Longest rock climb in the world?

We're having a debate over dinner, and wondered if you all can settle it.

What's the longest rock climb in the world? We're curious about rock, not mixed or alpine, although alpine rock certainly counts.

Could be measured either in pitches or in vertical gain.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Jeff

I was just reading about this today and I think this counts. Azeem ridge on the great trango tower.

This might be a contender:
The Calanques near Cassis...Perhaps most challenging is the Castelvieil, with its series of four transversal routes. Its total length of 8,200 feet (2,500 meters) makes it one of the longest rock-face routes in the world.
away.com/tripideas/cassis-p…

It would be more impressive if the route didn't traverse so much. Straightest line to the top. It should more or less avoid ice and snow, too. And, points if the route is free climbable. Any free routes on Mt. Thor in Baffin Island? ;-)

I would guess it would have to be on a low altitude peak. How many pitches do some of the routes on the right hand side of the Eiger go at?

Here is some pretty amazing info on the Azeem ridge on the great trango towers...

[edit] Recent ascents
Some of the more recent ascents on Great Trango have focused on the longer routes found on the west and south sides. In particular, in 2004 Josh Wharton and Kelly Cordes completed a new, very long (2,256 metre/7,400 ft) route on the Southwest Ridge, or Azeem Ridge, to the Southwest Summit. Though not as extremely technical as the East Face routes, the climb was notable for the extremely lightweight and fast (5 days) style in which it was done.[3]

Over 7 days in August 2005, two Slovak climbers, Gabo Cmarik and Jozef Kopold, climbed a new route, which they termed Assalam Alaikum, to the right of the Wharton/Cordes line on the south face of Great Trango. The climb comprised around 90 pitches, up to 5.11d A2. They used a lightweight style similar to that of Wharton and Cordes.[4]

In the same month, Samuel Johnson, Jonathon Clearwater and Jeremy Frimer made the first ascent of the southwest ridge of Trango II, which they termed Severance Ridge. The route involved 1,600 m of climbing over five days, with rock climbing up to 5.11 A2 and ice and mixed climbing up to AI3 M5.[5]

Also in August 2005, a South African team, composed of Peter Lazarus, Marianne Pretorius, James Pitman and Andreas Kiefer, climbed to the summit via the Slovenian route. Pretorius was the third woman to reach the summit.[6]

If you want to read more go to this link:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trang…

90 pitches? Yowza. That's quite a long route.

El Gigante in Chihuahua, Mexico has a bolted route that is 30 pitches long, all free climbing at 13a. It is @3,000' tall.

Trango Towers and such are alpine routes.

Tim Stich wrote:90 pitches?

a great day ~ :)

The Great Wall of China. It is the complete girdle traverse of the trapps in the Gunks. Over 9,000 feet long, may not be quality but it sure is alot of quantity.

Honnold just soloed El Gigante. 2 days after El Sendero... video coming soon.

manuel rangel wrote:El Gigante in Chihuahua, Mexico is 30 pitches long, all free climbing at 13a. It is @3,000' tall.

I think Muir Wall is a bit longer (3,200'ish), and Muir is not even the tallest in the world. The Trango Towers hosts the tallest vertical rock face in the world at about 4,300' "tall".

If we are talking about a vertical or near-vertical climb with no 4th class scrambling as part of the route or inordinate amounts of traversing/ ridge climbing, the Trango Towers is it. Anything longer than 4,000' is going to have a significant amount of traversing or ridge climbing, and then we start to push the line defining what can be appropriately considered "the longest."

J Meagher wrote:Supposedly a grade VIII route

Haha. What is grade VIII? Grade VII means "a week or longer," as in everything from seven days to infinite days.

20 kN wrote: Haha. What is grade VIII? Grade VII means "a week or longer," as in everything from seven days to infinite days.

Grade VIII means you will never finish it or infinite +1

Isn't Mount Thor on Baffin Island the tallest cliff on earth? Seems like that would make it's routes the longest on earth. Unless you're talking alpine stuff with lots of ridges, traverses, rappels and approach pitches.

Not to rehash old topics, but there seems to be little info on this subject snd just wanted to add some info: I climbed the Gunks traverse which was a bit over 9000 ft.. of traversing in the high 60’s of pitches. There are 2 other traverses like this, The West Vigina North Fork Mountain 7000ft Traverse, and another that traverses the cliffs above the sea in England at 1278m. There are a few pretty mega routes here in Norway like Stetind which is Norways national mountain. It has a 53 pitch route up it 1400m (4600ft) then there is the Troll Wall (1200m) which has reports of a 78 pitch climb if done all the way from the base. Wondering what other sneaky routes there are hiding around the world.

Worth seeing if this is true, I heard it was a girdle traverse in Yosemite that took the crown. I might be wrong, this is something Id like to know. 

Wide boys doing the bridge was pretty long, concrete is a rock by the strictest definition but it is manmade. 

This is the clear winner:

FrankPSwrote:

This is the clear winner:

came to post this

Nick Budkawrote:

Wide boys doing the bridge was pretty long, concrete is a rock by the strictest definition but it is manmade. 

 Rock needs to be natural occurring by the strictest definition.

Sorry my inner geologist couldn’t let that one go   

vincent walts wrote:

Btw, Speaking of Everest. A guy from Bangladesh died a few days ago, and the newspapers here said that it would take ten Sherpas and USD 50,000 to bring the body to the country before the climbing season ends.

So why are ten Sherpas needed? I heard bodies are sent in sledges. And why the high cost?

And btw, why arent there a single year, when no-one died on everest? And why arent there researches into improving safety?

Who's speaking of Everest?

 Bot.

FrankPSwrote:

This is the clear winner:

As noted above by "Anus Herder" (great name, btw), the North Fork Mountain traverse is slightly shorter than the Trapps traverse at the Gunks. So the Gunks wins on length. Though to me North Fork Mountain has a better line and aesthetic appeal since it's a rising traverse - it just looks more like an obvious objective. And that video is a classic.