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Alpine07
Mar 30, 2009, 7:24 PM
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Fixed the link.
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dlintz
Mar 30, 2009, 7:38 PM
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Nice. Controversy or no I've always enjoyed reading his stuff.
Go Verm!
d.
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cracklover
Mar 30, 2009, 7:47 PM
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Cool. Thanks for the link!
GO
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k.l.k
Mar 30, 2009, 9:08 PM
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yokese wrote: And he boulders with his helmet on . . .. Now, who's gonna be the first one to scream: "n00b!"
n00b.
tell verm to just slather some k-y jelly on that thing and make the look complete.
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dingus
Mar 30, 2009, 9:28 PM
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Are those mining company boulders?
DMT
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Sin
Mar 31, 2009, 2:37 AM
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Where are the flip-flops? Pretty cool man!
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cracklover
Mar 31, 2009, 3:31 AM
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dingus wrote: Are those mining company boulders? DMT
I had to do a double-take. I read the post and assumed it was Curt posting this ^^^
GO
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jgill
Apr 3, 2009, 12:11 AM
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k.l.k wrote: yokese wrote: And he boulders with his helmet on . . .. Now, who's gonna be the first one to scream: "n00b!" n00b. tell verm to just slather some k-y jelly on that thing and make the look complete.
Oh, cruel! But it does conjure up an entertaining image..
Throw those pads and helmets away and go back to a simple top rope!!
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k.l.k
Apr 3, 2009, 3:47 PM
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jgill wrote: k.l.k wrote: yokese wrote: And he boulders with his helmet on . . .. Now, who's gonna be the first one to scream: "n00b!" n00b. tell verm to just slather some k-y jelly on that thing and make the look complete. Oh, cruel! But it does conjure up an entertaining image.. Throw those pads and helmets away and go back to a simple top rope!!
Hehe. Well, it was the obvious reply that Verm would've made, once upon a time.
And yes, it's getting a bit bizarre, the lengths to which folks will go to avoiding using a t.r.
Six buddies with double-wide mattresses each to stack beneath the project are natural. But throwing a t.r. on the thing is now considered deviant. Now we're getting helmets.
Big shift in the culture.
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keinangst
Apr 3, 2009, 4:23 PM
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In reply to: "jgillThrow those pads and helmets away and go back to a simple top rope!!
As much as I hate to disagree with the esteemed Mr. Gill (great site, by the way--I think I re-read the whole thing about every three months!), I think pads are a lot more than just a marketing ploy.
Pads are convenient. I'm all for toprope safety, but pads are simply quicker and more mobile. And they don't require a belayer--like you, I also typically find bouldering to be more a solitary than social activity. On the mental side, I find they also breed more commitment and create less encumbrance than a toprope. Just my two cents.
I am really impressed, for lack of a better term, to see Verm using a helmet. 10 years ago, very few people went snow skiing with a helmet, but they're very common today. Who knows, maybe it'll catch on.
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k.l.k
Apr 3, 2009, 4:51 PM
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keinangst wrote: . Pads are convenient. I'm all for toprope safety, but pads are simply quicker and more mobile.
I don't believe John was referring to all use of pads and I know I wasn't. But the scenario I described above-- a highball or bad landing, so you or boulderguru x, rounds up 12 buddies with a pad each and then turns the landing zone into a crash pit --is not in any way ethically or spiritually or aesthetically superior to using a tr for the fa. (See the debate over at UKC over the use of pads for gritstone leads.)
Padding has become part of the culture, and lots of boulderers in recent years have been polemically anti-rope. (Although that is starting to change with certain types of hi-ball.)
And at some point, in at least some areas, pads are going to create problems with land managers.
So far as the helmet, sure, strap it on. That's a personal choice.
As an aesthetic choice, to my eyes, it looks ridiculous. If I thought a route was that dangerous, I'd throw a tr on it. But yes, I can easily imagine gym moms all over the country getting the idea, and then strapping their kids into the things.
I don't see it coming to gymnastics anytime soon. But who knows?
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keinangst
Apr 3, 2009, 5:11 PM
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k.l.k wrote: I don't believe John was referring to all use of pads and I know I wasn't.
Just to clarify, I was referring more towards other comments of his that I've read, citing that pads are primarily a moneymaking scheme (my paraphrase).
Good point in your post. Excess pad stacking is ridiculous. So is excessive chalking, but that's another discussion...
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roadstead
Apr 3, 2009, 5:42 PM
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dingus wrote: Are those mining company boulders? DMT
Looks like Tamo.
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jgill
Apr 4, 2009, 3:06 AM
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Well, I still think that the popularity of pads and their place in the ethical paradigm of bouldering were encouraged by those who wished to manufacture and market them, but I certainly see how they can be used to advantage - as their analogues are in gymnastics - in appropriate settings.
However, I've seen boulderers place two or three of the things on very dangerous - uneven, jagged, pitted, sloping - terrain and proceed, feeling well-protected: an illusion consciously formulated on occasion, I suspect.
On the other hand, if one accepts the argument that any worth-while climbing must be flavored with the intoxicating spice of danger, the use of pads is an opportunity to bid up a game otherwise considered an inconsequential divertissement: One pad, two pads, three pads, or more for a particular high-ball? Are you feeling lucky, punk? (couldn't resist a Clintism!).
Just an old man's grumbling (damn, I wish I had invented them!) . . . But if you use them for high-balls it does make sense to use a helmet of some sort. Look at poor Natasha . . .
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dingus
Apr 4, 2009, 1:13 PM
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That's funny John (I wish I had invented them).
Instead you invented 'climbing' chalk - chalk is like what, 10 cents a pound in bulk?
Next life invent something every climber MUST HAVE that is more expensive and patentable!
Like Jardine did! Well, not exactly like Jardine did (some 'borrowing' from others went on there too), but you know what I mean.
DMT
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mheyman
Apr 4, 2009, 2:13 PM
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People live to the safety level they are comfortable with whatever we they are doing, skiing, biking climbing, or anything else. To my way of thinking (and I am not primarily a boulderer) a pad stack is one method of safely going higher at your level of safety comfort.
Years ago I climbed at a small TR gym. Shortly before I stopped going there I used to work a 20+ foot high route with a pad stack. If you fell the right way it was no problem. One reason I stayed there so long was that they let me do whatever I wanted
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k.l.k
Apr 4, 2009, 4:11 PM
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jgill wrote: Well, I still think that the popularity of pads and their place in the ethical paradigm of bouldering were encouraged by those who wished to manufacture and market them, but I certainly see how they can be used to advantage - as their analogues are in gymnastics - in appropriate settings. . . . If one accepts the argument that any worth-while climbing must be flavored with the intoxicating spice of danger, the use of pads is an opportunity to bid up a game otherwise considered an inconsequential divertissement: One pad, two pads, three pads, or more for a particular high-ball?
I've seen pictures of straw mats at use in 'bleau as early as the 1930s. But so far as I know, Neal Kaptain built the first dedicated bouldering pads in the late seventies. They were folding, briefcase-sized chunks of carpet foam and ensolite sandwiched, with glue and stitching, between carpet. I still have one in my basement.
Verm was one of Neal's bouldering partners, and in the late '80s, when John was bouldering a lot on the eastside, he persuaded Bruce Pottenger to make a commercial version, called a "Sketch Pad." Pottenger's Kinnaloa was a garage company known for its silk-screen T-Shirts and chalk bags. I don't think the sketch pad was a massive commercial success, but you did see other companies (Metolius, for example), follow suit.
Personally, I think that the convergence of climbing gyms, the ban on roped climbing at Hueco Tanks, and Verm's new, more accessible grading system helped to underwrite a new popularity for American bouldering in the 1990s.
My guess is that pads are a pretty low-margin item. It's tough to imagine folks getting rich off them-- moreover, foam is one of the most noxious materials that still gets manufactured in the US, so if the consumer goes seriously "green," there's going to be some scrambling for the sourcers.
Pads definitely make bouldering more accessible. And they can radically change the psychological difficulty. Imagine Midnight Lightning without a doublewide Posturpedic underneath. Even low stuff, like Steel Fingers in the Meadows--- with a half-dozen pads, it's an entirely different problem-- you can fall with impunity.
We haven't yet developed a sense of pads as a sort of aid, though. Your 8a scorecard doesn't care if you had 12 pads or none on your send, even though the two experiences would obviously differ. The bouldering community still harbors a collective fantasy that, so long as you've not used a top-rope, the number and size of pads remain irrelevant.
There is now some dust-up over at UKC following on the heels of recent gritstone ascents, as it's become common for aspiring leaders to use bouldering pads to protect landings on dangerous leads. The Brits are in some agony over what this might mean for their grading system.
http://www.ukclimbing.com/...les/page.php?id=1642
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areyoumydude
Apr 5, 2009, 12:39 AM
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roadstead wrote: dingus wrote: Are those mining company boulders? DMT Looks like Tamo.
The tunnel of love(in tamo) is one of best boulder problems I've done.
Glad to see Verm writing again.
Here's a pic of another Verm creation close to Tamo.
The Crowning Achievement. I think I came up with the name.
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k.l.k
Apr 5, 2009, 1:11 AM
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Nice pic.
Much better headgear.
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jgill
Apr 5, 2009, 1:56 AM
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Interesting history, Kerwin. Good that someone has a perspective on the development of pads. I never gave it much thought, and by 1987 had quit bouldering and didn't keep up with the sport, so my conclusions about those puffy things need adjusting!
Rich Borgman and I sometimes used an old piece of carpet to get started on, but primarily to keep shoe soles dry. I recall Rich Goldstone telling me he used the same device.
Perhaps grading systems could be honed to distinguish risk from safety by taking into account the number of pads used. E.g., V5P1 vs V5P3; or, for a 25 foot high-ball at V7 difficulty: V7H25P3 being a less significant achievement than V7H25P1 or V7H25P0. Actually, we might have V7H25P0 = V7H25X.
And then of course, one should take into account the type and quality of pads, starting with a simple reference to thickness. E.g., V7H25P1T4 representing an ascent superior to V7H25P1T8. The possibilities are indeed endless! We now observe the quality of an ascent, rather than a simple difficulty grade!
I'll bet a clever mathematician could even come up with a way of analyzing a bouldering session using this splendid scheme! Let's see: three problems done at
V6H17P2T8, V8H14P1T4, and V10H18P8T8 might yield a grand score of V(24)H(49)P(11)T(20). But this would be overly simplistic and less than revealing, so lots of refinements to the scheme are needed! Let's see, maybe VH(1176)PT(84), Hmmm . . . no it needs greater sophistication. What a marvelous open problem we have here!
Please note: The above nonsense is a joke. Do not quote me!
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areyoumydude
Apr 5, 2009, 6:16 PM
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k.l.k wrote: Nice pic. Much better headgear.
He was wearing his helmet when he took that shot.
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k.l.k
Apr 6, 2009, 2:55 AM
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areyoumydude wrote: k.l.k wrote: Nice pic. Much better headgear. He was wearing his helmet when he took that shot.
So you were using protection?
Good on ya.
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