New and experienced climbers over 50 #36

GabeOwrote:

Great shots, thanks for sharing!  Some of those it's hard to believe were taken before the existence of drones! 

GO

The plane I was in wasn’t much bigger than some drones….

One flight was courtesy of an old gunks climber “Dr Tim”.  And the other was in trade for washing the guys plane which included a flight lesson, I got to take off and fly to Po-town. I was taking 3D stereo pairs of cliffs.

GabeOwrote:

Thank you John. Here's another excellent obit from The Times.

Today, finally after all the rain, the weather cooperated and we had a nice day, despite crowds, at Main Cliff. Highlights of the day for me were 1 - Watching my daughter do a great job on a longish climb - first time she decided to go to the top. There's a killer view from the top of her climb, too, and she really enjoyed it. And 2 - I got on a new (for me) 11+ at Main Cliff called Mitosis.  Almost flashed it. Got it on the third try.

And Carl, I too hope your grandson is okay. 

GO

I missed the only good day of the weekend. Paula insisted that we go home early to get our daughter so I went to the gym.  Nice work on Mitosis, my brother put that one up.

Millbrook taken from a flight with Dr Tim.

Emil Briggswrote:

Well fossil is correct that it's usually harder and more committing to lead than to follow....

Sure...but...the graded difficulty of the route doesn't change, IMHO.  A 5.10, a 5.10R, 5.10X are all the same difficulty.  Regardless of whether the route is led, followed, top roped, or soloed.

For me, having climbed a fair number of routes over the years that didn't have a consensus grade, I think its easier to guess at a difficulty after climbing the route on top rope.  Allows more concentration on the moves themselves and leader head, mood, trust in a partner, lack of pro, etc, don't come as much into play.  Having a partner who has an opinion is helpful as well.  And then try to hash it out.  

Height, hand size, etc, all can make a big difference in perception of difficulty.  And it's all a guess anyhow.  Consensus grades, as much as some folks dislike them, allow folks to express what they think.  And...that's ok.

Used to debate grades a bunch more than I do now.  Matters less to me now other than as a scale to get an idear if I'm going to have my arse handed to me or not.  And I think focusing too much on the grades is an indication of an ego issue of sorts...(ha!).

Comparisons, history, experience.  Lori's opinion of a grade is interesting...after all, she climbs with Bob, who wrote a guidebook on Tahquitz, where the YDS was invented...so she's kinda closer to the source than maybe most.  Ha ha.

Used to climb with a friend who spent time at Tahquitz and I dimly recall knew Chuck Wilts.  He never led.  But, always would chime in with an opinion on the difficulty of the routes we climbed.  "Well....that would be 5.6 at Tahquitz" he'd say.  Usually reminding me as well of his history of climbing there.  In the 50's and on.  Always gave me a chuckle.

The grade is not affected. The sense of commitment is. I think this is the thrust of Fossil's post.

I’m glad to be revisiting this subject. I frequently go back and consider whether I want to use my rack and ropes and restart that journey. But it was kind of like my decision to sell my motorcycle – – I knew it wasn’t “if” but  “when” I would lay that bike down.  I didn’t love it that much so, easy decision. 

This piece is more for my edification – – probably no one else will care. But I’ve certainly climbed with good friends and other Guides and I can say that they were a very different experience from Climbing with Bob. In the former there have been people committed to getting me to the top of a route expeditiously.  I was with such a person earlier this year and wanted to check out a 10d route I had been looking at.  Man, I flew up that thing!  That was like a Disneyland ride!  I could never claim to be a 10d climber after that, I had a 10d belayer.   

I am appreciating way more than ever the skill of a belayer, who keeps just enough tension to prevent a serious fall, but allows me to roam and climb freely as though the rope were not there.  

That’s how it goes with Bob. I have left many routes that I tried and failed. Bob will offer extra coaching, but he’s not going to climb for me.  Yesterday was such an example.  I was on a short 10 a/b slab.  There were just a couple of key moves that I couldn’t get—some tiny crimps I couldn’t hang on to, a very thin edge for one foot.  I was almost there, but clearly not strong enough to pull up. After I was totally worn out, we called it a day had left.  No hauling.

So I think in terms of Climbing itself, it’s honest. But I don’t know and don’t want to know the adrenaline of a run out on lead.  If I lived in a sport climbing area, I’d lead easier routes for sure.  Gosh, where is Russ when I need him? He called it straight last time we had this conversation.  something to do with the importance of unbroken hips….   

Random pics. I went back to Bald Mountain Jeep trail making sure to keep the soles of my shoes clean before starting any problem.  Tomatoes looking good but a few weeks from picking any.  Thank you Cal Fire

If you're getting tension on the rope, that's a whole different story. There are plenty of safe leads in Southern California. 

fossilwrote:

Lori,

 You are right you are not qualified to opine on difficulty grades on mountain project. Opinions should be based upon  “a lead experience”  not a top rope. When unqualified people opine as to the difficulty of routes on mountain project it tends to skew the rating to be more difficult that the climb may actually be. 

I actually think you have it backward.  The difficulty grade on a climb is based on the difficulty of the climbing.  A route that is 5.9 X should feel the same on toprope as a route that is 5.9 G.  So, by definition, a toproper is *more* qualified to judge the grade than a leader, since the leader's experience will be vastly different on the two routes.  Further, grades are entirely subjective.  What I mean by subjective is that if I'm a well-rounded climber, a 5.10 should generally feel harder to me than a 5.9.  With "feel" and "to me" being the operative words in the sentence.  So for someone who only topropes, they should develop a fine-grained sense of the relative difficulty of toproping a variety of routes at a variety of grades, and should become quite adept at assigning a grade based on their personal and very consistent experience.  So the fact that Lori pretty much always climbs similar styles of routes in one place, with one person, makes her *much* more adept at assigning a grade for a slab route in Joshua Tree than I would be, despite me having many more years of climbing experience than she.  

I'd say I hold myself to a reasonable standard too, and so there are many routes I will not grade, because I fear I'm not qualified to do so.  But my criteria seems to be vastly different from yours, Fossil.  Here are my reasons for withholding a grade after I climb something:

1. I did not climb it cleanly.  Especially if I rested or fell numerous times.  Many climbs have an endurance factor, and are impossible to judge without stringing all of the moves together.
2. The route is far below my difficulty level.  I have next to no ability to make fine-grained judgements about two routes that feel easy to me, even if they are number grades apart.  However two routes that are at the edge of my ability may feel vastly different, even if they are only a letter grade apart.
3. I have very little experience with that style of climbing.  Especially at a new area where I've done very little climbing.

Based on all of the above, I'd say Lori is eminently qualified to judge the difficulty grade of any routes she gets clean on TR that are near her difficulty limit. 

You have, on a few occasions, talked of committing to a move, or your lack of being able to do so, to me personally unless you are on the sharp end of the rope anything you may be perceiving as commitment is an illusion. Commitment involves consequences, the only consequence you are risking on a top rope is your disappointment that you can not crank as hard as you thought you could. Disappointing yes, but hardly life threatening.

Just the ranting of an old dude who holds himself (and thereby others as well) to a high standard.  >^..^<

Well this is just being pedantic.  Of course there are different levels of commitment.  Committing to a move on TR is a much smaller commitment than committing to, say, an unstable cornice high in the Himalayas where the wrong choice may have dire consequences on a whole team.  Does that mean one person doesn't get to use the word and the other person does?  If only the latter "counts", then should I get to talk about commitment?  Should you?  Why should your standard on your climbs have anything to do with Lori's on hers?  Commitment is simply the ability to determine the best course of action, and then the ability to "shit or get off the pot".

I climb from time to time with someone with big commitment issues.  He climbs far below his physical ability because he dithers too much (I know, because I often do it too).  This especially limits him on overhanging routes where I see him get pumped out by spending most of his time feeling out holds in the crux until he falls.  I recently encouraged him to commit to a sequence which I could see he knew was the right one, and boom, he did it.  That was the difference between success and failure, and it hinged on commitment.  How would it help discuss the issue to eliminate that word?

I have to say, it feels like the only purpose of both of your points is to diminish the value of Lori's experience.  Why bother?  Does popping someone else's bubble because they don't measure up to your "high standard" help anyone here?  If your post is not helping anyone, what purpose is it serving?

Lori can look after herself, but others might think twice about posting if they feel the "high standard" police are looking over their shoulders to inform them that they don't measure up.  I'm all for calling BS where I see it, but I think that's a far cry from just diminishing someone's experience.

GO

During President Donald Trump’s first term, farmers nabbed $24 billion to compensate themselves for retaliatory tariffs resulting from Trump’s trade war. This included China’s 25 percent retaliatory tariff on U.S. soybeans.

“Then, in 2024, even as candidate Trump promised a more aggressive trade war that could cripple the farm economy, rural voters nonetheless preferred Trump to Kamala Harris by a 30-point margin. Trump earned a staggering 78 percent of the vote in the 444 counties most heavily dependent on farming,” said Riedl, a senior fellow with conservative think tank Manhattan Institute. “… In short, farm country voted overwhelmingly to unleash a new trade war, and now these same farmers and their political leaders want taxpayers to finance another round of bailouts to protect them from the consequences of their own votes.. 

GabeOwrote:

I actually think you have it backward.  The difficulty grade on a climb is based on the difficulty of the climbing.  A route that is 5.9 X should feel the same on toprope as a route that is 5.9 G.  So, by definition, a toproper is *more* qualified to judge the grade than a leader, since the leader's experience will be vastly different on the two routes.  Further, grades are entirely subjective.  What I mean by subjective is that if I'm a well-rounded climber, a 5.10 should generally feel harder to me than a 5.9.  With "feel" and "to me" being the operative words in the sentence.  So for someone who only topropes, they should develop a fine-grained sense of the relative difficulty of toproping a variety of routes at a variety of grades, and should become quite adept at assigning a grade based on their personal and very consistent experience.  So the fact that Lori pretty much always climbs similar styles of routes in one place, with one person, makes her *much* more adept at assigning a grade for a slab route in Joshua Tree than I would be, despite me having many more years of climbing experience than she.  

I'd say I hold myself to a reasonable standard too, and so there are many routes I will not grade, because I fear I'm not qualified to do so.  But my criteria seems to be vastly different from yours, Fossil.  Here are my reasons for withholding a grade after I climb something:

1. I did not climb it cleanly.  Especially if I rested or fell numerous times.  Many climbs have an endurance factor, and are impossible to judge without stringing all of the moves together.
2. The route is far below my difficulty level.  I have next to no ability to make fine-grained judgements about two routes that feel easy to me, even if they are number grades apart.  However two routes that are at the edge of my ability may feel vastly different, even if they are only a letter grade apart.
3. I have very little experience with that style of climbing.  Especially at a new area where I've done very little climbing.

Based on all of the above, I'd say Lori is eminently qualified to judge the difficulty grade of any routes she gets clean on TR that are near her difficulty limit. 

Well this is just being pedantic.  Of course there are different levels of commitment.  Committing to a move on TR is a much smaller commitment than committing to, say, an unstable cornice high in the Himalayas where the wrong choice may have dire consequences on a whole team.  Does that mean one person doesn't get to use the word and the other person does?  If only the latter "counts", then should I get to talk about commitment?  Should you?  Why should your standard on your climbs have anything to do with Lori's on hers?  Commitment is simply the ability to determine the best course of action, and then the ability to "shit or get off the pot".

I climb from time to time with someone with big commitment issues.  He climbs far below his physical ability because he dithers too much (I know, because I often do it too).  This especially limits him on overhanging routes where I see him get pumped out by spending most of his time feeling out holds in the crux until he falls.  I recently encouraged him to commit to a sequence which I could see he knew was the right one, and boom, he did it.  That was the difference between success and failure, and it hinged on commitment.  How would it help discuss the issue to eliminate that word?

I have to say, it feels like the only purpose of both of your points is to diminish the value of Lori's experience.  Why bother?  Does popping someone else's bubble because they don't measure up to your "high standard" help anyone here?  If your post is not helping anyone, what purpose is it serving?

Lori can look after herself, but others might think twice about posting if they feel the "high standard" police are looking over their shoulders to inform them that they don't measure up.  I'm all for calling BS where I see it, but I think that's a far cry from just diminishing someone's experience.

GO

I don't think the primary goal of people responding to Lori's post was to criticize her for not leading, or to invalidate her opinion on grades based solely on toproping routes. It's more that most people who lead, especially on trad gear, agree that a climb is rated according to how hard it feels to lead cleanly, not how hard the moves feel toprope.

When Chris Sharma sent Realization for the first 5.15a ever, imagine if someone came along and "did it clean" on toprope and said it wasn't 5.15a, it was 5.14d. I think that person would have faced ridicule! You aren't "prohibited" from giving a rating if you've toproped and not led a route, you just ought to be transparent about it (so it's nice MP lets people specify a tick was on TR and not lead, I give comments from leaders a lot more weight). 

There are plenty of long stout 5.9 cracks out there that might feel "easy" on toprope, but will feel a number grade harder while carrying say a double set of cams to 3 inches plus 15 slings and draws and an anchor!  Especially if the placements have to be made during liebacks, or off-hands. An experinced climber knows not to rate that route 5.8 after floating it on toprope...

Lori Milaswrote:

 but it sounds insulting

Oh brother, I really do have to watch the late night intoxicated shit posting…

Lori, what I said was not intended as an insult, I am just suggesting that you have to be solid at a given grade to assign meaningful and reasonably accurate ratings to a climb.

 Emil captures it quite well with this… “Experienced climbers can usually come reasonably close as long as the route is within their limits. If near your limit or harder then yeah it's hard to judge it accurately.”

Gabe I see your points, but ratings are supposed to represent the onsite lead difficulty level, so if you are unable to lead the route, your opinion of its difficulty doesn’t count for much. If that is harsh of me then so be it. I thought we were a bunch of old people talking about climbing, I am not trying to burst anyone’s bubble, I am just stating an opinion. Why does that seem to set some of you off onto this “you are so mean” attitude?

Here’s a mountain project example in my area where the opinions of people without proper technique are bumping the grade of a climb beyond what it actually is.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106745061/titus

Is this dangerous? Probably not, but it will lead to beginning offwidthers thinking they have accomplished more than they actually have, which will lead to some punishment when they encounter real 10b offwidth.

Meanwhile, I am not dissing top roping, since I do plenty of it, but you cannot deny it takes the teeth out of climbing and that is why we all like it. It doesn’t demand much from us mentally and allows us to focus on movement without fearing the consequences.

Here’s maybe an interesting thought…

Our actual climbing ability is what we can do unroped with no backups, trusting our abilities. Anytime we use protection on a lead, or breakout a top rope we are propping up our ability by easing anxiety on the mind.

I will be waiting for the sounds of bursting bubbles.

 I’m outa here.

in a perfect world ratings would be for the onsight  but in reality they are almost always rated by the locals that have the rt dialed so its usually a redpoint grade and not an onsight grade. I can see that for a sport climb but it would be super nice if multi pitch trad was rated for onsite rather than redpoint.  I have been around the block enough so that I can absolutely give an accurate grade  on 2nd. What does burn me is that  friend we all know who downgrades your route without  actually sending it clean. Friend of mine was hanging on the rope at the crux of the 10+ that Isa and I put up for her 50th birthday. While hanging there spanked on tr he declared it was 10a . the kid who actually got the 2nd  free ascent of the route on lead called it 12a which confirmed the 10+ rating ;). just recently  a friend of mine did not finish one of my climbs on TR because he was healing from surgery. Without climbing the crux , hanging and getting lowered from about 2/3rds of the way up he downgraded from 5.9 to 5.8.... some folks just can't give it a rest... 

Norm Larsonwrote:

Speaking of stemming problems look at this beautiful weasel’s technique. And free solo to boot. 

If only my knees went the other way. 

I might enjoy wide chimneys. 

fossilwrote:

Oh brother, I really do have to watch the late night intoxicated shit posting…

Lori, what I said was not intended as an insult, I am just suggesting that you have to be solid at a given grade to assign meaningful and reasonably accurate ratings to a climb.

 I will be waiting for the sounds of bursting bubbles.

 I’m outa here.

You sound like an old fossil.    

No harm, no foul.  I feel like I know you well enough already to know you just blurt and you don't mean harm.  (Not to diminish what you are saying.)  

I don't mean to be touchy, fossil.  But two things conflict for me... I made such a major move to Joshua Tree, upending my life, to live here and climb at a late age.  AND, I know that, especially here, 'real climbers' are seasoned trad climbers, on lead.  So, referring to "only" top roping, "just" top roping is a bit of a trigger.  I already know this!   

There is not a day when I'm out and about when I don't see routes put up, bitd, by incredible athletes.  Some of them post here.  So I initially thought that maybe what I am is a 'docent-in-training'--one of those guides who could show the busloads of tourists around this Park, and point out some of the great accomplishments here.      But I've come to think, I AM a climber.  I have a right to say that.  

I am guessing that every climber has this curse: there is always someone, or a whole group of people, who are better climbers.  But let's also point out that nearly every one I know is sedentary and pretty much finished with adventure.  So all of us are somewhere on the right side of the bell-curve of life/aging and there's something to be said for that.  

---

So, I'm taking a brief step-back from climbing (hard), to regroup, and to heal some nagging pains.  I never got to my full-strength this year.  I have become fatigued.  I plan to take this summer, go visit my kids and grandkids, sit in A LOT of water/lakes, eat well, and maybe hit the gym--and certainly hike around here.   I really want to know if I can get strong enough to climb some of the routes I have been lusting after... or not.  

BTW... my new friend just shared his visit to Brain Death, right where I hike.  Maybe someone here should go climb that. (I had just taken a picture of that rock, but wasn't sure if I was looking at something special or not.)   More things to visit while I'm hiking!  

Rich Rosswrote:

Millbrook taken from a flight with Dr Tim.

And we lived to tell about it!

oldfattradguuy kkwrote:

And we lived to tell about it!

Are you sure?

Rich Romano on crux of Sweet Meat 5.9 at Millbrook circa 2012?

So, about 3 summers ago, I happened to climb an almost brand new route, at COR, like, 2 days old or something, lol. We knew there was new bolts, but had pretty much no information, except it was supposed to be easy. I was familiar with the wall, but it had not been bolted in the past, just left for stronger climbers to hike up around top, and set trad anchors for young people and such. And, that's exactly who I had been there with previously, a guy who was taking young people out for their first time climbing. Later, the powers that be at COR decided it would be okay to put some anchors on it, and a route or 3, bolted.

Partner and I looked it over, he led it, and it was a nice route.

Now, I didn't see any need to lead it, but, I had promised my feedback, so when I climbed it, I took full advantage of that top rope. I made sure to "visit" every bolt, but I also approached each bolt from different angles, seeing how it might go. Mind you, I'm only 4'11" and a bit, so I emulate a kid pretty well.

And? 

"It goes!" 

It was nice to be able to tell the FA/developer that they had a very friendly route, with lots of fun alternatives. BOTH as a lead, and for kids of any age to just dink around on, wander around the wall a bit, and do this climbing thing. Basically, 5.6 generally, maybe a slightly 5.7 ish thing for a new leader, and that was probably just trying to get off the ground to start.

A later trip, to the same wall?

"Oh look! Another bolt line!"

"Wow, this is spicy, I'm not trying that bit."

We went back. My friend kept trying the lead. Over and over and over. Why wouldn't this thing go??

Then finally learning that someone had added what looked to be a sport route, but really, if you lack any confidence in the do not fall part?

Better bring some gear. 

Ah yes....another bolted line that needs a dinky bit of gear. 

Another time, I was last, in our group of three, so I got to clean the very old, and old school, route up Bath rock.

All 3 pieces.

In 210 feet. 

First trip to City is only a bit more than a week! I'm so looking forward to it. COR is just, I dunno, my place. Like Lori and Joshua Tree. Anyone else have a place like that? Climbing, sure, but even if you're legs were broken, you'd go there anyway?

Best, Helen