Dawn Wall

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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.
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