what percent of climbers can trad lead 12c?

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rbord

Boulder climber

atlanta

Apr 13, 2015 - 05:23pm PT

Oh sorry, by trad climbing you meant plugging cams into a splitter crack. I thought that was called sport climbing, and traditional climbing was the stuff I learned before cams. Climber probably doesn't include my kids in the youth climbing league. Yea in that case probably more like 10-20%. Humans .. :-)

thebravecowboy

climber

the Midcontinent Rift

Apr 13, 2015 - 08:06pm PT

I heard that most bears can onsight .12c on RPs.

It's the claws. And the boldness. You know, ursa and all.

rockermike

Trad climber

Berkeley

Topic Author's Reply - Apr 14, 2015 - 12:43am PT

But Tami... one question. Did you round off your calculation or did it just happen to fall on exactly 1.6393 percent? Inquiring minds want to know.

yanqui

climber

Balcarce, Argentina

Apr 14, 2015 - 06:09am PT

Huumpherer! Since the calculations show that the associated p-value is less than the corresponding significance level one can conclude, quod erat demonstrandum, that the observed effect has not occurred due to sampling error and therefore, henceforth and hither-to-after the observed effect reflects the characteristics of said population. Logic thus dictates the data presented by the researcher known as "Tami", under said conditions, obtains statistical significance and therefore 1.6393 percent is the correct answer.

However
There is a flaw.

The study in question fails to consider the necessary and sufficient conditions for the operational definition of the technical sense of the given term "onsight". This implies the aforementioned results of "Tami" are brought into doubt when said "trad lead climber" has not met the given terms and conditions implicit by the concept in question. Perhaps the subject, id est "trad lead climber", had previous cognition of the considered intentional "climbing route" with appropriate 12c grade. There exists the possibilty that the given belayer whispered secret location of key hidden side-pull in crux sequence to the subject in question, thus violating all terms and conditions agreed to in said definition. Do there exist tick marks or chalk on the holds? Did the subject climb in a nearby zone and peek over at said intentional "climbing route", while rapelling to the base? Did they see a film about said route or hear someone discuss it? Don't we really care a lot about how the percentages change when all these important factors are brought into play? In fact, it is this researcher's opinion that there is no escaping the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantun climbing, which states that the simple fact that the given subject observes that said route falls into the category of appropriate 12c grade, using small metal wedges or "cams" (and understands the definition therein), in turn, effects the outcome of said experiment.

PS: on a less sarcastic note, a data of absolutely no statistical significance is that, of the 10 or so long term, regular climbing partners I've had the pleasure of climbing with, only one has ever managed to send 5.12 "trad" on their first try. Personally, I've never come close to doing that.

guyman

Social climber

Moorpark, CA.

Apr 14, 2015 - 08:54am PT

PS: on a less sarcastic note, a data of absolutely no statistical significance is that, of the 10 or so long term, regular climbing partners I've had the pleasure of climbing with, only one has ever managed to send 5.12 "trad" on their first try. Personally, I've never come close to doing that.

I have similar experiences, only Kris Solem, Eric Erikson and Kevin Thaw have done hard 12 with me holding the cord on the first try and I have held the cord for many. Lets face it, to climb at that level puts one into a pretty exclusive club.

Many of these people get concentrated at the venues where this is possible...

so if I had to put a percentage on it, without any numbers to back up my claim... id say .01% because 90% of the "climbers" I see now days "TAKE" at the first bit of difficulty on mear 5.10 and 9.9% "TAKE" on 5.11....

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Apr 14, 2015 - 09:29am PT

hey guyman... you have the beginnings of a proper estimate...

estimate the number of climbers you've held the rope for, and then divide that into the three who had done the 5.12 onsight...

no need to make up numbers.

We should all do that, actually, I'm guessing that I've climbed with 50 to 100 climbers, and that perhaps 3 have onsighted 5.12 in their lifetimes (maybe one while I was holding the cord, though the definition of 5.12c is probably questionable).

So, for me, I'd estimate 2-5% of my lifetime climbing partners.

I don't think that is too high.

On the other hand, it would seem that 5.12 is at the mean of climbing difficulty, when viewed from the first ascent (free) information available, which also sets the maximum climbing level.

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=65106

The basic idea of the limit is the number of people in the population that are able to train intensely enough to achieve the limits. At some point, training results in injuries, and the injuries prevent furthering the limits.

The limit is in training intensity, and recovery from that training. While better training methods would help (I believe tremendously, as Horst proposes) at some point even the most exceptional athletes are limited, it is the limitation of our bodies.

Stephen Gould wrote about this... with respect to baseball... but perhaps I have generalized and embellished his contribution with my own thoughts over the years.

Alpamayo

Trad climber

Davis, CA

Apr 14, 2015 - 09:49am PT

Perception and sampling bias is a funny thing. If you ask me the answer to the question, I'd say zero. But then again I don't climb anywhere near that hard and don't go looking for 5.12 trad routes. Ask someone who climbs that hard and hangs out with others that climb that hard and you'll likely get a different answer.

shipoopoi

Big Wall climber

oakland

Apr 14, 2015 - 09:58am PT

it's gotta be less than one percent. bitd(90's) i on sight flashed three 512c trad routes, i never onsighted a 12d trad, 12c was my limit

golden beaver (right or left?) at mt lemmon
animal magnetism at the gunks
supercrack at the gunks

at the time i was competing on the national and world cup circuit, which logiically would have put me near the upper echelons of the sport, and these ascents were notable at the time

now there are more people flashing 12c trad, but there are so many climbers now, the percentage is probably the same.

ss

rbord

Boulder climber

atlanta

Apr 14, 2015 - 10:20am PT

I don't think that we guess, we just aren't always aware of the information that we're using in our computations. When we lock our doors driving through the ghetto, we're responding to some Information, even if we're not consciously aware of what that information is.

most are not known people because they climb and don't post

The humble 5.12c trad leader is not as apt to spray about their accomplishments as the 5.7 leader and their awesome redpoint ascent of after six. Go back and factor that into your calculations. No wonder we lock our doors. :-)