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scuffy b
climber
dissected alluvial deposits, late Pleistocene
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That does look like a really cool crack, Jaybro.
(as if that's a crack to learn on, lol)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dood, shouldn't the appropriate paraphrase be: "just when I thought I was in - it pushed me out!"
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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5.8 Churchbowl Terrace chimney
Great gear if I remember, Hand jams in the back..
Probably soft for the grade, since I scraped up it.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Scuff,
Interesting issue to discuss, certainly. As our very own Werner has stated repeatedly, offwidth climbing is the hardest form and is the least intuitive.
I would also point out that if you can get a knee in and even get a thigh in, you don’t really have a problem--- go make of it what thou shalt. Rather I am dealing here with real cruxes.
Stacking is seductive to climbers and brings them back to their mundane ways of thinking--- hanging off their hands and failing to establish one’s network of counterforces that is critical to upper level wide leading; it also brings them out of the extremely useful planes of the rock (as you say especially obvious in dihedrals too) and gets them inchworming instead in a fist-jamming plus knee-lock manner “in front of the rock”. I stacked hands all the way back to the sixties Steve---this is not some secret of the Universe just recently grasped---- and as you know I did all the hard wide leads up to 1976. But during those leads I only rarely stacked and only in a modified, brief problem-solving half-move only or something similar that is not really to cause you to leave those important rock planes that are actually your big friends in the situation, namely not to leave the counterforce scheme, and not to leave the offwidth posture and contract.
We also have the issue of energy conservation to consider here. Quite often one can get pretty reasonable semi-rests while classically installed in tough offwidths; to be outside instead doing the inchworm thing is more exhausting---you’re fist-jamming now sort of and if it is not very tiring to be stacking and you have these giant knee locks, as I said, you don’t have a problem.
With the motive of passing on my offwidth knowledge to a bunch of people here on ST, I am trying to keep the issues clear and warn those learning off of any fantasy cure-alls and try to keep the importance of classic counterforce climbing clear and in the forefront, however difficult and unintuitive it is. Rather than shunting off into tangential ideas and apocrypha, they must address this whole “wide” segment of climbing at its core. It also has further payoffs when you get into severe stemming problems also, by the way, as you try to equalize, lock, and progress when you are stemming in a 4-dimensional isometric hell where only a certain sequence of these often huge body forces will allow you to climb. And as always,--back to offwidth---doing loads and loads of wide is essential. Not five or ten---no, many dozens of them at all difficulties, not just super hard ones, and not loads of artificial ones either. This all for establishing as you say, the “stroke” and getting your chops and a huge and major core down so you are out of your own way. And of course it is necessary to keep up your “stroke”, as you will lose a good part of it through disuse. And you have to have supreme cardio--- no way around it. Don't expect to be pleased with your experiences here if you are not pretty amazing for P&R.
Familiar examples: For me the crux on the Twilight Zone was actually a real offwidth where my knee soon could not go in just as the dihedral began to overhang considerably; but because the crack had tightened down I then could get weak fist jams way deep in it at about 4”, maybe lightly less but modified ones with armbar as part of their value. Meanwhile I still maintained the strict offwidth posture, left side way in, left knee begging to get in and its foot doing foot jams that were also trying to get stuck while meanwhile the right foot was finding all those edges out on the dihedral face that cap the crux off at only 5.10D. The right hand was gobbling up the wonderful crack edge in a classical raised elbow almost chickenwing manner, but interestingly sometimes actually it was also taking a brief fist jam or two that could cope with the existing sequence plan and these with the right arm were done overhead in conjunction with the left arm but not in a stack---namely I remember reaching over my head with my right hand to briefly fist jam over my head as I would make some of those overhanging moves. Without that pile of big edges out there for the right foot, that lead turns to 5.11a in my view. There actually are poor souls that have gotten tunnel vision here and just gunned the sucker and did not even see the holds out there. Oh and there are features inside the crack but not really big ones.
Now if a tinier climber was up there---certainly not able to fist jam those 15 feet or so before it backs off---I think his lead is harder but to stack there means you ain’t got no arm bar, your back against the main wall is not happening or is at least bitchy, flakey and not powerfully useful and the vertical edges on the right are useless without that back to oppose them...and how would this climber---now quite overhung---get to move his hands up when he can’t get a knee or thigh in? So the smaller climber is best to keep---along with everyone else---the classic offwidth position and armbar it and mack on the footholds---after all the crack edge is incredibly good and you don’t have too terribly far to go; you can even see where it lets up.
There are other examples. Left side of the Slack is too wide to fist I remember and is overhanging in the crux. Mostly your knee is going in and the edge is excellent and has variety. The main wall is not terrifically steep as I recall. It is more a left side of Reed’s with a little more angle and a little longer. The left arm bar and left foot are critical here and that right hand on the edge that can create little ‘stations’ too. Stacking here would be ludicrous and it is not clear to me how you would repeatedly move up if you got your two hands stuck together.
Basketcase crux was quite overhanging in the part up to the crux. It’s left side in. You get your knee in at first and soon that starts to lose out and fists are kind of available but also peter out as it widens again just below the business section. By this point you are not too overhanging above you, just your lower body. You have gone maybe forty feet from the belayer. The crack loses its wonderful edge to a fat 45 degree edgeless facet that is all you get for 5 feet while inside the crack there is absolutely no feature whatsoever. Nor on the main wall, nor on the dihedral face. It is amazingly smooth, like a bathtub. You also can’t see it from below. Here because your lower body wants to dangle while you fight that exact tendency and at your chest there is nothing but the purest armbar with the left and nothing positive but the facet for the right while your back does lie against the main wall, the crux continues for perhaps five feet to suddenly end in a huge pod. If you were to stack hands in the crux while your knee was not able to insert, you would be simply trapped by your own invention. Plus I highly highly doubt you could even initiate a stack it is that hard there, that smooth, that unfavorable in almost all respects.
So there are three much-fabled offwidths and stacking does not serve as important solutions in any of them. Stacking is only one of the tools to use; it is not smart to throw the counterforce scheme away to hang on your arms just because you can for a move. Rather, just include stacking along with all the little foot tricks you have: the inverted elbows, knee and thigh locks, various ways of pivoting and moving upwards---if only for a 1/2” at a time---that avoid what otherwise would be impossible friction, specially trained hip and butt movements that just have to be learned in place.
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PellucidWombat
Mountain climber
Berkeley, CA
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I'm sure that would help you a ton, especially on nice slick offwidths like the OW on Travelers Buttress. The OP on the SP thread should try that one out
On the list for this month. I'm looking forward to it!
And thanks for the learnin', Pete. I'm all ears on what the gurus have to say on the wyde technique :-P~
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murcy
Gym climber
sanfrancisco
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Applause to you all who've taken a sneering troll OP and turned it into a fascinating thread.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Roger on that Murcy. Definitely.
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PellucidWombat
Mountain climber
Berkeley, CA
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5.8 Churchbowl Terrace chimney
Great gear if I remember, Hand jams in the back..
Probably soft for the grade, since I scraped up it.
The back crack was wet when I climbed it, and since we had a TR set up it seemed like a nice challenge to climb straight up the chimney flare without using the hand jam. It wasn't too bad until the front-face steepened up and got a little wet, but that just forced you to learn to use your inside leg more. :-D
That crack, though awkward to reach, provides bomber pro all the way up so perhaps this route would be a good & safe way to practice leading such chimneys? (i.e. hard flares but bomber pro).
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Good on you Pellucid! That is a really pretty pitch isn't it. Highly recommended. Is it done often these days?
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PellucidWombat
Mountain climber
Berkeley, CA
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aww, pictures are fun. Despite not even being included as a route in the SuperTopo guide, I actually liked this chimney a lot more than Churchbowl Chimney
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PellucidWombat
Mountain climber
Berkeley, CA
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Peter - I have no idea. The rock is already either pretty smooth (no more flakes to rip off) or mossy (during the winter with water dripping down), so there weren't any obvious signs of people climbing it recently.
Since I had just barely led Churchbowl Chimney before TRing this one after the rappel (highly recommended. Clean on my first try, but battered & bruised in the shoulders & knee caps - owwwww), I felt humbled before the twisted beast that real Valley chimney climbing can be. With the legwork required, I also really understood the concept of offset cams THAT much better! I did less stemming than Vitaly and attempted to let my hips, knees, & feet cam more naturally into the flare rather than trying to hold a stemming position, but still splayed between the legs to fight that outward flare.
Thinking about the easy pro, though, now that I'm more open to pushing my leading comfort zone, I want to go back once the Valley has cooled off and lead the thing, but without jamming the inside/pro crack.
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426
climber
☬
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//I'm sure that would help you a ton, especially on nice slick offwidths like the OW on Travelers Buttress. The OP on the SP thread should try that one out
I groveled, groaned, and cried for about 5 minutes, then gave up the lead to my partner and had to pull on gear to follow.
Yikes.
Wiped out after that route; pretty much off the couch, though.//
Another nice un at the Lover's is the P. Haan variation to the North Face. Expect spiderwebs and some crumbles; felt about the same as Traveler's to me, but climbs different....very cool position too.
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scuffy b
climber
dissected alluvial deposits, late Pleistocene
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Cheers, Peter.
At this point I've only made my first reading of your post, so things haven't really sunk in yet.
I'll say more about the videos, though, on the subject of arm bar vs.
stacking.
I have watched a lot of people in that crack, and I've climbed it a lot.
I've never used a stack in it. My attitude is always "why bother?"
The progress is so easy with the armbars there's no reason to stop until
the first fist jam.
This applies to the video. He is just strolling the lower part, but is eager
to switch techniques as soon as he can get a good hand/fist stack. Because
it's been so hard and he needs something easier? Please. He makes the
armbar moves look almost trivial. Does he make the stacking section look
easier?
It's really common to see this.
If it looked like the stacking reduced the difficulty I'd be all over
making the change, but most people make it look like getting that first
stack to work is the crux.
I say (in this particular case) at least think about staying with the moves
that got you there.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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That's pretty much what I am saying as well, Steve-Scuffy. Exactly.
We see the tendency to leave when ever possible, real offwidth-think and get back to hanging off the arms, beginner-style. And thus my highly detailed emphasis on trying to really get people to think offwidth. If they don't, they won't be able to climb the harder ones.
Quite often, remaining in an offwidth position is basically a rest when it would be a lot of pulling down were you to be stacking, so 'why bother' yes.
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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I say (in this particular case) at least think about staying with the moves
that got you there.
As my friend says about fishing: "you don't leave fish to go find fish."
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Over The years i do a lot of things differently that I used to. I used to be convinced that there was no reason to employ stacks until 5.12, that stacking on a ten or eleven was poor technique. Thus I considered Bad Ass Momma to be five twelve. But then came Mother Superior, clearly not five twelve... hmmm....
These days I throw the odd stack in all over the places. A lot of time it's a better rest.
Watching Pam do the right tube changed my approach to that one. Instead of the deep fists i used to climb it on 1980 I saw that there is a weird chicken wing right at the lip. That followed by the fist from hell is my current technique.
Scuffy, that photo is Wormdrive, you should do it when you come out in August. .11b in the book, it felt a whole number grade harder to me. I want to see what you think.
No inversion necessary
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Johnny K.
climber
Southern California
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That is a great perspective to look from Jaybro.Much respect!
Its all relevant to a degree,but OW/Cracks are so much fun because it is all size dependent and differentiates from each persons size.What works for one person might not work for another person and change the grade entirely.One person might cruise through with chicken wings and stacks,when someone else might struggle with fists or vice versa.The never ending limitations of imagination with ow/crack is amazing.
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PellucidWombat
Mountain climber
Berkeley, CA
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For my personal experience climbing in that crack, I move to hand stacks because for the width in that section my hands and legs sink in so solidly there that I find it easier to keep things more restful than maintaining the arm bar as the crack narrows, and especially because I can give the hot spot on my bridging heel & toe a break and work different muscles.
However, if the crack changed to where I couldn't stack anymore, I can see how it would be really awkward to get back into sticking one side of your body into the crack. So I think I get what you're saying about staying with the position that got you there, especially if you don't know how the crack will change higher up! Plus, I have noticed that when I downclimb the crack, I just go right from jamming in the bombay to facing right-side in instead of attempting to downclimb with hand stacks.
So I think using hand stacking probably commits you more to only moving in one direction (up) as well as committing you more to facing in to the crack?
Great discussion!
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scuffy b
climber
dissected alluvial deposits, late Pleistocene
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Thanks for the post, I was just thinking about it.
I may be coming off a little more preachy than I ought.
I've been meaning to ask (and forgetting to) whether you actually
find it to be easier when you switch to stacks, and here you are with
a cogent response to my unasked question.
I'll say, though, (am I repeating myself?) that most people don't actually
make it look like the stacking is easier, though they seem relieved when
they make the switch.
Stacks can, for sure, let you make longer moves, and at times that can
allow you to skip a short crux (what would be a crux in armbars). Like if
you have to pull a knee out for one or two moves, stacking might let you
stay on solid knee jams the whole way.
What you say about downclimbing is right. It's possible to downclimb at
really high speeds using armbars, at least in an offset, with little effort
and good security.
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