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General Climbing Discussion

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Route Working 13-Aug-2005 At 6:24:08 AM BadBrad Of The Isles

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Just wondering how people out there work routes? Ive never given this much thought but talking to a dude the otherday about this prompted some interesting discussions.
His theory was first time you get on a route having already decided your not going for the onsite (i know questions already!) is simply to be able to clip the top anchors and setup a toprope (where possible) with stick clipping on the route allowed (ie from one bolt to the next) at any point. This whole first "attempt" is just to find out where the hard bits are and get it dressed without wasting energy.
First rap descent inspect holds and try different sequences on the hard bits. Then hand over to second or whatever and he does same - you rest etc. Next time up (still not trying to send) just working sections ie from ground to first rest or jug or whatever with much hanging at bolts to recover. Second rap descent (this is where it gets interesting to me) go back to anything you still finding difficult (shouldnt be much apparently as if something is stopping you cold its time to get a new route to work. Again interesting i thought) but the main purpose is to find out how to clip the bolts! This totally blew my mind but he made sense in that he said often the nature of clipping can be the hardest thing on the route, that he still considered it a "move", strength factor - one arm off, sketch factor etc
Once finished lower off, rest and then on next shot have first real try.
Obviously there are a lot of moderating factors to this ie having a rope monkey present or top rope access available, steepness of cliff etc but the above was his general method. Hes climbing high 20s and credits this formula with helping him get there.
Upon reflection this seems like quite an efficient way to systematically go about sending a project (obvious ethical questions aside) and made me really think about how i try to give it hell, ground up, every single shot and if cant do a move lower off (play on it first though) may not be the fastest way to go. Thoughts?
Brad.