Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Sonnie Trotter Goes Down on Tasmania 21-Feb-2016 At 4:02:26 PM johny

Message

>Likewise. This is a classic example of getting the gear back out between shots being more work
>than putting it back in again it on lead the next shot.

When you explain redpointing to people who dont climb they think it is wank. In fact non-climbers probably think all rock climbing is wank. I think by "wank" you mean it is "too much of a pain in the ass" which ultimately I would say just means too lazy. So some routes are easy to clean and try again placing gear and some are hard. To just arbitrarily say its "too wanky" for some and not others creates a bunch of problems.

If you fall off Mr Natural placing gear (and dont break your legs) you can run to the top and rap clean the one or two pieces from a bolted anchor in about 5 minutes. This is not done because it is too much of pain in the ass. Its because people are too scared to lead it placing gear. In this case it is pretty obvious that its not wanky to place the gear, its wanky to preplace. If you "lead" this climb with massive slings and preplaced gear -like almost all ascents have been done- you may as well toprope it. thats why I call it a farce... Watching someone "lead" a trad route who never climbs above preplaced gear is a farce. A lead placing gear on mr. natural is a whole other planet. This is very much the case with the route sonnie climbed in Tas- c--khead Crack.

Mr Natural BTW is a fun climb and I like that it is out there as a challenge. I would not complain about one bolt at the start, but it is a good little test piece as it is. The story is absolutely hilarious. Thing is that Hoss could have lead it placing gear if he wanted to. He may have anyway. I dont want to take away from that history and Im not trying to slagg off anyone -well besides sonnie a bit :) , Im just suggesting that nowadays routes get put up with some consistency.

Mother of god is easy to place but hard to strip in between... I would say its not wanky to pull the gear out but lazy. However, I can see why you didn't bother back then. I didn't place the gear on that route mainly because it was a pain but also because another climber asked me to leave it in. But if I was climbing that today as a FFA I would have placed the gear. Compared to other gear routes it is not that bad to strip between shots.

Surely you would go back and lead a sport climb you accidentally freed on top rope? I know alot of climbers who have done this. Very small difference in wank factor in my opinion. I think trad climbs require that extra bit of effort.

Hey that wasnt a dig at Zach. I totally respect him and Logan's send. But the effort required cleaning that route between lead shots is maybe 3 times harder to do than Mother of God. I told them I would be surprised if they led it placing gear because I knew what a pain in the ass it is not because I doubt they were unable to do it. Malcolm was stripping the route at the end of every day working it and then going for the send placing gear on the next day which is better style than anyone else has done.