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kansasclimber
Feb 4, 2007, 5:35 AM
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SO sharma gets a golden piton award for soloing Es Pontas.... In my book, yes that is a deep water solo, but soloing also involves putting your life on the line. Reardon did a ground up free solo ONSIGHT, of a Needles 11+ 800 ft. tall, thats ridiculous. If he would have fallen, he would have died. Sharma fell numerous times, and though I understand it is still dangerous, the chances of him actaully dying are very slim, Reardons chances were a certainty. So to close, yes Sharma should have been recognized, it is SICK doing perhaps a 15a deep water solo, but dont give it too him for the grade; give this award out to someone that has the BALLS to put his balls on the line.
Stephen
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doogle
Feb 4, 2007, 5:41 AM
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Thanks, good to know.
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billcoe_
Feb 4, 2007, 5:58 AM
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kansasclimber wrote: SO sharma gets a golden piton award for soloing Es Pontas.... In my book, yes that is a deep water solo, but soloing also involves putting your life on the line. Reardon did a ground up free solo ONSIGHT, of a Needles 11+ 800 ft. tall, thats ridiculous. If he would have fallen, he would have died. Sharma fell numerous times, and though I understand it is still dangerous, the chances of him actaully dying are very slim, Reardons chances were a certainty. So to close, yes Sharma should have been recognized, it is SICK doing perhaps a 15a deep water solo, but dont give it too him for the grade; give this award out to someone that has the BALLS to put his balls on the line. Stephen
I don't know what you are getting all worked up about.
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musicman1586
Feb 4, 2007, 6:04 AM
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kansasclimber wrote: SO sharma gets a golden piton award for soloing Es Pontas.... In my book, yes that is a deep water solo, but soloing also involves putting your life on the line. Reardon did a ground up free solo ONSIGHT, of a Needles 11+ 800 ft. tall, thats ridiculous. If he would have fallen, he would have died. Sharma fell numerous times, and though I understand it is still dangerous, the chances of him actaully dying are very slim, Reardons chances were a certainty. So to close, yes Sharma should have been recognized, it is SICK doing perhaps a 15a deep water solo, but dont give it too him for the grade; give this award out to someone that has the BALLS to put his balls on the line. Stephen
I completely agree, dws is not soloing, I think Micheal Reardon should have won it again, however the other guy that they mentioned in the article, Pavle Kozjek, has done something easily as impressive as Reardon's onsight solo of Shikata Ga Nai, because when doing a solo first ascent of such a magnitude, it's not just a matter of yourself failing, you have to deal with all the other situations and circumstances that can occur while on such a trip, such as weather, avalanches, etc. However, overall I think Reardon deserved it again, because bottom line, the guy is pushing soloing like few have in decades.
Yes, dws is dangerous, but Sharma fell off the route over 100 times according to the article, and with a real solo you don't have that sort of margin for error.
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charlet_poser
Feb 4, 2007, 6:06 AM
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es un troll?
but really, why should we award someone just for putting their life on the line? isn't soloing something that you do for yourself? giving reardon an award simply because he has "balls", i feel, misses the entire point of awarding someone. i like to think that these spolights are put on achievements to folks who help advance the sport, not because of some repeat ascent.
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musicman1586
Feb 4, 2007, 6:15 AM
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charlet_poser wrote: es un troll? but really, why should we award someone just for putting their life on the line? isn't soloing something that you do for yourself? giving reardon an award simply because he has "balls", i feel, misses the entire point of awarding someone. i like to think that these spolights are put on achievements to folks who help advance the sport, not because of some repeat ascent.
I agree with you, but the section that Sharma got the award in is called "soloing" which they define as it's own form of climbing on it's own, in which they have sections on trad, sport, bouldering, alpine, big-wall free climbing. So yes, I agree that the awards should go to the ascent/person who has pushed the sport forward in the prospective field they are nominated for, which I do not believe that a 5.15 dws has pushed the arena of soloing forward, and in the past year Reardon has once again been tearing it up testing the limits of his soloing capability all over the world, not just this single Needles ascent, he's been much more active than that.
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charlet_poser
Feb 4, 2007, 6:20 AM
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sorry, I only flipped through the magazine and didn't realize sharma's was for a solo. in that case i'm going to have to disagree with the magazine for having a golden piton for that "style". i'm still of the mind that a solo shouldn't be glorified in that way. but still, no sense in getting worked up over a magazine's game of playing favorites.
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epoch
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Feb 4, 2007, 6:19 PM
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I haven't picked up the rag yet, might do it today. I want to comment, though, based on what the previous posts are. In no way am I a Sharma follower, but the man is consistently pushing the boundaries of what he does. His 15a DWS project is at the top of the heap. IMO, DWS is nothing more than highball bouldering, sans mat. None the less, however, the man put up a route that once again pushed the grade. He could have just as easily bolted it and sent it on lead, but then he'd be ruining the serenity of the climb. Like I said, I haven't picked up the rag and I plan on doing so in about 2-3 hours, so I might change my opinion on the GP award.
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squirt
Feb 4, 2007, 7:51 PM
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kansasclimber you beat me to it. I was going to put up the same post. What sharma did was mostly zone 1, maybe zone 2. The real deal is zone 3 (if u fall you're taking the long dirt nap). What sharma did was crazy awesome, but doesn't belong in the soloing catagory.
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chalkfree
Feb 4, 2007, 8:21 PM
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Then where does it go? I suspect the editors had to give him something, it is pushing the sport, but they didn't have anyplace else to put it.
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dlintz
Feb 4, 2007, 8:54 PM
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Thank God the geniuses of Climbing magazine came up with that category. Think of all those poor saps back in the day who weren't properly recognized for their contributions to soloing.
d.
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mushroomsamba
Feb 5, 2007, 12:50 AM
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why do you care
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c4c
Feb 5, 2007, 1:22 AM
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kansasclimber wrote: SO sharma gets a golden piton award for soloing Es Pontas.... In my book, yes that is a deep water solo, but soloing also involves putting your life on the line. Reardon did a ground up free solo ONSIGHT, of a Needles 11+ 800 ft. tall, thats ridiculous. If he would have fallen, he would have died. Sharma fell numerous times, and though I understand it is still dangerous, the chances of him actaully dying are very slim, Reardons chances were a certainty. So to close, yes Sharma should have been recognized, it is SICK doing perhaps a 15a deep water solo, but dont give it too him for the grade; give this award out to someone that has the BALLS to put his balls on the line. Stephen
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sandbag
Feb 5, 2007, 1:52 AM
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I wonder what Goran Kropp received for: riding his bike from Sweden to Everest, Soloing not once, but three times sans Oxygen, Sans Sherpas, ultimately summiting once finally, and then riding his bike back to Sweden. Thats achievement. Hell, thats still to this day the most impressive human powered endeavor Ive even heard read or imagined.
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c4c
Feb 5, 2007, 1:22 PM
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sandbag wrote: I wonder what Goran Kropp received for: riding his bike from Sweden to Everest, Soloing not once, but three times sans Oxygen, Sans Sherpas, ultimately summiting once finally, and then riding his bike back to Sweden. Thats achievement. Hell, thats still to this day the most impressive human powered endeavor Ive even heard read or imagined.
Maybe they need to make another category something like "most impressive human powered endeavor" to place the incredible feats in, that don't quite fit into any of the other categories?
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shear
Feb 5, 2007, 1:38 PM
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wow dude...RELAX.
its freaking rock climbing. theres no need to get bent out of shape over the climbing of rocks. it's an arbitrary award given out by a climbing magazine, its a group of peoples opinion. i think awards for climbing are pretty meaningless to begin with...and i bet sharma would agree.
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lena_chita
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Feb 5, 2007, 2:54 PM
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shear wrote: wow dude...RELAX. its freaking rock climbing. theres no need to get bent out of shape over the climbing of rocks. it's an arbitrary award given out by a climbing magazine, its a group of peoples opinion. i think awards for climbing are pretty meaningless to begin with...and i bet sharma would agree.
My thoughts exactly. LOL, maybe next year they will have a separate category for Deep Water Soloing, to appease kansasclimber.
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kansasclimber
Feb 5, 2007, 4:30 PM
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im not totally bent out of shape about it, its just that falling hundreds of time, and calling it a solo, is just wierd, though i know it is a solo, it is in my book under a differnt category, underneath the soloing subject. Deep water solos, and 25-30 highball BP, are in that category, and then I have the 100+ climbs, that involve death for certain. Those are what they should give the award for, just my opinion.
STephen
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fluxus
Feb 5, 2007, 5:04 PM
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kansasclimber wrote: just my opinion. STephen
Exactly.
Not that I care one way or another, but as someone who has soloed hundreds of times (including many on-sight solos), I think that regarding Climbing's silly award there is enough room in the catagory of soloing that it can include deep water soloing.
Perhaps Kansas would have been happier if the ascent was called a deep water red point. Which may not be as silly as it sounds.
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sidepull
Feb 5, 2007, 5:10 PM
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while I agree, the category doesn't fit with the tone of what Sharma was doing, wouldn't it be just as ridiculous to create a DWS category? Should it go under bouldering or sport climbing instead? Should there just be a broad category that looks across disciplines and accepts feats that don't easily fit into a category (like giving out 2-3 general golden pitons)? at any rate, I'm sure Sharma isn't very concerned about it.
I agree with the Goran Kropp comment. It was sad that he died in such a comparatively benign way.
c4c - suggesting the "why don't you go climb it" is pretty childish and frankly it's odd to see someone so heavily invested in promoting christianity take such an adversarial stance.
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macherry
Feb 5, 2007, 5:29 PM
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my life is over
who reads those rags anyways
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munky
Feb 5, 2007, 5:54 PM
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I agree with the original post. Soloing is about absolute confidence in your ability and controlling the demons when shit gets hairy (which on a 800 foot wall inevitably will). DWS is not soloing. Yea, its scarier than sport climbing, some would say scarier than plugging gear, even big runouts (I don't agree, but I can empathize with the opinion) maybe even scarier than highball bouldering (again I don't agree, but can understand others who might) but in no ways is it in the same category when it comes to mental strength which is what soloing is all about. Sharma is the man but he isn't the soloist Reardon is.
Munky
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raymondjeffrey
Feb 19, 2007, 4:33 PM
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Well it all depends: Is a golden piton solid gold or is it just gold-plated?
If I was Mike and it was solid gold than hell yea I'd be pissed; but gold-plated -- who gives a bakers fuck?
jefro
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squamishdirtbag
Feb 19, 2007, 5:07 PM
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Chris and Mike have such different style chooseing one or the other is silly. Their both badass, but didn't Mike win last year, they gotta mix it up a bit.
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petsfed
Feb 19, 2007, 5:29 PM
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What's the point of giving somebody an award for doing the exact same thing as last year? Good work Mike, way to bring climbing back to where it was in the early 80s! Reardon's soloing kind of brought back the era of big, high risk solo rock climbing, but now that we're there again, we kinda need to move forward from that. I think that's where DWS comes in. Soon enough, these routes will be done onsight and then anyone who disputes DWS's legitimacy as soloing will be silenced.
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