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stickclipper
Oct 21, 2005, 8:51 PM
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mdude
Oct 21, 2005, 9:41 PM
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What Ever.
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slobmonster
Oct 21, 2005, 9:44 PM
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I'm going to spend today's remaining hours on the clock dedicated to this very issue.
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nuts_r_us
Oct 21, 2005, 9:53 PM
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why don't you free the nose and see if you fall? i will try to do the same and then we can spray/talk/whine about it.
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petsfed
Oct 21, 2005, 10:04 PM
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In reply to: Also, why are hanging belays commonly accepted as "free?" Hanging belays show that a route probably CAN be freed, not that it is HAS been freed. (Skinner and Piana took a huge, visionary step towards freeing the Salathe - they did not free the Salathe)
I never really bought into this. You know, its real impressive that Dean Potter freed the crux pitches of the Tombstone in one pitch, but he had to have a 70 meter rope to do it. What's the point? I expect everytime I hear that argument to hear someone go on to claim that any rests where you weight anything but your own body invalidates the ascent. That includes lieing on the portaledge when you sleep. Has Caldwell used hanging belays during his big wall free climbing? Yes. Have the Huber brothers used hanging belays during their big wall free climbing? Yes. So what's the difference between Tommy Caldwell, Alex Huber and Todd Skinner? What is it? I don't understand.
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memory_hole
Oct 21, 2005, 10:07 PM
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In reply to: Also, why are hanging belays commonly accepted as "free?" |
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jhwnewengland
Oct 21, 2005, 10:13 PM
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Eliminating hanging belays is harder and better style. I don't see how that can be argued. By belaying at a hanging belay you get to rest until you're completely fresh. If you didn't belay you would have to rest while hanging onto the rock under your own power, even if it's a pretty good stance (if it's a nice big ledge it's not a hanging belay).
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memory_hole
Oct 21, 2005, 10:15 PM
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In reply to: Eliminating hanging belays is harder and better style. I don't see how that can be argued. |
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rufusandcompany
Oct 21, 2005, 10:16 PM
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In reply to: why don't you free the nose and see if you fall? i will try to do the same and then we can spray/talk/whine about it.
Your challenge does nothing to diminish the validity of stickclipper's point. I am usually one of the first to point out when a cyber, wannabe rock star is hosing down the achievements of a great climber, although clipper clearly isn't doing that here. He is not suggesting that Tommy's ascent is less than impressive. He is simply pointing out that it is not what has historically been considered a free ascent.
The question of what should be Tommy's next project has recently been posed on this site, and I would agree with clipper that a traditional bottom-to-top, free ascent would be a worthy and notable achievement for Tommy. He is certainly capable of it.
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jhwnewengland
Oct 21, 2005, 10:19 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: Eliminating hanging belays is harder and better style. I don't see how that can be argued. I think you'll find plenty of takers if you'd like to argue a 'harder=better style' equivalence.
Nope, I didn't say harder and therefore better style. I can think of a lot of cases where that is not true (one obvious case is free soloing: technically easier, but better style).
Eliminate hanging belays:
It is harder.
It is also better style.
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memory_hole
Oct 21, 2005, 10:33 PM
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In reply to: Eliminate hanging belays: It is harder. It is also better style. |
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jhwnewengland
Oct 21, 2005, 10:46 PM
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Hanging belays are contrived. You would not be able to use them if you were soloing. Free soloing is the most stylistically pure form of climbing, but it is unrealistic at this level. The closest one can get to free soloing while still maintaining remaining safe is the best possible style.
Do you feel that clipping into a piece and resting when you are pumped is free climbing? I don't. Do you feel that clipping an anchor and resting at a stance upon which you wouldn't normally be able to rest is free? I don't. If you can't stand or sit and completely unweight your arms and unclench your body tension, yet you rest on a piece or an anchor, you are not truly free climbing. You could improve the style of your ascent by avoiding that rest.
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shorty
Oct 21, 2005, 11:05 PM
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In reply to: I'm going to spend today's remaining hours on the clock dedicated to this very issue.
Just make certain that you are not sitting in a chair or resting your wrists on that ego keypad when typing a response -- it may not be considered a "free reply" to a post. :wink:
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outsideguyzak
Oct 21, 2005, 11:37 PM
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wouldn't climbing the nose without hanging belays be impossible unless you were free soloing? I mean ropes are only so long and your partner has to get to the top of each pitch too. How else would you do it?
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boadman
Oct 22, 2005, 12:18 AM
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In reply to: Hanging belays are contrived. You would not be able to use them if you were soloing. Free soloing is the most stylistically pure form of climbing, but it is unrealistic at this level. The closest one can get to free soloing while still maintaining remaining safe is the best possible style. Do you feel that clipping into a piece and resting when you are pumped is free climbing? I don't. Do you feel that clipping an anchor and resting at a stance upon which you wouldn't normally be able to rest is free? I don't. If you can't stand or sit and completely unweight your arms and unclench your body tension, yet you rest on a piece or an anchor, you are not truly free climbing. You could improve the style of your ascent by avoiding that rest.
Actually, your if you want to quibble, your semantics are off. Free climbing is climbing without pulling on gear. You can rest on a piece every two feet and have still "freed" all the moves. A no falls/hangs free ascent is what you are describing. I think that as ropes get longer and people get fitter, many hanging belays will start to be passed up. However, there will be a practical limit at which ropes become too heavy/unwieldy and if two ledges are too far apart from eachother hanging belays will continue to be used. As ropes get thinner and lighter and rope drag reducing devices like the revolver come into more widespread use longer and longer pitches will be lead. Many single pitch sport lines on european limestone are starting to require multiple lowers on 70m ropes...
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kappydane
Oct 22, 2005, 12:22 AM
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In reply to: Hanging belays are contrived. You would not be able to use them if you were soloing. Free soloing is the most stylistically pure form of climbing, but it is unrealistic at this level. The closest one can get to free soloing while still maintaining remaining safe is the best possible style. Do you feel that clipping into a piece and resting when you are pumped is free climbing? I don't. Do you feel that clipping an anchor and resting at a stance upon which you wouldn't normally be able to rest is free? I don't. If you can't stand or sit and completely unweight your arms and unclench your body tension, yet you rest on a piece or an anchor, you are not truly free climbing. You could improve the style of your ascent by avoiding that rest.
Using that logic, if you clip the chains on a sport route that is not a no-hands rest, you didn't "free climb" the route! And, on any multi-pitch climb if the belay is not "no hands" you didn't free climb the route??
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memory_hole
Oct 22, 2005, 12:45 AM
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In reply to: Hanging belays are contrived. You would not be able to use them if you were soloing. Free soloing is the most stylistically pure form of climbing, but it is unrealistic at this level. The closest one can get to free soloing while still maintaining remaining safe is the best possible style. |
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slablizard
Oct 22, 2005, 12:49 AM
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Why don't eliminate belays completely and do a huge one pitch route? Hanging belays a rest? They are belays! Necessary unless you have a 3000 feet rope.
geez.
In reply to: Also, why are hanging belays commonly accepted as "free?" Hanging belays show that a route probably CAN be freed, not that it is HAS been freed. (Skinner and Piana took a huge, visionary step towards freeing the Salathe - they did not free the Salathe) |
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nsintros
Oct 22, 2005, 1:23 AM
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Apparently some of you have never heard of simul-climbing. I think simul-climbing and switching belays at convienient ledged would be the best and safest style by the standards suggested here. However to me I think Alex Lowes rule of the best climber is the one having the most fun applies here to.
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curt
Oct 22, 2005, 1:48 AM
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In reply to: ...2005: Tommy Caldwell. Free ascent in 12 hours, leading every pitch, 1 fall on Changing Corners pitch. --- As has been mentioned elsewhere, the bottom to top ascent without falls has yet to be done. There are a few climbers who accept a multi-pitch free climb only after they have climbed each pitch consecutively without falling. I realize that some will view this as absurd (yes, I know, most of you don't care...), but I think it has some validity...
I generally consider it to be a "free" ascent if a climber leads or follows every pitch of a route without resorting to the "aid" tactics of pulling on gear, or resting on the rope. So, if Caldwell led the changing corners pitch from bottom to top, after his one fall, I would say he made a legitimate free ascent. But, of course, that's just my definition.
Curt
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jhwnewengland
Oct 22, 2005, 3:20 AM
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I think a few posters are missing the definition of a hanging belay. Not all belays are hanging--in fact they are quite rare. If you're on a small stance that would make a great rest it's only semi-hanging, because you can unweight the anchor and still be resting. If the belay is on a ledge it's not a hanging belay at all. I'm not proposing that one eliminate belays altogether, just the ones that are smack dab in the middle of some hard climbing, with no logical ledge or stance at which you'd normally belay.
Obviously the decision about whether or not a belay is "hanging" is up to the climber. I don't know Dean Potter, but I'm guessing he felt that the belay in the middle of his Tombstone route made the climb easier because it's not at a natural rest stance--the length of the rope dictates that you must rest there. By using a 70m rope he was able to eliminate the contrived rest and improve the style of his ascent. If the belay had been on a great ledge he likely wouldn't have felt it necessary to link pitches.
Point well taken about free climbing. I meant it's not a free ascent if you hang from gear to rest, even if you do make all the moves.
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jhwnewengland
Oct 22, 2005, 3:29 AM
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In reply to: Using that logic, if you clip the chains on a sport route that is not a no-hands rest, you didn't "free climb" the route! And, on any multi-pitch climb if the belay is not "no hands" you didn't free climb the route??
I wouldn't go so far as to call it not a free ascent, but the syle could be improved by topping out. Take Dave Graham: he made it a point to top out on Livin' Astro or China Beach (or both) after clipping the anchors. If the anchors are in the middle of the cliff so be it. I'd be perfectly happy to clip the anchors and lower off. But if someone came along with a 70m (or 80m, whatever) rope and linked that pitch and the next without ever having to hang on a stanceless belay, he would have climbed the route in better style.
Haven't you ever clipped the anchors and purposefully taken some time before you said take, to prove to yourself that you weren't about to fall when you made the clip? If I desperately clip an anchor and fall immediately afterward I don't feel as good about the ascent. Why? If the anchor wasn't there I probably wouldn't have made a free ascent.
This is all personal and it's up to you to decide the best style for yourself. I think we can all aspire to climb with more style.
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dingus
Oct 22, 2005, 3:39 AM
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Sure, climbing without falling is superior style to climbing with falls. No argument there.
Should he go back and improve? Sup to him.
Is it a free ascent? In my book and a lot of my mates it is, yes.
To imply there was some monolithic rule in the past, no hanging belays, no falls? Bullshit.
Some climbers felt that way. Sure. Some feel that way now too. Right on! I salute your sense of style.
But plenty of other climbers didn't hold such a tight line. For all the time I've been climbing, there have been those who accepted lowering to the base of the pitch or the nearest no-hands rest. You know it, I know it, the American people know it. Yes, not doing that is superior style. But for many of us, its still free.
And I think this prohibition against hanging belays is just fucking silly.
Outright silly. I'm serious, you old guys are embarrassing me. Stop it with the hanging belay bullshit OK?
DMT
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baigot
Oct 22, 2005, 3:48 AM
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Man, this couple and all the Xtreeme free climbers arenīt they tired of climb the same routes over and over...
Thereīre plenty of hidden walls in Himalaya, Karakorum, The Nortern Territories such Baffin, and in our Patagonia, to be free climbed.
Come on...use your imagination...
Iīm boring to read this sh..t about xtreme free climb in yosemite...if you donīt want to travel, please, yosemite is a beautiful place with a lot of rock...set up new routes free and bolt-less, please.
Vicente
Argentina
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rufusandcompany
Oct 22, 2005, 4:19 AM
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In reply to: And I think this prohibition against hanging belays is just f---ing silly. Outright silly. I'm serious, you old guys are embarrassing me. Stop it with the hanging belay s--- OK? DMT
I have to agree with dingus in that hanging in a belay does not negate a free ascent. Hanging belays have been a recognized and accepted component of free ascents for at least as long as I've climbed (three decades).
Certain belays would not be possible without them, regardless of a climber's physical and technical prowess. As much as climber's abilities have skyrocketed in the last decade or so, I find it hard to believe that we will be seeing even top rockstars free belaying from 5.14, overhanging stances anytime soon.
What I find most remarkable about this thread is that the author's OP made a very good point, and yet most all here chose to ignore it in favor of this - with all due respect - silly debate.
I would be very interested in hearing what you think about the idea of only calling a traditional ascent free after it has been done from base to summit without falls - hanging belays notwithstanding.
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