Discussion Topic |
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Rudder
Trad climber
Costa Mesa, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 5, 2019 - 02:07am PT
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Dogleg?
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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The hardest 5.8 is likely 5.9 and the easiest 5.8 is no doubt 5.7. Climbs speak for themselves, the numbers attached to them are arbitrary and should only be used as a rough guide.
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Gunkie
Trad climber
Valles Marineris
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My first climb in JT was a 5.8 around Hidden Valley "Double Cross" (?) and I almost cratered from 30 feet up. It seemed hard to me and I was leading hard 10s in the Gunks regularly. Good times.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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I have limited experience in Joshua Tree but Bambi Meets Godzilla comes to mind.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Probably 5.9.
What about the best 5.8 at J Tree other than Sail Away? Cakewalk has to be up there
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10b4me
Social climber
Lida Junction
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I have limited experience in Joshua Tree but Bambi Meets Godzilla comes to mind.
That's a nice climb.
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brotherbbock
climber
So-Cal
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Dogleg has to be up at the top of the list.
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johntp
Trad climber
Punter
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What about the best 5.8 at J Tree other than Sail Away? Cakewalk has to be up there
Always thought Walk on the Wild Side was the best .8 at JT, but I'm a slabber and preferred long routes.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Yikes...lets get reallly trite. Is the hardest 5.8 in JT harder than the hardest 5.8 in the Gunks and who reaaly cares. A lot of people it appears.
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johntp
Trad climber
Punter
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"Pinched Rib"
Before or after the crystals broke off?
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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Pinched Rib. Super polished, super hard. Yer gonna deck most likely if you blow the slippery crux. I think.
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johntp
Trad climber
Punter
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I may be way off, but since the crucial crystals broke off, isn't Pinched Rib now .9 or .10?
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the idle rich
climber
Estes Park, CO
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I did Goof Proof Roof once and thought it was a really good climb but a long approach. Found it to be really, really hard for 5.8. By the way anyone know what the C2+ stands for?
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Not the hardest, but I'm a fan of Dappled Mare. Bird on a Wire is a classic, too--10a.
BAd
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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I did Captain Kronos back in the 80's and thought it was hard for 5.7.
Later guides have it at 5.9
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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I always thought Leaders Fright was the hardest 5.7 and even if uprated to 5.8 might be the hardest 5.8 at Josh.
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Wildschwein
Trad climber
Celle
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Pinched Rib. Sandbag,even back in the day. Aloha.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Dolphin was pretty butch for 5.7
I thought Pinched Rib was way easier
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jeff constine
Trad climber
Ao Namao
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Did goof proof roof freed the Bashie/bolt ladder at 11+ P1 the roof P2 aid was fun the 5.8- part was one move of not much off the belay. Interesting area. Tony Sartin put up some new bolted rigs right by it.
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Jeff Gorris
climber
Not from Portlandia
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Wasn't ZZZZZ rated "5.8" at some point? Either way, 100% classic and bold-hard.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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My first climb in JT was a 5.8 around Hidden Valley "Double Cross" (?) and I almost cratered from 30 feet up.
That's why we added the bolt.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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I did crater on Double Cross when one of those chossy footholds broke while I was tying off the broken bong that was there at the time. I was 13, light and flexible, so no real damage.
Energy Crisis was a total sandbag @ F8
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crøtch
climber
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Zig Zag on Intersection Rock
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F10
Trad climber
Bishop
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Zig Zag used to be F7 5.7
I always thought Deviate was pretty hard when it was rated F8 5.8
Its a 10a now
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little Z
Trad climber
un cafetal en Naranjo
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Pinched Rib. Sandbag,even back in the day. Aloha.
we'd often get the campsite under Pinched Rib. Always made for great entertainment watching people flail while we relaxed in the camp chairs with a few after-climb beers
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hailman
Trad climber
Ventura, CA
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I don't know about hardest.....but my FAVORITE 5.8 at joshua tree is for sure
The Flake !!!!!!
And yes it would feel hard if you are not versed in all styles of climbing
chimney at the bottom which narrows to squeezy thing
some liebacking / crack climbing to the top of the flake
and of course bumpy slab finish
great climb
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Dapper Dan
Trad climber
Redwood City
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Climbing 'The Flake' as one pitch is fun. But I remember a ton of rope drag at the top when you are doing those last friction/face moves.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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there is an overhanging hand crack in the Dacks @ the beer walls that they called a 5.8. I put my southern Colorado desert rat friend on it. IC was his home crag. did not tell him the grade just asked him what he thought after he hiked it. . the answer was 10b
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Gilroy
Social climber
Bolderado
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Clutch and Cruise? The definition of 5.8d.
Sorry for the thread drift.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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I seem to recall a discussion about how 5.8+ usually turns out to be sandbag.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Gilroy. that would be it. just plain Stupid ego crap INMOP. My friend had zero skin in the game, no Idea what the grade was supposed to be and has done thousands of routes in the desert. primrose dihedrals, all that stuff. He casually hiked it and thought it was 10b.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Music Box, Belle Campground. Some call it 5.10a. It's the business.
Always thought Leader's Fright was stiff as well. Basically a solo when I first did it back in high school. Didn't Dick Webster first lead that one. 5.7...
First time I tried Dogleg I didn't know how to jam and spanked.
Waterchute used to be rated 5.9 and it felt like the hardest free climb on earth when I first followed Ricky Accomazzo up it when we was kids.
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F
climber
away from the ground
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Bikini whale.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Music Box, Belle Campground. Some call it 5.10a. It's the business.
I've been lurking on this thread fruitless for an answer, but there it is. Not 5.7, not 5.9. Just full value 5.8.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Would a full value 5.8 be a mediocre 5.9 because it didn’t pass the hardman rating test? I feel that there is way too much emphasis on the rating a climb wears rather than on the quality of the climbing it provides.
Ratings are like clothing....they are arbitrarily chosen and hide what is the real essence of what lies underneath.
Then again...most people do look consierably better with their clothes on.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Hey Kris- I was trying to find that really funny post you made at one point about how difficulty ratings REALLY line up numerically at J-Tree. It was sort of spot on. LOL.
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ec
climber
ca
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Pinched Rib was one of the 1st routes I did on my initial visit to Josh. I felt pretty spanked on it. The most memorable thing about my struggle were some children running about through the campground yelled up, “You guys don’t have to go that way, we found an easy way to the top!”
 ec
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dee ee
Mountain climber
Of THIS World (Planet Earth)
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I can't decide, although there are many good ones named up-thread.
I've done a couple "5.8's" since the new Gordo guide came out that were ruthless sandbags.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
The crack route of the same name is .8+ & is sustained at the top
~ Echo Rock ~>E Face.~
I'm sure that Big Al Sent me up Herb's bolted shakefest,,,
(1st EastCoaster,one of very early 1st,of a dozen ascents)
The current .10d seems about right for old school 5.8 Herb Laeger route.
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Esparza
Trad climber
Westminster, CA
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Captain Kronos was super hard for 5.7! I was gripped when I did that way back when. haha
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zip
Trad climber
pacific beach, ca
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Bikini Whale ? 😳
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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TS Special.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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^^^
Yes! Groveling around that roof is heady stuff. This thread is taking me back. While I agree that Dogleg has that hard move at the bottom, I hopped on ZZZZ when it was rated.8, and it now, what? Kind of runout .10a/b? Same with The Deviate, which had a great photo in the old Wolfe guide that made you want to hop on it. I was probably 14 or 15. Humbling.
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jeff constine
Trad climber
Ao Namao
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What about The Flue 5.8 hmmmm
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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^^^
Did that around the same time. Kind of sketchy at the bottom as well.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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The Flue was the second route I ever led, or climbed. The only reason I didn't die on it was cause I was too stubborn to fall off. I really don't think my one stopper would have saved me.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Ah, yes. The Deviate. Seemd like the shizzle when I did it back in high school in Robbins boots.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Any 5.8 FA Herb Laeger.
I have not climbed many of those mentioned but would remark that Breakfast of Champions at 5.8 has a start that will totally spit you out. Once you get past that it's quite a bit less than 5.8. So don't mind the 80 ft runout at the end. You probably won't fall off the 5.0 finish and fall 160 feet to the ground. (You'll die hitting ledges and other features on the way down.)
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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^^^
I don’t think that most are referring to the actual crack itself on Dogleg but that tricky move off the deck.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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It seems the first 10 feet off the deck doesn't count in the grading, O'Kelleys crack for example.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Justthemaid:
Hey Kris- I was trying to find that really funny post you made at one point about how difficulty ratings REALLY line up numerically at J-Tree. It was sort of spot on. LOL.
It was in some sort of silliness between Tarbuster and me.
Roy - I love those topo's. That stuff is great! (I wasn't trying to call you out on that rating thing, just havin' silly fun..) We always used to have a joke about Josh grades, and how they really work this way: .10a, .10c, .10b, .9+, .11a, .11b, .11c, .10d, .11d, and so on....
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The Frog
Trad climber
West Allis WI
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Mar 18, 2019 - 08:47am PT
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Continuum, 5.8+. John Long route if memory serves. When I led that, a buddy who had led a nearby 10a cleaned it and at the top said, "Well, that was a grade harder than what I just did..."
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Ballo
Trad climber
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Mar 18, 2019 - 09:33am PT
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According to my 1979 guide book, zigzag is a 7
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Mar 18, 2019 - 10:32am PT
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Always thought Bouissonier was hard for 5.7. Heck...hard for 5.8!
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Mar 18, 2019 - 11:10am PT
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I agree that Dogleg is a hard 5.8 for JT standards. Maybe that is why it's rated 5.8+ (or it was in the guidebook I had many years ago). Debating moderate sandbags is an interesting business. I think there is a lot of value when the opinions come from the folks who are closest to their limits on such routes. And the information is most valuable to others at the same relative skill level, but probably not so much to those to regularly OS routes that are orders of magnitude above the range.
I was a fairly inexperience climber when I did Dogleg back in ‘95. I did Bishops Terrace and Nutcracker in the Valley earlier that year and I had maybe 20 other pitches of easier trad leads and under my belt. Dogleg was the most challenging route I had touched up to that point and was the first time I hung on gear.
That said, it's not really all that hard compared to some 8s I've done in NC and TN. In fact, not even close. Go to Moore's Wall in NC near Winston Salem, or the Tennessee Wall near Chattanooga. There you'll find some 8s that are serious sandbags. Gear is excellent at T-Wall, so no big deal. Moore's Wall is a different story, watch the hell out!
2nd on Bouissonier
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berg
Trad climber
los angeles, ca
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Mar 18, 2019 - 04:22pm PT
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i agree with Captain Kronos. hardest/scariest 5.7 lead for a barely 5.7 leader. mountain project has it now at 5.9 R.
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brian benedon
Trad climber
tucson
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Mar 18, 2019 - 07:21pm PT
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Double Cross was 5.7 when my wife and I did it. She was pretty mad.
I watched some guy drag a different sucker up Dogleg unroped day after day.
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Tom Patterson
Trad climber
Seattle
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Mar 19, 2019 - 06:01am PT
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I remember Pinched Rib being 5.7 (which is why I used to lead it, even after it became a 5.10--unbeknownst to me, and many). Always struck me as a sandbag, but the number made me believe it was no big deal. I also remember the sitting, unprotected hip belay in the scooped out part at the top.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Mar 19, 2019 - 07:24am PT
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Campfire Girl in Indian Cove seemed plenty stout for 5.8. Good route, though.
BAd
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johntp
Trad climber
Punter
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Mar 19, 2019 - 03:21pm PT
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It seems the first 10 feet off the deck doesn't count in the grading, O'Kelleys crack for example.
Black Tide is a fantastic .8. But always felt the moves to the first bolt were .9ish.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 19, 2019 - 03:25pm PT
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BITD ratings were always harder at the Monument
than other areas.
Guess you haven’t climbed in Blighty.
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Al Fylak
Trad climber
Rochester Hills, MI
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Mar 19, 2019 - 06:40pm PT
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The chimney start to The Flake is pretty darn hard for 5.8.p
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Hobo Greg
Trad climber
ISELIN
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Mar 19, 2019 - 08:18pm PT
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The Flake. I reclimbed it last week after leading it in my first year of climbing, and it was still hard.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 19, 2019 - 09:21pm PT
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Yeah, ya gotta watch what ya have for breakfast for ya do The Flake,
unless yer sphincter is tuned, nawmean?
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hailman
Trad climber
Ventura, CA
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Mar 20, 2019 - 09:19am PT
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Full disclosure on my Flake experience:
I made my partner run back to the car to grab the #4 cam (or was it #5) before I squeezed out of the top of the chimney. I went all the way into the back of it and basically startled wrestling it -- there's a good rail inside the thing.
No one told me about any hidden handholds !!
It's an awesome route, I actually mentioned it upthread!
PS. funny story Jebus....ego never pays!
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Mar 20, 2019 - 11:34am PT
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I've climbed in JT a fair amount over the last 30 years, and always found the majority of the ratings on the soft side, too. Yes, there are some notorious sandbags (mentioned in this thread), but by & large 5.9 at Tahquitz/Suicide/Yos has always felt like the standard to me, and JT has generally felt softer than that.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Mar 20, 2019 - 11:36am PT
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I think that the average 5.8 in the Gunks is harder than the average 5.8 in JT. Sticky ruber shoes don't matter as much in the Gunks but forearm and finger strength does.
L
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Mar 20, 2019 - 03:26pm PT
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BITD 5.9 was hard. So the whole scale got skewed a little ;-)
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Mar 20, 2019 - 03:36pm PT
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Very, very true...I know, I was there. Having said that, time moves on and grades in guidebooks should reflect the present not the “old school” days. Grades should be a guide to climbers today and not a rallying cry about how tough we were bitd.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Mar 20, 2019 - 04:00pm PT
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There were probably more inconsistencies in the grading back in the 60's and 70's because climbers didn't get around as much.
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johntp
Trad climber
Punter
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Mar 20, 2019 - 05:07pm PT
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Grades should be a guide to climbers today and not a rallying cry about how tough we were bitd.
I have mixed feelings about that. I was a weekend warrior; never really got "good". Used to be a bit peeved at the runouts on .8 & .9 routes by the folks that climbed really hard. It was nothing for them to run out "easy" ground, but essentially left the routes out of my range to lead.
Not that I wanted bolts every six feet, but X on .9 was not in my wheelhouse.
On the other hand, those routes speak to the courage and intensity of the era.
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D Murph
climber
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Mar 20, 2019 - 07:57pm PT
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One other thing to keep in mind with the Gunks comparison is that at the Gunks there's genuine differentiation of the lower grades. 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7 all can be noticeably different even if you climb much harder. I think in many other places that's less consistently true and the lower grades tend to lump together (or else are weird somehow).
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Mar 21, 2019 - 10:00am PT
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Interesting discussion. Per grades, as someone who grew up in So Cal and climbing at Tahquitz, where the rating system was invented, we had a slew of standard classics that supposedly were examples of a given grade. Piton Pooper for 5.7. Mechanics Route for 5.8. Open Book for 5.9. But once things got into 5.10, the difficulty was not so easily quantified because the hardest climbs back in the 50s and 60s varied a lot. A whole lot.
For example, Tom Frost lead Big Daddy in 1958 and it's probably at least 5.10d. Robbin's classic, El Camino Real came down in 1961 and is likely 5.10a, as is The Blank. Higgins' Jonah, from 1963, is closer to 5.11 than 5.10 so sorting all of this out has been an adventure. Years later, in 1970, Valhalla, across the valley at Suicide Rock, got the first 5.11 rating but it was later discovered that Chingadera, at Tahquitz (FFA in 1967 I think, by Kamps and Powell), was considerably harder.
So go figure...
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Mar 21, 2019 - 10:31am PT
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I think there are 3 ratings:
A route is worth doing and is within your ability
A route is not worth doing and is within your ability
A route is too hard or too run out
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Mar 21, 2019 - 11:08am PT
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objectively discernible gradations of difficulty in the YDS
I think if you're looking for a means of rating a climb with the same accuracy we can measure a shell or a pine cone, you are asking for the impossible. That doesn't make the exercise "ridiculous" per se, because even ballpark figures and ratings are usually enough for experienced climbers to go on. Ratings were never meant to be "objective" markers for a route, but generalizations that impart to climbers what they are likely up against difficulty wise. Since we all come in various sizes, there is no "normal" climber we can norm anything off. But consensus usually gets things right enough.
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Eric Beck
Sport climber
Bishop, California
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Mar 21, 2019 - 01:00pm PT
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For me, it is remarkable the degree of consensus in ratings when we consider all the variation in types of climbing and climber size and ability.
To see this, Mountain Project invites us to rate each route. These are available right after "You & This Route", a listing of opinions.
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Eric Beck
Sport climber
Bishop, California
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Mar 21, 2019 - 03:27pm PT
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Don't take my word for the remarkable consensus. See for yourself. Also, there are lots of people climbing 5.10.
It is true that some climbing areas have softer and stiffer ratings.
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