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rgold
Oct 4, 2012, 9:42 AM
Post #26 of 30
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Registered: Dec 3, 2002
Posts: 1804
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I'll see Marc his 40 years and add fifteen to that. Someone once called me a retrogrouch in a forum. So I'm as old and grumpy as they come, but there are limits to appropriate grouchiness, and g-joe went way past the line.
I've put in my time complaining about the effects of modern climbing trends on the sport. But what has happened is a very substantial broadening of the the climbing population, which is very different from losing those mythical dyed-in-the-wool-knickers alpenstock-wielding demigods from the good old days. They're still there, in greater numbers and at higher levels of competence than before. There hasn't been any decrease in the number of adventure-oriented, ground-up trad and alpine climbers, we've simply added a whole lot of climbers with other orientations to the mix, all of who are, at heart, looking for personal challenges.
As for those death-defying tales of yore, half true is mighty optimistic. The amount of death being defied is very much in the mind of the defier, and plenty of those heroes were wanking about on moderate ground. Meanwhile, adventure is where you find it, and there are some folks doing, say, highball boulder problems that are signing up for a hell of a lot more adventure some of the grouchy old guys ever manned up for in their entire careers.
It is true, in my opinion, that the sport-climbing mentality insists on spreading beyond the reservation and infecting trad climbing with a deadly virus that threatens to make all climbing the same. This too is a byproduct of climbing's new diversity and the energy of its newest components. But we're a long way from homogeneity, and there's plenty of vitality left in the old games, played anew by a younger generation that is, as it should be, better and bolder than its forefathers.
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robx
Oct 4, 2012, 2:22 PM
Post #27 of 30
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Registered: Jan 11, 2011
Posts: 108
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I responded once already to this, but I think i was too positive -
you sound like a spoiled baby.
feel lucky you were alive for what you consider to be the great era of climbing, and feel lucky your'e still alive and able to be around for the bad era of climbing. You aren't dead, you aren't crippled, you can still put your shoes on and put your hands in jugs, you're doing pretty freaking good for yourself.
what you posted isn't constructive criticism, it's the complaints of someone that isn't aware of how much better they have it than almost everyone else in the world. I would kill to be able to drive to joshua tree whenever I felt, even if it turned into disneyland.
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bearbreeder
Oct 4, 2012, 5:40 PM
Post #28 of 30
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Registered: Feb 2, 2009
Posts: 1960
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many if not most of the young "adventure" climbers today started out climbing in the gym, sport or bouldering ... and still go do sport, bouldering or the gym
worry about what you are climbing and sending .. not what some teenager who just send 5.15c, or some young former competition gym climber who recently freed the compressor route with 60 foot run outs on 5.12 terrain is doing
i will say this, every good sport climber ive taught trad to can outclimb many a "trad" climber i know on trad routes within a year or two ... and safely as well
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donald949
Oct 5, 2012, 6:17 AM
Post #29 of 30
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Registered: May 24, 2007
Posts: 11455
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hugepedro wrote: gratefuljoe wrote: I am supper grateful I live in Joshua tree and climb more than most, but after seeing holds being cheeped and joshua trees being burned down in the park and the park coming so close to being shut down to all climbers i am not to happy with the climbing community, i fill the old school climbers had it right and the new climbers lost sight of what it is to be a climber. Take a good look at today's climbers and tell me they still have the same ethical out look, I know there are lots of good ethical climbers still but it seems there is more bad than good. That's because you're hanging out where the hords of limited range live. Where there is little commitment required to access the place. You need to go where the real shit is happening. Over the past ten years I've witnessed a renaissnace in climbing happening on the glaciated peaks. The kids are doing stuff we never even dreamed of, pushing routes over glacier, snow, and technical ice and rock. You can tell who they are. They're the ones with only a summit pack with a pair of ice tools strapped on back, a rope, and handful of screws, a picket, and maybe a few stoppers, often skiis or snowboard strapped on there as well, barely more than the clothes on their back and a day's food. They're doiing massive car-to-car pushes or with bivies mixed in, climbing stuff that hasn't seen traffic in decades because nobody but the FAists dared, and pushing new crazy, mixed, real mountain climbing routes. Not that I'm doing that crazy shit with them, I'm just watching from the glaciers, haha! But the kids, late teens to late 20's, are crawling all over the Cascades and the Bugaboos and the coastal ranges (there's still near endless supply of stuff there that have barely felt the gaze of man) on up to Alaska, mostly with zero notoriety. But you watch. They're going to break out onto the international scene and totally change the game, and make the rest of us look like the pussies we are. So don't fret!
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guangzhou
Oct 5, 2012, 11:58 AM
Post #30 of 30
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Registered: Sep 27, 2004
Posts: 3389
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bearbreeder wrote: many if not most of the young "adventure" climbers today started out climbing in the gym, sport or bouldering ... and still go do sport, bouldering or the gym worry about what you are climbing and sending .. not what some teenager who just send 5.15c, or some young former competition gym climber who recently freed the compressor route with 60 foot run outs on 5.12 terrain is doing i will say this, every good sport climber ive taught trad to can outclimb many a "trad" climber i know on trad routes within a year or two ... and safely as well
I have to agree, the dedicated climbers I've taught trad to who came from a trad climbing background are climbing much harder then those who didn't.
Very safe too.
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