Discussion Topic |
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:31am PT
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I would certainly do that.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:34am PT
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That's how I free gym routes. A few moves a day and then claim it!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:44am PT
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Joe, yeah. The lines are getting more and more blurred, just as we all feared.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:49am PT
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Are you saying, for example, that a team free climbs to the Roof on the Salathe and then fixes ropes down to Block to spend the night, jugs back up to their high point the next day and carries on free climbing, that there is something wrong with that?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Aug 27, 2013 - 01:07am PT
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Joe,
If you're serious, using Mark's example, if they haul portaledges to the Roof and bivvy there, you would consider that free, but if they rap down and sleep on the Block, then jumar back up to the Roof the next day, that is not free. I agree with Mark - I don't think the hanging/bivy location and jugging makes any difference - they are still freeing the same blocks of pitches each day.
If they went down from the wall, came back the next year, and started at their old highpoint, maybe that is what you are thinking of - they would get a big rest in between.
Or maybe you are thinking that any use of ascenders invalidates a free ascent. That's simple enough, but then it would require portaledges or very careful planning.
There are alternative criticisms - where hanging belays are not allowed for a free ascent.
See Matt Wilder's 2002 attempt to free the West Buttress without hanging belays:
http://www.stanford.edu/%7Eclint/yos/longhf.htm#westb
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Aug 27, 2013 - 01:52am PT
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I like the idea of having el cap as a giant top rope.
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jfailing
Trad climber
PDX, North Slope, The Open Road
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Aug 27, 2013 - 01:59am PT
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I think about it this way - if I successfully freed (without falling) several 5.12-5.13 pitches on El Cap, and there was a plush bivy ledge several pitches below me, I would much rather rest/sleep there than have to haul kit and sleep in a cramped portaledge (after having sent El Cap 5.13 for that matter).
If it's a question of actually leaving the wall, back to the valley, then I agree with you. But rapping to a previous (or higher maybe) point on the wall? S'cool.
Why couldn't you just climb back up to your highpoint, instead of jumaring?
So you're suggesting that to make it a valid free attempt, you'd have to reclimb those exact same pitches of low-probability 5.13 all over again just to get back up to your high-point? To be able to claim a valid ascent?
The accomplishment of freeing any route on El Cap warrants sleeping/resting at the most optimum bivy (in my opinion)...
There are certainly some parties that do agree with you though - Leo Houlding, although rehearsing to a degree, eventually freed The Prophet ground up (correct me if I'm wrong). Although there may have been some pre-stashed gear?
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Nohea
Trad climber
Living Outside the Statist Quo
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Aug 27, 2013 - 02:02am PT
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Who cares? Let each choose their path. If their spray is more than you can take, check out a different thread.
But seriously...who cares?
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giegs
climber
Tardistan
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Aug 27, 2013 - 02:08am PT
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Didn't Houlding preview the route on rappel after tons of failed attempts only to find he was going the wrong direction?
Ya'll are older than me and fly the curmudgeon flag a bit higher than I'm willing, but aren't you willing to see how completely badass it is to push a free route up el cap? It's not like we're talking about yo-yoing pitches here. Sure, you could free solo that sh#t from the ground up if you're not a pussy, but let's be honest, we're all bitchmade.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
extraordinaire
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Aug 27, 2013 - 02:31am PT
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I'd like to see some of the obscure, and off-route traverses etc that go nowhere, FAed. The idea of "freeing" old famous aid routes bottom to top is already corrupted with doubts. I'd rather they rap in, chill on portaledges, jug or whatever, but actually project some new and creative lines - not following anything fom the past.
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Ryan Tetz
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Aug 27, 2013 - 04:20am PT
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"Why couldn't you just climb back up to your highpoint, instead of jumaring?"
If you are specifically referring to Mark's example, that is ridiculous to assume they have to free climb pitches multiple times during the same ascent after each ledge bivy. No one does it that way. Climbing is better without so many rules.
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BlackSpider
Ice climber
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Aug 27, 2013 - 09:10am PT
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You are making far too big a deal out of this.
-Yes, free-climbing a route in a single push, is more physically impressive than bivying on-route. Of course, no one has ever claimed such an ascent unless that's actually what they did (or they were lying). In the example you are so hung up about, the reporting is clear that they redpointed every pitch. There is no claim of a continuous redpoint of the route.
-There is no substantive difference (in terms of the climbing) between freeing a final pitch for the day, hauling a portaledge, and bivying there, versus fixing and rapping to a bivy ledge further down, then jumaring back up to the climbing high point the next morning.
-If your standard for free-climbing a big wall is a continuous ground-to-summit redpoint (i.e. every pitch is climbed free, in a push, with no falls), then there have been very few free ascents of El Cap, or any other big wall for that matter.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Aug 27, 2013 - 09:44am PT
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Hmmm.... Seems like splitting very fine hairs at this point.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Aug 27, 2013 - 10:15am PT
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People should climb in any style they want to climb. Conquistadors of the useless we are.
Hangin out on El cap, zippin up and down some fixed lines.. working some pitches in such a ridiculously amazing spot seems like fun to me.
One trip I've been daydreaming about doing for while now is to spend a few days maybe a week on top just top roping along the rim and taking pictures. Mebbe rap down at the end.
I'll guarantee I'd have a blast.
Would I then think I was as badass as Honnold or Lynn Hill? Lol of course not.
I can't see why any of this matters. A climb is what it is... Most people are only trying to impress themselves.. if that.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Aug 27, 2013 - 10:21am PT
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^ +1
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JakeW
Big Wall climber
CA
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Aug 27, 2013 - 10:26am PT
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I've freed a few large walls in a day because I'm too weak and lazy to haul all the camping equipment, steaks, booze, books, stereos etc. that I like to enjoy in my non-climbing time. Plus I had to go back to work, sigh.
And I'm too weak to free climb after jumaring. It destroys my elbows and totally throws off my free climbing mojo. I'm really impressed by folks that are tough enough to jumar 1000 feet then put on their shoes and chalk bag and send hard. I've actually mini-traxioned following on aid ascents(of easy routes with lots of free)...allows me to be more rested for the next leads and live a tendonitis free life.
Unless you grow an organic time machine, go back to before gear, beta, and pin scars, erase your belief in rock climbing built by generations of gear assisted ascent, and free solo naked...it's all just contriving the BEST WAY TO HAVE THE MOST FUN.
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Snowmassguy
Trad climber
Calirado
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Aug 27, 2013 - 10:39am PT
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The great State of California needs to regulate this behavior. First, we need the state to form a committee to define the acceptable regulations/ethics for freeing a wall. All members of this committee will be tenured and will receive a pension from the state. We will then hire full time employees to sit in the meadow or bridge to make sure the govt defined ethic is upheld.
Any violators will be fined and may face possible jail time when their climb has been completed. In addition to purifying the wall ethics in Yosemite, this plan will bring economic prosperity to the Valley through new job creation well as revenue from the punitive fines that will be levied.
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jonnyrig
Trad climber
formerly known as hillrat
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Aug 27, 2013 - 10:51am PT
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what about the rope solo guys? do you dock them points for jugging after cleaning the lower anchor, or award them brownie points for climbing twice?
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Aug 27, 2013 - 10:52am PT
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At this point in the evolution of climbing, there is a public style and a private style.
The public style is to not screw up the experience of anyone else. I.e. Don't littler the sh#t out of the route (gear, tat, human waste, fixed gear left for YOUR ascent), allowing faster climbers to pass, being polite, understanding that you are not the only person up there and everyone up there wants to have fun, basically respecting everyone else's experience.
Your private style is any freaking thing you want! Grab gear, climb the Nose in 2 hours, or two days, all aid, all free, party of three or a party of one, go old school, with the bare minimum or go big wall camping with it all and the kitchen sink.
As long as your public style is good, I can't imagine why your private style matters to anyone.
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The Wolf
Trad climber
Martinez, CA
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Aug 27, 2013 - 11:00am PT
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Isn't there a film coming out about some style/ethic controversy that happened on El Cap a few years back?
Peter you may know.....
LOL
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Aug 27, 2013 - 11:32am PT
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No question that parties get to climb with the concepts of their choice. And necessarily disclose what exactly they did to get up the rock--- that is, their climb is transparent and not some false account.
Reaching a summit could be all they intend and by any means necessary, even throwing a rope over a pinnacle's top or drilling giant holes and standing on the rods they inserted like Anderson did back in the 1800's to reach the top of Half Dome. Or later on, happily aiding a climb that actually already was a free climb.
Free climbing in its deepest sense attempts to joyfully or at least thrillingly symbolize on a safer level, what takes place when a solo climber without benefit of hardware and ropes, might have experienced the route--- just a person and the rock, nothing else. Native. If this is not true, then essentially the party in question is aid climbing on some level. This is what Joe H. is thinking here.
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cultureshock
Trad climber
Mountain View
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:19pm PT
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The more important question is why are people still NAILING on El Capitan free routes.
 Luke
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:31pm PT
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Hey Hedge...how'd you do it when you freed El Cap?
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:40pm PT
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What's funny is you playing like you are just TOTALLY UNAWARE that the majority of free ascents of El Cap have involved fixing a pitch or three, or rapping in to pre-stash gear, or aiding out then rapping back in to continue, or fixing to the ground and resting or waiting out weather, or freeing individual pitches out of order, or aiding them first to brush/tick/dry holds.
There are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions.
Take a gander at Steph's first book where she describes talking to Tommy about how these things get done. Then you can tell us that half of Caldwell's ascents weren't actually "free"...and we can laugh at you.
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland, CA
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:40pm PT
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...it's all just contriving the BEST WAY TO HAVE THE MOST FUN.
Eso!
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BlackSpider
Ice climber
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:43pm PT
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I just honestly had no idea this was being done, or was an accepted practice.
Did you honestly think that every big-wall free ascent that has been made was done as a one-day continuous redpoint from the ground with no bivy?
Also people seem to be claiming here that if you bivy on the route after climbing higher that day than you bivy, you somehow have to jumar back up to your highpoint, and that not doing so somehow adds contrived difficulty to the ascent.
No one is saying that you have to do that, just that it's ridiculous you are somehow making it sound like that detracts from the ascent compared to if they had hauled a portaledge up to their highpoint and bivied there instead.
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Ryan Tetz
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Aug 27, 2013 - 01:00pm PT
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"Also people seem to be claiming here that if you bivy on the route after climbing higher that day than you bivy, you somehow have to jumar back up to your highpoint, and that not doing so somehow adds contrived difficulty to the ascent."
Required redpointing of the same pitches immediatelty multiple times in a row during a continuous ascent, would yes, seem extremely contrived.
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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Aug 27, 2013 - 01:13pm PT
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Not that anything I have to say on this subject counts for anything but here is my 2 cents...
"Are you saying, for example, that a team free climbs to the Roof on the Salathe and then fixes ropes down to Block to spend the night, jugs back up to their high point the next day and carries on free climbing, that there is something wrong with that?"
solid question….
Not as long as you're not claiming to have freed the route, and are just claiming to have freed individual pitches.
Huh?
..why not just fix the whole thing, rap down and free the individual pitches one at a time, then claim you did it when you end up having freed them all?
So… it really comes down to where the freer of routes spends the nigh in proximity to the said route. Free the 1-5 of any El Cap climb and rap down to catch the last of the cafeteria is no longer a valid "free" or "climb" or "ascent" of said route….
But if, when you get to the top of the 5th you set up a ledge… that's all good, right?
not sure it makes sense, luckily we all have our unimportant gripes with a lot of really important stuff.
When it comes down to it this minor distinction of the ethic comes down to the climber and how they feel about it.
As an outside observer I have nothing to say one way or the other as my contribution would have little to no effect on any of it.
I say climb how you want to climb, tell the story of how you climbed to yourself if you have any kind of dilemma.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Aug 27, 2013 - 01:44pm PT
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I would be surprised if people didn't rap down to good bivi spots to camp and then jumar back up to their high point. That seems to have nothing to do with free or not free...and who cares anyway??
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 27, 2013 - 01:45pm PT
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Ron's Rules;
1) Any style is acceptable if it doesn't affect other climbers and if the climber is honest about it.
2) Free climbing means no hanging on gear. That means no sling belays, no jumaring, no porta-ledges.
3) Doing all the moves free non-consecutively is a good start, but not a redpoint.
4) Climbers are generally full of crap (see #1).
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Aug 27, 2013 - 01:45pm PT
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Good luck, ElCap! I'll be there cheering you on!
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Enty
Trad climber
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Aug 27, 2013 - 03:21pm PT
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Do people do Astroman that way? The Rostrum? Of course not. Then why try to claim you did an El Cap free route that way?
Are you being deliberately obtuse? If Astroman and the Rostrum were 30 pitches long and graded 5:13b I'm sure the majority of people climbing them would use the tactics you seem to abhor so much.
E
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Morgan
Trad climber
East Coast
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Aug 27, 2013 - 03:37pm PT
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So all topos of free routes that have hanging belays should henceforth show A0 for the pitch rating maybe for both the previous pitch and the subsequent pitch.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Aug 27, 2013 - 03:45pm PT
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How about those Huber brothers and their "man powered rappel" on El Nino?
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Aug 27, 2013 - 03:54pm PT
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Its one thing to seige a whole route, redpoint each pitch one by one and return to the ground every time, and another thing to fix a pitch or two mid-route and return to your ledge for the night. I dont see what's wrong with that, you're doing the whole route in one push. On the other hand it's not really great style to fix the first few pitches of any el cap route to get a head start, but like everyone else I did that too.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Aug 27, 2013 - 04:05pm PT
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yes, he's being deliberately obtuse.
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Barbarian
climber
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Aug 27, 2013 - 06:08pm PT
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I freed an El Cap route - Pine Line. Go ahead - deny it...
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jfailing
Trad climber
PDX, North Slope, The Open Road
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Aug 28, 2013 - 03:06am PT
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No. You could simply climb back up there, instead of jumaring, or moving the ledges. That's what I assumed was happening when people claimed they freed an El Cap route. I had no idea they were jumaring back up.
You're making it sound like they're climbing a 5.9 pitch or something...
By this thinking, does this mean that the follower actually has to free-climb the pitch as well? When aiding, does the follower have to re-aid the pitch to be able to claim an ascent?
Next thing you know people will be claiming that the West Face is an El Cap route.
I lol'd. I really wish there was a +1 button on ST.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 28, 2013 - 03:38am PT
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If you do every pitch free in the now accredited fashion you have climbed the route free. Nobody says that Harding et al didn't do the first accent of El Cap because they fixed ropes and jumared.
If you do the route free in a single push +1.
If you do the route free in a day +2.
I believe that Lynn Hill showed the boys the way quite some time ago.
In Dushanbe......home for Labor Day.
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mission
Social climber
boulder,co
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Aug 28, 2013 - 10:34pm PT
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First the West Face, then the Falls Trail. Where do we draw the line(s)?
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| Messages 1 - 40 of total 40 in this topic |
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