Stick clips replacing leading

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Curt

climber

Gold Canyon, AZ

Jul 20, 2016 - 10:16pm PT

Well let's see....the attitudes expressed here are pretty much based on one's climbing experience. I, for one, have experienced sport climbs that challenged my mental composure as well as my technical skill......some seem to have not.

Who specifically are you referring to and how have you reached that conclusion?

Curt

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Jul 20, 2016 - 10:32pm PT

I have pretty much tried it all and found physical and mental challenges everywhere.

hear hear. it's all evolutionalary relative.

ß Î Ø T Ç H

Boulder climber

ne'er–do–well

Jul 20, 2016 - 11:08pm PT

I prefer to use a drone for clipping hangers.

rgold

Trad climber

Poughkeepsie, NY

Jul 20, 2016 - 11:24pm PT

I would be the last person to dismiss all sport climbing as a mere athletic enterprise. There is a big difference between the closely bolted climbs in Boulder Canyon and climbs with bolts 6 to 10 meters apart that I have seen in other venues.

Sure...I mentioned the Ratikon, for example, and gave a link to Tommy Caldwell's report. And I never used the term "mere"---hard sport climbs are an "athletic enterprise" of the highest order and I had no intention of deprecating what those achievements represent.

I do think we could argue about whether climbs with huge fall potential between very widely-spaced bolts are sport climbs or even "sporty" sport climbs. They seem to me to occupy some intermediate position. Some of them were done ground-up on the lead with bolts placed from hooks, a style adventurous enough in terms of unknowns for the first ascent party to be considered trad climbing.

But I think these considerations are beside the point; the thread wasn't originally about "all" sport climbing. The context for the discussion was (is?) sport climbs that you could stick-clip your way up, using mortally-proportioned poles rather than BC's superhuman endowment. Which is to say, closely-bolted sport climbs. My remarks were addressed to that context and still seem to me to be appropriate for those situations.

I might add that the implication that stick-clipping up routes is somehow offensive seems to me to signify an ironic nostalgia for the departed trad norms that sport-climbing has led the charge in subverting.

yanqui

climber

Balcarce, Argentina

Jul 22, 2016 - 10:57am PT

All climbing has some mixture of both....I have done trad routes where the protection has been mostly above my head (mini top ropeing) and I have lead sport routes where the last draw was a disconcerting distance below my foot.

Me too

Rattlesnake Arch

Social climber

Home is where we park it

Aug 26, 2016 - 11:53am PT

Stick clipping a route is more dangerous than leading in that you are introducing a lot of slack in the system, and weighting a single bolt. If that bolt fails, you will take a long fall, perhaps a ground or ledge fall. I believe there was an accident in the Owens River Gorge where this actually occurred.

karabin museum

Trad climber

phoenix, az

Aug 28, 2016 - 03:37pm PT

The Pika stick clip extended to 28 feet. The original dirt bag stick clip is made by using finger tape to attach a long tree branch to a carabiner, hang the rope from the carabiner, and use a small twig to hold the carabiner gate wide open. Hit the carabiner gate twig against the bolt hanger which snaps the carabiner securely to the bolt. Tug downward to release the branch that is taped to the carabiner.