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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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