Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 61 of total 61 in this topic |
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 16, 2019 - 07:12pm PT
|
I am trying to get a handle on the style. It looks like Kevin did it without any hangdoging while Tommy seems to have practiced moves on tension.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2019 - 09:27pm PT
|
Yea, I can see from the movie now.
The Dawn Wall is a completely new kind of climbing:
It is so big that it’s a climb where what it is all about is finding it. Its hiding up there somewhere, and you have to look everywhere on aid to find the line. It is not like climbing the Nose, where it’s fairly well straightforward following a corner and a crack. Here "Where is it?" is always the question. To just climb to find the route would be the same as to say you must find your way back in a fog if you were lost at sea. Should you row as hard as you can now? No, you first need to see.
The next problem has to do to with finding the holds. The climb is so elusive that you need a magnifying glass and tick marks to see where you are going to go before you even set foot to leave the ledge. No one has the eyes to do this kind of free climbing without aid. If you did just climb the climb you would not be able to understand either what you are doing or what you just did, there would be no understanding anything.
This means that for this climb it's so different that now style must needs be sacrificed if there is going to even be a climb. While hangdogging is counterproductive in finding "The Climb" on other cliffs, here aid is the foundation of good climbing, and the first ascent party has to make this sacrifice to bring the light to it.
So, what made for good or bad style before makes for the complete opposite kind of good and bad style here only on the Dawn Wall. A completely new understanding of necessary reversed ethics and style can clearly be defined and has come to light!
|
|
ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 07:53am PT
|
You clearly don't get it. You make it sound like you could climb in other directions or make other moves (go around) if you were not able to find the line. The line is the easiest path, the one with weakness. Except in this case it's what, 5.14d?
I wouldn't waste too much time trying to figure out this "new" style of climbing Mr. Perry. It might not quite suit you. I know I won't be:)
Arne
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 08:11am PT
|
Dawn wall free is a 2300 foot boulder problem/sport climb that took years to do.
Kauk said in the 80's that in future people will attempt this type of climbing.
Most people don't want to spend years on this type of endeavor to a route of this size.
It's a rarity .....
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2019 - 08:25am PT
|
Ionlyski you wrote: "You clearly don't get it. You make it sound like you could climb in other directions or make other moves if you were not able to find the line. The line is the easiest path, the one with weakness. Except in this case it's what, 5.14d? I wouldn't waste too much time trying to figure out this "new" style of climbing there Senior Mr. Perry. It might not quite suit you. Arne"
Arne, You can climb in other directions or make other moves. I am talking about the style of the first ascent party. What did you suppose my post was about?, you and me going at it for the third ascent outside the Topo?
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 08:37am PT
|
now style must needs be scarified must be a typo, but if it's not...
go up there with a surgeon who has some experience is my advice
if you insist on making incisions in the Dawn Wall
do you have good medical insurance or know some climbing quack?
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2019 - 08:44am PT
|
opps, thanks
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2019 - 01:39pm PT
|
The point of the argument is what has to do with style. Lets say John Doe has a limit of 5.12c. Now, if John said he had free climbed the Dawn Wall as a first ascent, yet rested between each bolt placement in doing so and completed the climb, John might call this a free climb but no one else would. To take a step back, if John did the same thing in good style after practicing every move on aid, people loyal to the ground up ethic would say that what he did has nothing to do with free climbing either. He would be breaking the trivial yet logical rules of what should make for a logical free ground up second ascent for the next party. Climbs are supposed to be done in the style of the first ascent party or better. But in this case ground up style has lost its place.
The more "trivial" points of the Dawn Wall style are:
1. Checking out the climb on top rope.
2. Hangdogging: practicing moves on tension or mid-pitch.
3. Cleaning the holds.
4. Chalking the holds.
5. Marking the holds you find with a magnifying glass.
6. Photographing the holds and studying them from your home.
7. Measuring the holds.
8. Rapping off to the crux from the top of the cliff.
9. Taking handouts.
10. Using fixed gear.
11. Using third parties with specialized lighting equipment (in this instance professional photographers) providing artificial illumination to holds that heretofore were not visible to the unaided naked eye. Without this special illumination these holds were not fully usable because without this kind of lighting they could not be seen as clearly.
All these make for a work that the second ascent party cannot repeat using traditional ground up ethics, and what has been considered good style.
There are a set of rules everyone more or less should agree to, to which the author that writes the guide book considers when you tell him you have done a new free climb you want to enter into the local guide for others to repeat. You can not just make things up, you actually have to do something, and that something is a specific something.
My point is that on the Dawn Wall no one can argue about these kinds of trivial ethics and style, because without bad-style there would never be any style in the first place. And in fact, now unquestionably a portion of the style scale has now been demonstrated to be reversed for the first time, that good style is bad style and bad style is good style. I am talking about the trivial points, not the whole style scale, the latter of which would include:
1. Chipping holds.
2. Freeing the climb under tension.
3. Breaking up the pitches into short sections.
4. Adding protection in places which will allow the drag of the rope to give you an advantage.
5. Adding glue to loose rock to keep it in place.
I am only talking about the upper margin of the style scale, that part that has always been less obvious which has now be defined.
|
|
ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 01:44pm PT
|
So Tommy used bad style?
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2019 - 05:06pm PT
|
Jeremy Ross, I tried to clarify my post. Let me know if you think it makes sense. Thanks.
|
|
Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 05:25pm PT
|
I have to agree with Donald. These are not advances in rock climbing.
|
|
Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 05:35pm PT
|
Donald Perry, I've watched free climbing style evolve for a long time. Since sometime in the 1970's the hardest free climbing has had some sort of previewing to work out the moves. Before that the rule was closer to climbing continuously, without previewing or practicing. Tommy and Kevin worked out all but the hardest moves and then climbed from the bottom to the top in something like 17,000 years. I think all El Cap free routes have been in the same style. I wouldn't question the style at all. All hard things require lots of practice. Many years ago I ended an article that had duscussed yo yoing, about which Roper said, "It sounds like a job!", by pointing out that in the future it would be a fun romp for some young climber. That was in 1973 and the climbing was hard 5.10.
|
|
Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 05:44pm PT
|
looks like the thread had a bunch of posts nuked?
Not a big deal, but talking climbing is fun... so here ya go...
On your bad style scale...
Freeing the climb under tension. isn't 'freeing' so it isn't really a good example of 'freeing'. :)
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 05:49pm PT
|
I'm aware of climbs that take the plumb line where others have found ways to by-pass some of the hardest bits of the line, when that climb-able, but the un-protectable line has been pushed & as an increase, & a climb in its own right; a significant increase in standards, so seemingly important to record as a worthy achievement...
there has been push-back from many others, often the majority.
Change, when it takes vision, & so visionaries to understand it, credit is often bestowed by popularity, lack of abrasiveness of the visionary...
not fair, but climbing recognition as life is not fair.
getting the popcorn, I have a clue where this might be going....
you be true Donald. I know you'll be yourself.....
|
|
tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 06:10pm PT
|
Donald. every single hard boulder problem and sport climb is done this way. its called projecting. Dawn wall was just a really, really big project... they worked very hard and were successful. End of story....
|
|
shipoopoi
Big Wall climber
oakland
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 06:55pm PT
|
so, this donald perry guy is from new jersey? am i the first to say troller? anybody know this avator? shipoopoi
|
|
Oldfattradguy2
Trad climber
Here and there
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 07:12pm PT
|
Were any fixed pitons “borrowed” from nearby classic moderate routes? 😳
|
|
nah000
climber
now/here
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 07:36pm PT
|
donald perry wrote: “And in fact, now unquestionably a portion of the style scale has now been demonstrated to be reversed for the first time...”
hmmm... ‘fraid preuss would like a word... ‘cause style has continuously gone down hill for the last 150 yrs if one uses the same logic as the lengthy post that was made...
ie. if the op is a troll then keep on keepin’ on... and if not s/he should read a little climbing history.
or at least throw an “if you don’t place your own draws during the free ascent it’s a pink point” line of argumentation into the mix...
maybe then you’d have a better chance of getting more agreement around these parts...
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2019 - 08:41pm PT
|
From Shipoopoi Feb 18, 2019 - 06:55pm PT
"so, this donald perry guy is from new jersey? am i the first to say troller? anybody know this avator? shipoopoi"
Okay, I guess I will just have to keep going then until you can figure it out.
What should or should not be considered a legitimate ascent is a question I had often struggled with in my early years of rock climbing. During this time, I went through various techniques to try to answer this question. At one point I made it my goal to accomplish climbs with no falls following the example of Jim Erickson, and to insure this I did a lot of down climbing. But I found this became very impractical and tiresome for my belayers.
When I started climbing back in the 70's and 80's the climbing scene was way different than it is today. It was very political back then. Everyone knew each other (or knew someone who knew who you were), everyone was familiar with what you were doing. The Gunks were an exciting place to be while everyone was trying to put up new routes. The people that were making the most of this naturally did not naturally appreciate the competition, for fear that either they would lose a route, or that the potential for the better future routes would disappear. Some people would even steel other people’s projects, the atmosphere had a lot of drama, tension and adrenalin. While the last aid climbs were being freed, as it came about, there developed two separate groups within the Gunks climbing community.
Among the leading influential climbers of the era were John Brag, Mark Robinson, Russ Raffa, Rich Romano, John Standard, Richard Goldstone, Kevin Bein as well as others. Among the majority, there were ethics and morals set in stone. There had to be approval for your having freed an aid route or free route for it to be considered legitimate. And when people did not meet the standard their work was not recorded in Dick Williams Guide.
Henry Barber also had initial political influence in the Gunks, but after 1978 people lost interest in anything Barber had to say or do. Barber had abandoned his climbing partner Rob Taylor on Mt Kilimanjaro, and people hated him for that.
For new comers to the Gunks, climbing in sloppy style was spit upon, mocked, and those people who continued to engage in such, who were unteachable, they were ostracized. For example, Bill Ravitch (the Gunks climbing bum, historian, and expert) believed that if you could not climb a 5.9 on top-rope you had no business trying to climb 5.8 on lead. What was paramount was that a climb should be done in good style and without weighting the rope to check out the climb. Using the rope to hold your weight was considered aid if you were hanging around. Climbing was a sport for the old, and not for the young, and if you had not been climbing over five years it was understood that you had a lot to learn. But if you had the experience, falling was considered reasonable. You learned to respect the standards, and if you did fall where you went next was back to the ground or the ledge and never under any circumstances back on the crux.
It was not until Max Jones and Mark Hudon came to the Gunk’s around 1979 climbing Between The Lines with Mark Robinson and Kevin Bein that the Gunks ethics came into question. They explained that their hang-dogging was necessary to do the new standard, and the really hard climbing. That it was through this ethic they created the Phoenix 5.13a which was accomplished breaking through new free climbing barriers in Yosemite. No one from the Gunk’s gave them much of an argument after they explained themselves, that they had to work through each section separately one section at a time, and thereafter piece them all together. They said that otherwise, it would never work. Mark Robinson mockingly referred to this kind of climbing as Phoenix Style, and so it was that it did not catch on at the Gunks during this time.
Another group of climbers eventually disregarded this exclusive and powerful governing body within the climbing community and went with a process of rethinking the ethics to one degree or another. They came to reject the idea of having their routes recorded in any guide book considering it a higher standard not to have a place in the climbing guide, to leave no trace, and climb for a greater purpose of leaving things in their original state. Such as what was already the case in Lost City or Bonticou. This group was sensitive of the evil of the ego driven worldview full of competition, and jealously. They sought to eliminate it this kind of thinking and the struggles within to see climbing as what it should be, just you and the rock and nothing more.
The conclusion was that climbs were recorded anyway, and inspections, hang-dogging, and aid was considered unnecessary and undesirable. Rich Romano was a key influence in bringing these concepts to bear, in what should be the accepted style, or what was and what was not “climbing”.
Through my own journey in these ethics I have come to the same conclusions, that aid (upward aid or starting past the ledge from hanging on the rope) is unnecessary as well as a demonstration of the lack of patients and vision.
As had been demonstrated through the years, how many times you lower down off a climb is not most important, rather having solid gear is what makes for the best style. If your gear is falling out while you are leading people will think you are an idiot. No one should think they need to unnecessary risk their life for style, doing what could be a safe climb----to flash through in such a manner actually demonstrates the height of foolishness and bad style. For example, this kind of thinking would prove Alex Honnold to be climbing in poor style because there is plenty of gear around in much of what he solos. Climbing is actually physically harder and more time consuming with a rope and a rack then having a route memorized on solo. To not fall leading is a greater accomplishment not because of what is at stake, but because the climb is more physically demanding to make it a responsible accomplishment.
Who or what is not tied in will eventually fall off sooner or later, put other people’s lives at risk, and guarantee failure in the long run. But it makes for good movies, and newbies love it … does that make it smart? Most people who have been climbing a long time don’t see the advantage of putting your life at risk, that the climb should now become the greatest form of idolatry. The 10 commandments actually have nothing to do with rocks.
Other points in the argument are that good style necessitates pulling the rope through. However, pulling the rope through before a second attempt does not prove anything, because real climbing has nothing to do with a rope. Perfect style is not to fall in the first place, to never climb into what you cannot finish without falling. Nevertheless, you will fall when you push your limits. So therefore, this no fall style is just as unreasonable as feeling you need to pull the rope through to make it a legitimate lead.
Another point to come to grips with is that a top-rope also makes for a first ascent. Ironically, a top-rope should make for a first ascent because a party of two that take turns leading a route are both considered as having made a first ascent. It has always been that way. Typically, when you have spent enough time climbing the fear factor or where the rope is, is not what makes for the real problem in the ascent, rather it is getting through the physical work to make the climb. That’s, provided the rating is between G and R.
Leading or top roping both use the add of the rope, you cannot argue that the security of the rope is out of the picture in either case. And therefore, it is now obvious that all those bolts in New River Gorge (for example) do not make for a better style of climbing. I would say it is the opposite, that they create a work of fiction, there is nothing natural about bolts. This would actually be climbing in bad style. The need for bolts on short cliffs is no more essential chipping holds.
In conclusion it has been demonstrated that using aid for upward progress is unnecessary, nevertheless at the same time I would agree there can be exceptions to the rule. In cases such as this it would be better to initially make the first ascent on aid, to then thereafter free the climb.
Now I wrote all that before I watched the Dawn Wall movie. Thereafter I had to work on expanding the last paragraph.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2019 - 08:46pm PT
|
"Were any fixed pitons “borrowed” from nearby classic moderate routes? 😳"
yeeesh, lets not ask that question.
|
|
ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2019 - 09:19pm PT
|
so, this donald perry guy is from new jersey? am i the first to say troller? anybody know this avator? shipoopoi
Nah, he is sincere and not a troll. I think he's just trying to understand something that has admittedly quite changed in his time. Donald these are really really hard routes that as of yet can't be done in the same ground up way you're used to.
Arne
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2019 - 10:09pm PT
|
"Donald these are really really hard routes that as of yet can't be done in the same ground up way you're used to. "
Arne, I would say the Dawn Wall was done in good style, but when you infer "not yet" that does not mean I am stuck in the past, it means we are all stuck in the present. That is, in years to come the Dawn Wall will be understood to have been put up in bad style. Hard to imagine that, but I guess with some kind of special steroids, no sweat cream for your hands, and new sticky rubber it could happen. I wonder what kind of shoes Kevin was wearing? Maybe that is why his foot kept slipping off as opposed to Tommy's shows that were sicking.
|
|
Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2019 - 05:14am PT
|
Best style for me was to walk up to a crag with a guidebook, pick out a route and climb it. Never cared at all how the first ascent was done or who did it. I never put up a new route myself, since there were always established routes that were harder or more dangerous than I could do. Ideally I would hear of a route from someone I thought was a better climber than me, and how hard and dangerous it was, then it became a goal. Did I have the courage to do this route that scared a better climber than me? That was essentially my motivation. I didn't think I was competing with these better climbers, I just was in awe of them and wanted to be like them. With the takeover of sport climbing, it's easy to forget how outrageous it is to be climbing up the side of a cliff.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2019 - 06:29am PT
|
In the photos above the climbing style is critiqued by the locals. The Überfall scene in the 1970s. Hanging on the rope here checking out the climb is being criticized as bad style by the locals. They are told to go home.
|
|
hacky47
Trad climber
goldhill
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2019 - 06:44am PT
|
max jones not max john?
i could be wrong
|
|
ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2019 - 07:25am PT
|
That is, in years to come the Dawn Wall will be understood to have been put up in bad style.
Donald, you may or may not know, that mere months after the ground breaking first ascent team of Caldwell/Jorgensen, a very young prodigy from The Czech Republic, named Adam Ondra, comparatively walked up to the base of the route and climbed it in something like 3 days; or 7 or thereabouts, as opposed to the 7 year monumental effort of the first team. Yes, it probably looked much more like a continuous free climb but also he benefited greatly from shared key beta, which came from the FA members. But that's how it happens. Remember, The Nose took months and months, then next, went down in days.
Does that help?
Arne
edit-time will tell about the style but to my knowledge everything has been out in the open, as the only style which has allowed this route to be climbed so far.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2019 - 07:46am PT
|
Arne, you wrote "...he benefited greatly from shared key beta, which came from the FA members."
From Donald: Well then that's aid too, so that's good style, he did the climb, the style is reversed here. However if we are indeed in the "not yet" as you propose, then it will someday be bad style and would not count for an ascent.
But I would suppose that if anything the climb would get harder and not easier if people keep trying it, as the small holds could become slightly polished.
So I do not think that we will be able to flip this style back again for this length and grade----the holds are too small to see and there is too many of those to do an onsight without beta---this is the case I am referring to when the style is reversed.
On the other hand on a climb where the amount of thin climbing like this is only a pitch here and there and the direction is obvious without beta the style would not have to be reversed---if the traverse pitch on the Dawn wall were the only bouldering-climb pitch and all the other pitches were 5.13a.
Good style is only possible within the limits of onsighting. Once you go outside of those limits style must be sacrificed in order to do the climb at all.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2019 - 10:06pm PT
|
Arne you wrote: "Yes, it probably looked much more like a continuous free climb but also he benefited greatly from shared key beta, which came from the FA members. But that's how it happens. Remember, The Nose took months and months, then next, went down in days. Does that help?"
From Rock And Ice: "Adam Ondra has climbed the Dawn Wall (VI 5.14d)! The 23-year-old Czech climber topped out El Cap today, November 21 after an eight-day push for the route’s second free ascent. “Totally badass,” Kevin Jorgeson wrote in an e-mail to Rock and Ice. “For Tommy and I, the question was whether it was even possible. We left lots of room to improve the style and Adam did just that! Super impressive that he was able to adapt to the DW‘s unique style and sort out so many complex sequences so quickly.” "
Arne, I would say that we have to remember that it took 8 years for Tommy to find the line: Rock And Ice: "Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell made the first free ascent of the Dawn Wall from December 27, 2014 to January 14, 2015, over a 19-day final push, and seven years of searching for the line and working the route’s 32 pitches."
Adam Ondra had the benefit of 8 years of additional beta beyond what topo's provide. Beta is aid and so is putting tick marks on the holds while you scope out the climb.
Rock & Ice: "Great progress on pitch 14 ... Took a lot of skin to finally figure out the mystery (3rd and last boulder of the pitch),... On my last go, with no skin and really tired,...confident that next time it should work out."
I would have to assume he would have to tick it, unless he wanted to chance losing all the skin on his fingers and bleeding all over the climb. And I can see tick marks on the climb. Until someone can flash it without beta or tick marks it's a mixed climb, that's my point. At this point it's nether an aid climb nor a free climb, it's a combination of the two, and additionally for this climb I think as long as he eventually free climbed it, that for this climb that he did do it in good style. On the other hand, if the climb was only as long as pitch 14 and it was on the ground then there would be no necessity of beta or tick marks.
Kevin wrote: "We left lots of room to improve the style and Adam did just that!" And as long as poor style is good style and good style is poor style that means the less tick marks and beta you have the poorer the style, because it is all about unitizing the aid part of it to the best of your ability. If you are going to say that Adam did it in better style because he did it faster or with less tick marks, or with less beta, I don't think that kind of thinking works in this case. Tommy and Kevin did it in better style because here a party of two did the climb, as well as they might have took more falls and still completed the climb.
Might sound crazy but if you think about it long enough that's what I think you have to come up with if you want to be consistent and logical.
|
|
ruppell
climber
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2019 - 10:34pm PT
|
Until someone can flash it without beta or tick marks it's a mixed climb, that's my point. At this point it's nether an aid climb nor a free climb, it's a combination of the two
Using that logic when did Co-Ex get it's first free ascent? When did it become a free climb. I know for a fact Rich Goldstone knew the beta for it because he tried it many times before he freed it. So, who really got the FFA? The guy that onsighted it? Who was that and when?
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2019 - 10:54pm PT
|
Ruppell, foremost this has to do with multiple pitches of 5.13-14 where you are loosing skin off your fingers and you need a magnifying glass to find the holds. Gunks climbs couldn't qualify for reverse style because the aid part of the free climbing can be removed.
The beta I am talking about has nothing to do with multiple falls or lowering off, so Goldstone would have the FFA in good style. I doubt Goldstone practiced or checked out the moves on tension or used tick marks.
Furthermore, getting it on the first try is not better style if you don't have an intimate knowledge of your gear, when your gear starts sliding down the rope even if you get it no falls your still considered an idiot. In my experience unless the gear was under the roof, or some similar circumstance, climbing at limits almost always had to do fiddling with gear and lowering off. In other words, I think the idea of absolutes is being illogical and unreasonable. Man was made to wear clothing, so chalk and shoes and a rope are reasonable and logical additions. The chalk makes up for having to drag the rope around and everyone wears shoes.
But once you get into beta then its a whole other level. Tom and Kevin had 8 years of beta and gave it to Adam. If they did not tell him anything and he only had the topo or what people saw them do from the ground then I don't see how he could have made it in 8 days. The 8 years of beta was not there because they were poor climbers, nor do I think Adam was so good that he could have done it would out the beta. Normally I would not have said anything, but in this case I think there has to be beta to do it in good style, the style is reversed.
|
|
Gunkie
Trad climber
Valles Marineris
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2019 - 09:28am PT
|
...has anyone free climbed all those A5 routes you put up on Millbrook?
|
|
Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2019 - 09:41am PT
|
Donald - If you're thinking of bringing a professional lighting crew to Millbrook so you can get in some previously unseen routes, you'll need to run it by Jon R beforehand.
|
|
couchmaster
climber
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2019 - 12:03pm PT
|
Reminds me of this old Sheridan Anderson cartoon:
They get to the top of the Dawn Wall after 7 years of effort and some fat woman non-climber asks "Did you boys do the sit start"?
|
|
BigB
Trad climber
Red Rock
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2019 - 01:46pm PT
|
KJ climbed the route..TC climbed around the route ;)
|
|
john hansen
climber
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2019 - 01:56pm PT
|
Just to note , the Phoenix was first climbed by Ray Jardine.
Mark and Max probably had an early ascent of the route but did not do the FA.
|
|
Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2019 - 04:54pm PT
|
Second question- Did your mom take prenatal vitamins? If yes, style demerits.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2019 - 11:39am PT
|
Rather then saying the style is simply reversed it is better to say it uses a style of Redirectionalism. The style is divided between aid and free climbing to then be combined again at the end only in regard to beta and free climbing alone.
In relation to ground up style this aforementioned style is in another category, the aid and the free. The free redirected to become aid and then the aid is redirected to become free. Traditional ground up style only goes in one direction from good free climbing to better free climbing.
The Dawn Wall style climbing takes on a temporary idealistic form to later become fulfilled in every sense.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2019 - 11:51am PT
|
I'd say that so long as the folks who climb it, honestly report the style and methods they employed, that is the best outcome of all.
Spot on, imo.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2019 - 11:55am PT
|
When I am commenting on style here I am only referring to two kinds: 1.) The Dawn Wall Style and 2.) The Ground Up Lowering Off Style, of no upward (or hanging on aid to check it out or tick mark it) aid. And I think that these are the only two logical kinds of style.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2019 - 12:03pm PT
|
"I'd say that so long as the folks who climb it, honestly report the style and methods they employed, that is the best outcome of all."
I would agree with that. My question is, how do we define climbing logically in a way that it makes sense.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2019 - 12:12pm PT
|
how do we define climbing logically in a way that it makes sense
Not gonna happen. It only "makes sense" on an individual level, and we're all in it for (often wildly) different things.
IMO, when you retrobolt a route SO that you "can" free-climb it, you're already off the rails stylistically. So, ANY talk of "sense" after that is a hopeless proposition. Tommy's done that, and he has the right to do so, imo. But there's no talk of "sense" after that.
And that goes for ALL "climbing." It's all a game, and the "rules" are entirely arbitrary. There's a certain "norm" that's emerged over many decades, but it's very fuzzy around the edges. Yet, the "edges" (and far off the map) are often where greatness lies.
It's fun to talk about, to be sure. And if you need "making sense of it" to drive the discussion, that's all the more fun. :-)
But it's a fools game!
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2019 - 12:21pm PT
|
I am old, like most here, and originally thought that modern sport methods were bad.
I look back and see that I was a lemming. Jardine was using these methods long ago, and put up great routes. He did do some rock carving, though.
The best climbers work routes for long periods now, and the goal is a red point. As long as they don’t hack the rock, I think all of the other things are no big deal. The end result is what matters.
Redpoints are better than yo-yo ascents, and yo-yo’ing was common in the old days. Pushing a top rope higher.
We used to be irrational. I recall catching Shute for doing the first solo.of a route because I had done it before with a rope. We were like a bunch of nannies.
Tommy’s style on the Dawn wall was good. Both leader and follower did every pitch without falling. The only improvement could be removing any hanging belays, but there are few stances on that route. They don’t make ropes long enough!
Anyway, sport climbing has totally changed the sport for the better.
I have done many of those Dawn Wall pitches and can’t even conceive that they go free. It is mind boggling.
A red point is good style. The only thing better is a flash with no beta. I like the modern rules.
That includes adding bolts to create a free climb.
|
|
aldude
climber
Monument Manor
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2019 - 01:18pm PT
|
I'd say an onsight free solo is better style....and adding bolts for free climbing is a step backwards stylistically
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2019 - 03:50pm PT
|
BASE104 "A red point is good style."
I will have to disagree, I don't think it's really necessary. Although I will admit that it will save time in doing this or that climb. I have spent years hang-dogging and recently I spent a lot of time working climbs over my limits in 5.13, for almost 2 years on the same climb every weekend. Knowing the next move or not never made any difference to me. What mattered is how fast and how strong I was after I got to the next move. And for that I think the climbing gym is the answer that is pushing the grades up. Back in the day I once overheard Sandy Stewart talking about doing pull ups on his door lintel, not much went on in the way of what we now call the climbing gym.
|
|
Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2019 - 05:33pm PT
|
Fascinating discussion. I could never even have imagined it sixty years ago!
Wayne
|
|
Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2019 - 05:44pm PT
|
Wayne is on of the orginal nicest, most sincere guys ever. And a great climber. As such you should take his post at face value (how many of us could claim something as grand as the first ascent of The Nose.) However if I had posted Wayne's comment it would rightly be considered as a massive poke in the eye directed at self absorbed navel gazing absent any sense of how difficult and how transcendently human it is to do something new.
|
|
nah000
climber
now/here
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2019 - 07:21pm PT
|
this is, for me, one of the stranger climbing focused threads in a while...
it’s obvious the o.p. has a long personal history with the games/arts/endeavours, yet so much of what is written is so apparently lacking in reference to the greater history of climbing.
rather than pick apart every statement and to keep this relatively short, it seems to me that climbing ethics and style have changed throughout time, in large part due to technological introductions... ie. whether it was natural fiber ropes and the original ice axes a few hundred years ago; pitons a hundredish years ago; modern bolts and synthetic ropes eightyish years ago; curved ice picks and the ubiquitous use of chalk sixtyish years ago; cams, sticky rubber and battery powered hammer drills fourtyish years ago; the popularization of climbing gyms and more scientific methods of training in the past thirtyish; or the embracing of offset handled leashless styled ice tools and information sharing and its resultant intensive and instantaneous beta in the last twentyish, climbing has always had a non-linear and sometimes quixotic relationship with change... [with apologies if, in my haste, i am off by a decade or two here or there]
sometimes new technological developments and/or the resultant stylistic changes that they engender have been immediately embraced... and sometimes not.
and so to break this whole varied history in to only two camps where one is represented by the tactics used on the free dawn wall, seems very, very odd. [and that conceptual breakdown seems strange even before one considers, in north america at least, the efforts of skinner and piana in their day...]
anyway, still not really sure exactly what the o.p.’s thesis is, but i do appreciate the thought being put into this, so i’ll throw out three of my own:
1. every climbing generation, as a whole, considers the technology and therefore ethics and styles of their generation as the highest form, with everything that comes after at least a small bastardization.
2. if you aren’t climbing on sight, free solo, and with no climbing shoes and no chalk, then you are a participant in a weird cultural game that lives in a grey continuum between cultural contrivance and perfect purity of non-technologically based human exploration.
3. there’s beauty in the embracing of technology to a point where falling and the initial directions of travel becomes irrelevant, at the same time that there is also beauty in perfect luddite-like avoidance of any non human body based technology and the constraints that that avoidance provides... and so in general personal exploration and therefore sweetness can be found in pretty much every combination between those two poles [outside of completely modifying every piece of rock to meet current systems of stylistic fashion]...
anyway, honesty and not being greedy with regards to the modification of rock surfaces seems to me to be the only things worth discussing with any degree of seriousness...
everything after that is akin to discussing what your favourite band/musical epoch/instrument is... aka it’s just good ole fashioned fun.
which is why what is particularly weird about this discussion, for me, is its emphasis on “defining” and “logic”... especially when the attempts seem to be grounded, to large degree, in exactly the opposite of both of those goals.
|
|
fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2019 - 08:53am PT
|
...define climbing logically in a way that it makes sense.....
Grown men and women climbing huge rocks or ice makes no logical sense. It's like trying to grade Mozart or Picasso....
|
|
Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2019 - 10:29am PT
|
As I recall the only "free" move I made on the second ascent was stepping out of my etriers after the last pitch - on the summit.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2019 - 11:18am PT
|
You're on a roll, DMT.
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2019 - 12:29pm PT
|
Donald, long shot here, are you related to the Don Perry that was the champion rope climber in the 1950s? Think he attended the Naval Academy.
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2019 - 01:10pm PT
|
Or was it the Navel Academy?
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2019 - 08:12pm PT
|
Roger Breedlove you wrote: "Since sometime in the 1970's the hardest free climbing has had some sort of previewing to work out the moves. Before that the rule was closer to climbing continuously, without previewing or practicing."
I think you got that backwards.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2019 - 02:43pm PT
|
BASE104 You wrote: "I was a lemming." because I believed in the ground up ethic.
From Don: I don't think you can say we were all lemmings. I never thought I was a lemming. But I think you can say that today of many of these who think they are climbing in good style.
I think that it is true that you may need to do some hanging around if you are 20 pitches off the ground and the climb is eating the skin off your finger every time you attempt the next pitch. That the climb is impossible without some compromises and the resources are limited. But I do not think it is true, that you have to hangdog on climbs that you can do given enough time when they are one or two pitches long.
And furthermore, on some of these climbs hangdoging is not going to make any difference for the following reasons:
1.) You are just too weak to do that climb now.
2.) You are simply lacking in the climbing skills that you should have developed on easier climbs.
3.) You would be flashing but instead you are suffering from a hangdog philosophy.
I don't want that kind of unnecessary style to predominate my philosophy of climbing, where when I am on lead:
1.) I am always debating on if I should fall and do some more hangdoging or
2.) thinking that my climbing can be dependent on my belayer to help me up the climb. That the belayer can be equally to blame for my not making the climb.
Hanging on the pins resting while your partner is hanging on the other end. It's a struggle just to keep the tension right, yanking pulling jumping, it appears to be some kind of a yin yang seesaw struggle. Maybe someday climbers will invent a crank to take to the cliff so they can ratchet their leader up to their high point. The second is doing more work than the leader, are they going to be strong enough to go when the turn is theirs? The stronger the belayer the better the climbing. I don't want to have to belay these guys, they need to come down so other people can climb and finish it. Unless you are seconding it, I don't see the point.
When it came to this bit of style, I think Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgenson would agree. It appears that they did not even consider hangdogg the crux pitch as an option.
The Dawn Wall 1:04:30 K.J. "Every fall you go back to the start of the pitch."
The Dawn Wall 1:24:20 T.C. "I think your gonna have to try and front step more." K.J. "When it comes time to like step on that middle foot, I can't do front step or any step because my foot's in the way. T.C. A couple of your falls last time were just because you couldn't find that middle foot. So even if it's a little bit harder ..."
I always believed climbing is something that should flow, to be in my mind as something natural every time I give it a try, nothing holding me back, and only something that has to do with me and the rock.
|
|
perswig
climber
|
|
|
Feb 24, 2019 - 03:27pm PT
|
Arne, you wrote "...he benefited greatly from shared key beta, which came from the FA members."
From Donald: Well then that's aid too,
and
Knowing the next move or not never made any difference to me. -also Donald
Dale
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2019 - 03:41pm PT
|
Answering Perswig:
I meant that not having beta makes no difference if you have time. On the other hand if you are on the Dawn Wall and need to summit with skin enough to make it and have no beta, then the climb should prove to be impossible.
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
|
Feb 28, 2019 - 02:47pm PT
|
Tut, I'm sure you are being facetious, about asking who Donald is.
Your ability to judge character has not let you down in this case.
(Donald, why don't you respond to John Gills Question? Are the son of the Navy rope Climber?)
but in case someone else is curious:
Here on the Taco you can gain some insight from this Link
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=2055633&tn=140
I could spend 20 minutes or 2 hours trying to explain,
there are some redeeming characteristics to Donald,
but Right now
I have to get on cooking dinner.
Its a real Boondoggle over at the Mnt Reject: somewhere there was a long thread? 2015? I really do not remember...
search, Northeast, Gunks, Millbrook - Rederectionalism (?)
or his name & Top rope 1st ascents(FAs)
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 3, 2019 - 10:59pm PT
|
To Gnome Ofthe Diabase: why don't you call me? I want to talk about Lyme. And, no I am not that old, and I do not climb ropes.
|
|
donald perry
Trad climber
kearny, NJ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 3, 2019 - 11:24pm PT
|
Kingtut wrote "I just don't get why someone thinks he has something to contribute about style for others, let alone on rock climbs he will never touch? … none of us are in any position to criticize other's climbing unless … they ask ....”
From Don: Dear King Tut,
First of all, your augment is not with me. You have misunderstood my idea. I am kind of doing a climb of my own here right now. I am trying to figure out what is aid climbing and what is free climbing while you watch. And you are criticizing my climbing.
You are arguing about my arguing, that I should stop arguing and let you argue. So, rather than stop arguing…. I agree with you, let’s keep arguing. But do we really want to argue about arguing while we are both arguing? Let’s talk about something important, which is, “What are we arguing about?”. Or what is climbing?
You are arguing with a straw-man. I don’t really care about any particular people here per say, rather my question is: "What is good style?", because it matters to me. I want to know what climbing is and what it's not. If it does not matter to you, then fine. But I have a right to know, like you have argued. Should it be private? The route is a public spectacle, it is public information. There is a movie. So, I should be able to give a public opinion. People should be able to think and say whatever they want. But I believe that climbing and good style does have a good definition. That is what I am now perusing, not your Tom, Dick and Harry that you suppose I am.
If being out there alone is what is really desired then everyone has their right to keep their routes and ideas to themselves as well as keep their climbs out of the guidebooks or not read into ideas about people observing their ideas or comment on them. People have that option, but that is not what most climbers do.
Some of us tried that for a while back in the 70’s btw, it did not seem to be very interesting, it was kind of a boring idea. One time there was even a party that tried to climb El Capitan in better style and not use a topo. They thought the idea or guidebooks was too much about things that had nothing to do with what climbing should be all about, that it should just be about you and the rock. What happened was that they got lost up there on the dead-ends and ran out of supplies.
We are all connected here to some extent for better or worse, but if you don’t like it leave, one always has that option. I choose to go the other direction, and it seems you have too.
You are saying to each his own. Nevertheless, regardless, we all try to adhere to standards and ratings anyway. Everyone knows the difference between aid and free climbing. When someone does a free climb they want to do it free. My question is what is pure free climbing when it comes to beta and hangdogging or pulling the rope through before each try? What is the logical and honest answer here, what are we doing? Does it make any sense? You are saying to each his own, that’s fine too. However, when people bring their ideas of accomplishment up publicly, then in essence they are looking for how and what they did in the world of mountaineering fits in with the climbing community. Not the other way around, except if your goal is to please a newbie mentality ... and I think that is what soloing is all about. So, I think I came up with some good ideas about how to define what we do, don’t you appreciate them? Well … you don’t have to study math to enjoy it, but I like to know the score. If you don’t your argument is appreciated, that is why I posting my junk here. So you could bash it. If I did not want you to comment on it, it would not be in a thread, it would be alone on a bookshelf. I don't think you can call me a hypocrite.
From my perceptive there is free climbing and there is aid climbing. I don’t think these rules should be set in stone, but I think that they are, and I want to know what they are. And I think now that there is better aid climbing and there is better free climbing. And doing a better ascent counts, even if you or others think it is irrelevant. I think it matters, and I think it matters to most of us. (that appears to be your argument to some extent, that style is a personal thing, and it is meant to be that way)
The way I see it, when you and your partner have to fail miserably, and you are already mixing aid and free climbing together, beta and hangdogging mixed up with some ground up ethic at the same time for the grand mop-up, then having the wrong mix makes for poor style. In other words, if you fail, or if you die, or if you will soon die in the style, then that's poor style. And I think that these rules change somewhat at the brink of human abilities, that is that you do not need beta and hangdogging just before the end of what is humanly possible. Someone else can do it, you can do something easier, or you can it be done without beta and hangdogging? If not then it needs to be part of the equation, in this case only.
I suppose it could be argued that the good style would be never to complete the climbs at the level of these difficulties, and if you did the climb then that would be bad style. But, I don't think we have go that far because we are all using aid to a degree that makes free climbing reasonable. For example, we all wear shoes, man was made to wear clothing, that's where we're at. We do not have fur on our backs or pads on our feet like other creatures. Man was made to wear climbing shoes and use chalk, and since we can't fly and make mistakes use a rope.
Therefore, on these really hard climbs skipping over these sections with less aid and more ground-up ethics is good style, but that does not have anything to do with climbing without clothing, shoes, chalk or a rope. If you fail because you don't use good climbing shoes, chalk, or a rope it just means you were confused, unreasonable and illogical. You failed to realize what naturally makes for good style and what makes for bad style.
Some would take it a step further. If we are not all products of evolution, if we did not self create, if we are someone else's creation, which I think is a no brainier considering what we now understand as infinite complexities of random chance which make evolution impossible----to put oneself at risk unnecessarily while climbing is breaking a natural law found in the Ten Commandments concerning idolatry. Granted, risk is unavoidable, learning how to deal with risk is good. This is what work is all about. But people do not need to lead trad with a blindfold or do those other similar things in what has proven to be bad style for not consistently finishing what you started or set a trend for the definition of sin and irresponsible foolishness.
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
Donald!
The questions 1st
1st
If John Gill asks me anything, I answer Him!
Was your Dad (not you) The Navy rope climber?
edit: yeah you never struck me as a Junior
that,
Junior, is what I fell off of, on a hot humid August evening
after the heat broke causing it to be wet from condensation
crushing my heels, M Mowbray threw me over his shoulder
& carried me out like a sack of potatoes...No Me Now?
its ok Ihave been a proud gnome`e
And
2nd
Call you?
(I did go to Paul Smiths For a Chefs Degree, but I didn't want to help cook you)only joking with you.... Sorta!
I'm not sure I have much to add?
Got bit here in Connecticut
Woke up with double vision, went to Westchester Med Lymes Clinic.
Took massive doses of anti-Biotics, You know how bad that path is
That led to the crazy imbalances but kicked the worst of the Lymes
Have had a few flair ups, but went down that same path, each time.
Tics & Lymes + the other junk, plays the devil with my stoke to climb
ok Ive got to go shovel snow I'll read all the rest as soon as I can.
Be well, Stay in the Light
Michael
|
|
| Messages 1 - 61 of total 61 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!