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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Grades, Egos, and Public Exhibiton 18-Mar-2008 At 8:59:50 AM Ronny

Message

On 17/03/2008 mockmockmock wrote:
>Numbers:
>
>I've often been told I can spend every weekend working on climbing a particular
>26 clean.. That doesn't mean I can climb 26. It just means I can climb
>THAT 26. I might still only onsight 21.
>
>Ralph

Yeah but that doesn't mean you can climb 21. It just means that you can climb THAT 21. You might still only climb 18 blind-folded. But that doesn't mean you can climb 18. It just means you can climb THAT 18 blind-folded. You might still only climb 12 one-handed...

(oh, sorry. I forgot this is Chockstone favorite topic #4 "why sport climbing is bad", not Chockstone favorite topic #6 "why onsight is the only 'real' way to tick a climb")

Seriously though... sure there are wankers who like dogging routes for the perceived kudos, but red-pointing a climb after a protracted sessions is a perfectly valid approach, and one which a lot of people get a lot out of. I spent about 5 months regularly trying the same route last year. It was supposedly 2 grades easier than my hardest red-point, and the people I was climbing with most days would warm up on it. There certainly wasn't any kudos to be had. But finally sending it in September was awesome. Really awesome.

Of course there are plenty of d*cks around yelling and screaming and loudly proclaiming that they know they would have sent it easily if they hadn't campused so hard last night because its way easier than the mega-hard route they sent last weekend... but there are also plenty of people who just like red-pointing.