. Ondra is the first example of gym kid to best climber in the world, I'd argue we have yet to see the full impact of gyms as you get more and more kids in the gym the impact will be even more drastic. 

While Chris sharma may have very quickly put up first ascents with practically no training, you will now find him in the gym, training for the next big proj.

I'd argue electric drills have hastened the bolting of these projects and definitely democratised this giving punters the chance to sport climb. But I don't think hand drilling would stop a highly motivated athlete, for example Tommy put up the dawn wall with no electric drill. 

Live Perchedwrote:

7. Crack Gloves: Basically, I suck as a climber in all venues, cracks included.  Ocun crack gloves make my terrible and painful technique applicable in many many cracks. Technology at work.

I gotta call you out on this, not because I think you’d be a better crack climber without, but because Hand Jammies are *at least* 30 years old, and they were invented specifically to do away with tape gloves, which have been in use for at least 50 years (I’ve a Vedauwoo book from the 70s that depicts climbers with taped-up hands).

Likewise for kneebar pads.

Neither of these bits of tech made any climbs “possible”, it just made it easier to repeatedly work routes that would otherwise be too physically painful for sustained efforts.

I think this also marks out cams as distinct from chocks and other “clean” gear. Prior to cams, parallel-sided cracks could often only be protected with pitons. Pitons can only be placed from free stances under very specific circumstances. So cams, like battery-powered drills, opened up a LOT of terrain to free climbing that prior technological advances did not. I’d argue that cams and power drills had a bigger impact than sticky rubber, but sticky rubber had a larger impact than chocks.

that guy named sebwrote:

I disagree, you need to look much more recent, it's hard to believe Ondra would be crushing as he does without the training facilities provided by gyms. Wolfgang Gulich understood this well and arguably made the first ascent of 9a. Ondra is the first example of gym kid to best climber in the world, I'd argue we have yet to see the full impact of gyms as you get more and more kids in the gym the impact will be even more drastic. 

While Chris sharma may have very quickly put up first ascents with practically no training, you will now find him in the gym, training for the next big proj.

I'd argue electric drills have hastened the bolting of these projects and definitely democratised this giving punters the chance to sport climb. But I don't think hand drilling would stop a highly motivated athlete, for example Tommy put up the dawn wall with no electric drill. 

From what I have read and heard, Ondra started climbing outside and just was climbing so much that he was also in the gym a lot?