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MisterE
Gym climber
Being In Sierra Happy Of Place
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 8, 2015 - 10:09pm PT
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Will it be one of the young crew who finds the hard line perfect for their style - and sent in a public release?
Or will it be an "Action Directe" or a "Hubble" that is not repeated for years?
My best guess is 2016 - new line by a relative new-comer.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Ashima. Or Ondra. Sooner than we think..
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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I don't want it bad enough.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
climber
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5.16 Whoever it is won't be using YDS that's for sure.
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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16a seems pretty ethereal at this juncture . . . at a certain point there is no reference.
Certainly just another punter talking here.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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the good news is relatively soon
of course, if we continue on the logistic trend we'll max out in 2054 (my 100th year!) at 5.17a
data taken from: http://web.stanford.edu/~clint/yos/hard.htm
who? the one who's training hard and not getting injured in the process...
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Exactly.
Jul 8, 2015 - 10:37pm PT
5.16
Whoever it is won't be using YDS that's for sure.
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Woman, under 20, under 100lb.
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jeff constine
Trad climber
Ao Namao
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not U lol,, just another I must be front page shot.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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It will happen in September.....a runout slab climb in Tuolumne, a new kid from the Santa Barbara area.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Sorry Jim, Slab climbing tops out around 13a. Nothing harder exists.
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hagerty
Social climber
A Sandy Area South of a Salty Lake
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Shouldn't at least some of the hard 15's see 2nd or 3rd ascents for consensus before forging ahead into a new grade?
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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someone (or two someones) with bona fides 'venturing' a guess at a new rating becomes media fodder, and that's how a new grade gets "established" not because there is actual consensus comparing angles of overhang and size of individual holds and number of actual moves (at least beyond like 4 people).
I'm not aware of a quantitative analysis comparing high end climbs??
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chill
climber
between the flat part and the blue wobbly thing
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Ed - I'm a little puzzled by your plot. Are you sure the axes aren't reversed?
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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The higher the grade the less it means, going beyond simply training hard into the realm of genetic or anatomical anomalies. At some point grades make little sense. A more objective measure of "difficulty" would then be a record of how many succeed on a particular problem - (1) would be the top of the scale, (2) a tad less "difficult", etc.
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hashbro
Trad climber
Mental Physics........
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I've always been an advocate of the "easy, medium and hard" rating system (instead of YDS).
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tripmind
Boulder climber
San Diego
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Ashima. Or Ondra. Sooner than we think.. Ondra seems virtually washed up. Ashima has done some good climbs, but setting routes takes maturity and vision, and it also requires exploration, a young climber that spends her time in a comp circuit is not going to be doing this.
Woman, under 20, under 100lb. Just because the weight factor is there doesn't really mean someone who might be as heavy as Chris Sharma couldn't do a climb that feels harder than a 15d and decide to call it 16. Fortunately for us all, YDS grades have not and can not be broken down into quantifiable physical properties such as incline angle, size of hold, distance between holds, sharpness of rock, length of climb, etc.
My best prediction for world's first 16 is going to be Alex Meggos, or otherwise Adam Ondra if he stops fluttering around in the comp circuits and gets back to work. I think Sharma is still in great shape too, who knows if he'll find a the next big thing is his crag in spain
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Colenol Mustard.
When, though, I haven't a clue.
Nice chart, Dr.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Ed's a frigging gem here.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Here's my other answer. I'd like to think it would be me, but realistically, since I've barely done anything harder than 5.11, never been into bouldering or working out all that much, probably eat more than I should, and will be 59 in a month, I'm a scientist enough to "go with the odds". So, I guess my answer is, somebody other than me.
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patrick compton
Trad climber
van
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still not harder than OW 5.11
The Locker-Suprema team looks strong. If not them, maybe their daughter?
interspecies copulation of a pimpled Meerkat and a stoned crusty codger?
... you might be on to something
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Ed - I'm a little puzzled by your plot. Are you sure the axes aren't reversed?
I wanted to project the grade to the time it was realized... so I think the axes are chosen correctly for the graph.
When I made it some time ago (or a version of it) I wondered about the origin of the logistics representation. Usually that indicates some limited resource, and it took me a while to realize the resource is people. And then I remembered an argument from Stephan Gould and it all made sense to me...
To climb harder you have to train harder. When you train harder you are subject to injuries. Injuries have many causes, running the gamut from poor training technique to basic biophysical limits, and all these are dependent on the person doing it.
So if you take the "total population" of humans, you might assume that the tolerance for hard training varies. Some people have a very low tolerance, and some have a very high tolerance. We'd assume that on the fringes of very high tolerance there are many fewer people.
That is the limited resource, those people. At some point there are only a few, and pushing even harder eventually there are none. Once that happens, you can't advance the grade anymore... there is no one that has the capability.
Maybe if the population continues to grow you will have the unique freak that happens to find climbing and happens to have the motivation to train... but it will be rare.
The logistics curve takes a look at that... the inflection point is at 5.12, so the average person who finds themselves in climbing has the capacity to tolerate the training required to climb 5.12. That isn't saying that that is easy, it's just saying that it's possible. And that capability isn't something you have your entire life.
Now if the capability to climb harder grades was exponential with time, we'd be up to 5.18a already. We are obviously not even close... but the tricky bit is that the rate to get to the 5.12s did see essentially exponential growth, and since many of us lived through those times, it seems like the current generation is just slacking off... but we're running up against the real limits of climbing, simply, it is increasingly unlikely that there will be someone who can train that hard to do it, not because of the lack of will, but because of the physical limitations of the human body.
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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It would be interesting to see the plot with a few more data points added.
Chilam Balam 9b, 2003
Sharma's routes in Spain
Change, 9b+/15c, 2012
La Dura Dura, 9b+/15c, 2014
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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You've just got to find the climb (or manufacture one) that'll let you do it on.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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added mcreel's climbs... if anything, they're a little late (but I'd say pretty good)
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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Jul 10, 2015 - 01:20am PT
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Nice to see that update, Ed. I suspect that one would get a more accurate forecast by dropping or downweighting the <13a data.
Another limiting factor is just how much time any of the very few people capable of moving standards are willing to invest in climbing a given route. These people are traveling around a lot, and don't usually siege routes.
Also, from what I read, its hard to find a route that will both go, and is harder than the existing hardest route.
For these reasons, and others, and looking at the plot, I believe that the slope is going to get steeper and steeper as we go into the future.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jul 10, 2015 - 03:03pm PT
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Starting to look and feel like baseball statistics, with 98% fantasy league vs 2% participation at higher levels.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Jul 12, 2015 - 12:25am PT
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hey there say, mr E... wow, there IS an 'ed prediction' here... (if i saw that right) :)
hope you get to see more folks chip in, here... :)
me, i do NOT understand these things, :)
have fun, :)
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gunsmoke
Mountain climber
Clackamas, Oregon
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Jul 12, 2015 - 08:27am PT
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What climb represents the data point on the 11+/12- boundary that happened in about 1934?
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Gobi
Trad climber
Orange CA
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Jul 12, 2015 - 10:26am PT
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I think it'll be either Megos or Ondra. However it doesn't seem like Megos works routes for very long and 16a will take a lot of work. Maybe it'll be a mega gifted climber that comes out of nowhere (like Sharma in the 90's). I don't think it'll happen for at least 5 years. I think Action Directe gets done fairly often.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 12, 2015 - 05:05pm PT
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(Ed’s orientation is to prediction. That’s one take on reality.)
Why should any of it matter?
Do you keep up with the yearly differences in automobile styles? Isn’t it the experience of a climb that matters? After a while, the constant effort toward achievement becomes a little boring. Look around.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jul 12, 2015 - 05:44pm PT
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It's been a tough year, with too much work and not enough climbing, so this summer is out, but if the workload eases a bit this fall/winter, I could be in pretty good shape by spring. So...
5.16a - who and when?
Me, summer 2016
Laugh if you want, but I three-hung a 12 meter 10b yesterday, and I could, like, totally send that rig with a few more burns. And I'm not even in shape right now. So, yeah, train this winter, and 5.16 next summer!!!!!!!!!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Jul 12, 2015 - 05:52pm PT
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Ghost....I'm with you man, YOU can do it. You just need to improve a letter grade every two weeks for a July 2016 send. Hmmmm......Mari might beat you to it.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jul 13, 2015 - 01:22pm PT
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Mari might beat you to it.
Well, yeah. But that doesn't count -- she climbs off-widths.
People like Jaybro and Grug and their ilk were effectively climbing 5.16 a decade ago. What we're talking about here is actual climbers, not mutant offwidth freaks.
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RP3
Big Wall climber
Twain Harte
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Jul 13, 2015 - 03:19pm PT
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Fascinating regression, Ed. Thanks for sharing.
A few of the points look strage to me. What was the 5.12a climbed in 1960, the 5.11c climbed in the early 30's and the 5.10d climbed in the teens? Are you including routes that were aided and later freed at those grades? Alternatively, there may be a bit of climbing history I don't know about.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 13, 2015 - 04:13pm PT
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They were kicking ASS along the Elbe River in 1906.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jul 13, 2015 - 04:24pm PT
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What was the 5.12a climbed in 1960 . . .
That would probably be me on the Thimble in 1961. It was a thirty foot pitch but later highball enthusiasts considered it an extended boulder problem. I never thought of it as bouldering, but times change.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Jul 13, 2015 - 05:03pm PT
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Laugh if you want, but I three-hung a 12 meter 10b yesterday, and I could, like, totally send that rig with a few more burns. And I'm not even in shape right now. So, yeah, train this winter, and 5.16 next summer!!!!!!!!!
Hey, I three hung after the last clip on a 10b on July 4... I'm in the running too.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jul 13, 2015 - 07:12pm PT
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Hey, I three hung after the last clip on a 10b on July 4... I'm in the running too.
Sh#t, You're a full week ahead of me.
No. Wait. The pitch I three-hung was Index 10b. That puts me at least a month ahead of you.
Whew! As long as I stick to Coach Donini's program of one letter grade every two weeks, I can still pull this off.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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Jul 13, 2015 - 11:08pm PT
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RP3 wrote: "What was the 5.12a climbed in 1960, the 5.11c climbed in the early 30's and the 5.10d climbed in the teens?"
pretty sure Ed got his info from Clint Cummins' Hard rock climbs - First routes of each grade web page...
from there:
6b (5.10c); 1918; The Wilder Kopf, Westkante; Elbsandstein; Emanuel Strubich
6c+ (5.11c); 1934; south wall Torre Trieste; Dolomites; Raffaele Carlesso, barefoot
7a+ (5.12a/b, V5); 1961; Thimble, North Face; Needles (SD); John Gill
while they are all mind boggling, the one i'd like to know more about is the torre trieste south wall...
whereas the wilder kopf route is a single pitch on sandstone that apparently looks like this:
and most of us know the thimble looks like this:
otoh, here's the torre trieste south wall:
according to the uk climbing website that is a 24 pitch, 700m wall...
which begs the question was this really freed in 1934 via the same line that is today graded 11b/c?
this italian website has a pitch list and it lists the difficulty as "4°, 5°, 5°+, 6°, A1, A2 A3." i'd read this to mean that it went up to a free climbing difficulty of VI and an aid climbing difficulty of A3... if i'm reading that correctly, it seems strange that they would list it that way if at least some of the climb was actually free climbed at VIII- in 1934... ie. my gut says listing this as having been [at least partially] free climbed at 11c in 1934 may be a mistake... that said i'd love to be wrong on this and hope someone steps up and makes me eat crow.
if you read german there is an interesting trip report here... and if you don't there are some interesting pictures including of the VIII- pitch...
it'd be great if someone who knew this history would step up, as if true, in order to do something comparable all you suitors of the sixteenth grade are going to have to up your game and at least do it at everest base camp if you're serious about leaving a real mark on history...
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patrick compton
Trad climber
van
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Jul 14, 2015 - 04:13am PT
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does 16a count if the climber hasn't reached puberty?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2015 - 08:31am PT
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sorry, I intended to reference Clint's website if I didn't...
and I was in a bit of a quandary as to what to include... boulder problems are, well, problematic.
The "regression" actually follows the later dates with the idea that establishing a new grade requires some consensus, that means a number of climbers have to climb the route and agree. This is another arising issue as the number of people capable of doing those climbs becomes fewer, and the possibility that the climbs would be repeated less.
I liked the comment on the "resource limitation" involving the routes themselves. Looking at Yosemite you'd think there must be an unlimited number of route possibilities way beyond the limit, but to date there are only a handful of 5.14 routes. Possibly the result of limited climber attention and limited climber capability.
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RP3
Big Wall climber
Twain Harte
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Jul 14, 2015 - 09:43am PT
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Ahh! I understand. Thanks for clearing that up.
That Wilder Kopf route is visionary.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jul 21, 2015 - 07:02am PT
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does 16a count if the climber hasn't reached puberty?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Or if the climber hasn't done with nappies?
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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bumping 'cause this has that history drift,
Better than . . . . .
A lot of the things on the front page
Bump
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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chill
Jul 9, 2015 - 10:31am PT
Ed - I'm a little puzzled by your plot. Are you sure the axes aren't reversed? I agree. Usually in statistics type literature, the dependent variable
(rating, apparently) is on the Y axis, and time is on the X axis.
Then the logistic function is something like:
rating = a/(1 + exp(-b*time))
where a and b are estimated from the data. limit(rating) = a as t approaches infinity (for b positive).
Actually in a standard logistic probability distribution function, a=1 and only b is estimated:
p = 1/(1 + exp(-b*time))
so p ranges between 0 and 1 as time goes from -infinity to +infinity (for b positive).
But this is a special functional form. Not sure why it or a log function
would apply to how ratings are designated over time.
I'd say a linear function looks better.
Another thing about fitting is that only the climbs which advanced the hardest grade should be on the plot. This is the lower envelope.
That also looks fairly linear.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Cool to see I'm an elite climber...for 1878.
BAd
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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I bet that 16a (9c+) goes down in less than 2 years. Either Summer '16 or '17 in Norway, or Winter '17 or '18 in wunnerful Catalunya, Spain. Actually, I'd say it's about a 50% chance, but 9c is a good bet.
I also bet that the curve will be flatter than the logistic extrapolation predicts, because more young people who have trained hard in gyms for half their lives will be arriving on the scene. These are kids who are too young to abuse alcohol and drugs, so they will have good habits and concentration, not like the standards movers of the past.
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brotherbbock
climber
Alta Loma, CA
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Ondra seems virtually washed up.
How do you figure that?
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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I just took a closer look at the fitted curves, and that logistic plot looks pretty suspicious. Way more than half the points are below the line. What was the fitting method? Certainly not least squares, and I doubt that it was maximum likelihood, either.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Ghost in '16!!
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Alpamayo
Trad climber
Davis, CA
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I don't know the answer, but I bet some internet climber will downgrade it within an hour
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Gill's article on Holloway says he climbed V13 Slapshot in 1977.
Which might be sorta equivalent to 5.14b/c ?
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WBraun
climber
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5.16a is all bullsh!t!!
It's just bouldering moves.
Get these wankers up in the Himalayan walls where real men climb and they'll cry like little girls .....
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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. . . and I was in a bit of a quandary as to what to include... boulder problems are, well, problematic (Ed)
An excellent point, Ed. This issue is a moving target. Back in the 1960s, long before crash pads could be stacked beneath a problem, Jim MacCarthy said, "Any time your feet are more than ten feet above your start and you're not on toprope you are climbing, not bouldering." In other words you are free soloing, but at a height where you might sustain an injury but not necessarily die. So, back then the 30' Thimble was a climb. These days boulderers will practice on a top rope then solo highballs with a stack of mats below. A different world.
Now, as to Holloway's boulder problems, if they are very short or the hard move is right off the ground it's probably not correct to call a V11 the first 5.14 or whatever the equivalence is. If the hard moves are up in the air, they are definitely climbs, even though the current generation may "highball" them.
But I am ancient and my thought processes suspect.
;>)
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ecdh
climber
the east
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I want to agree with wbraun.
But i know it will be that Megos kid in about 18 months.
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MisterE
Gym climber
Small Town with a Big Back Yard
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Topic Author's Reply - May 4, 2016 - 07:17pm PT
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Great post, John - thanks for a FEW slices of historical perspective.
I am SO climbing on Boulder 1 at Stoney.
;^)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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geez, it's just climbing, I eyeballed the fit... sorry... I'll consider doing something more legit but not for a couple of weeks...
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Srbphoto
climber
Kennewick wa
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it will be the grandchild of someone going to the Oldchella concert in the Fall.
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patrick compton
Trad climber
van
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5.16a is all bullsh!t!!
It's just bouldering moves.
Get these wankers up in the Himalayan walls where real men climb and they'll cry like little girls .....
IKR?!
practice climbing, aka bouldering, is being dominated by a little girl!!!
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Alpamayo
Trad climber
Davis, CA
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I don't know the answer, but I bet some internet climber will downgrade it within an hour
I stand corrected, some internet climber will downgrade it before it gets done.
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