Do you have a link to the thread? I did a search, but you know how that goes on this site.

The most difficult issue is how to climb without falling when falling is a bad idea. (For example, if there is one piece between you and the ground and you can't back it up, then falling is a bad idea.) Here I think modern trends can inculcate bad habits. Gym climbing, sport climbing, and bouldering all emphasize moving up in the most marginal of situations. There is a risk of developing a tunnel-vision mentality that, first of all, accepts marginal moves even though the consequences of failure are catastrophic, perhaps not even noticing that the climber has gone from control to high risk status, and secondly, that blinds the climber to both the need and the opportunity to climb down to rest, regroup, and yes, in some cases, to retreat. Mental discipline is the primary tool for avoiding these situations, but this discipline is not something acquired in the gym or on sport climbs.

I have nothing to take back. You however may need to get thicker skin there. It isn't personal. And no, I am not a mostly sporto. Judging someone from a couple of posts on the internet seems a little less worldly than you present yourself. I am mostly trad or aid. It just so happens that the local crags here offer little of it. I just travel a lot. Your issue seems to be within yourself, let it go dude.

This thread was to talk of trad, not give you a place to crank at anyone who will feed you. Bye.

Burly Bob

I'm wrong all the time...

Which logically precludes you ever being correct.

For many routes, ascents in the modern style are less of an accomplishment than whatever the old-school style dictated, and this sometimes annoys the old folks who put so much effort into the original ascents.

Of course, the crochety old farts are destined to fail in some measure, and they are well aware of this, having ignored the crochety old farts of an earlier generation. But they soldier on anyway, taking flames and deprecation, because they want to see the games they played preserved for future generations to play, and they see little good in a homogenizing trend that sacrifices real variety in climbing on the alter of a pure difficulty standard, artificially separated from its naturally accompanying risk.

Without a bunch of crochety old farts to help put on the brakes, it is pretty clear that all climbing would rapidly become sport climbing, a result that would be just dandy for some, but which would also deprive many others of the kinds of experiences that attracted previous generations and types of people to the sport in the first place.

Every generation redefines the terms governing the rules of the game, and every previous generation complains about it. Both aspects are useful, in my opinion.

Typically, progress in terms of difficulty requires new rules as climbers reach the end of what they can do under the old rules. The new rules, typically viewed as applying only to cutting-edge ascents, almost immediately promulgate down the difficulty scale so that everyone permits themselves the "transgressions" of a previous era.

For many routes, ascents in the modern style are less of an accomplishment than whatever the old-school style dictated, and this sometimes annoys the old folks who put so much effort into the original ascents.

Perhaps a stronger source of annoyance is that the previous generation denied themselves various opportunities, based on the rules they played by, and then they see these opportunities, which they feel were left for better climbers, taken by climbers who are not climbing better but are simply using tactics the old guys rejected.

One of the things modern climbers cannot appreciate is that the current older generation (I'm speaking of climbers who were part of the late-sixties to seventies "clean climbing" revolution) completely abandoned everything they knew and understood about security for new ways of climbing that were completely untested for them and which required them to reinvent everything from, you'll pardon the expression, the ground up.

There was, in those days, an idealism about means and a willingness to embrace risk rather than "gear" a climb into submission which is pretty foreign to the current scene (in the US, anyway).

There are still old-school trad climbs that can't be geared into submission. They are run-out by modern standards, you can't take at the crux, and a fall may have serious consequences. Gear being what it is, these tend to be face climbs rather than crack climbs. There are periodic arguments about adding bolts to make these routes "safe," which brings howls of protest from the generation that created these routes and venerates them as a higher form of accomplishment.

As for the utility of the protests of an aging generation that is no longer anywhere near the modern difficulty cutting edge, it is perhaps worth noting that trad climbing is based on the word "tradition," and tradition is the province of those who have been there and done it.

Without a bunch of crochety old farts to help put on the brakes, it is pretty clear that all climbing would rapidly become sport climbing, a result that would be just dandy for some, but which would also deprive many others of the kinds of experiences that attracted previous generations and types of people to the sport in the first place.

Of course, the crochety old farts are destined to fail in some measure, and they are well aware of this, having ignored the crochety old farts of an earlier generation. But they soldier on anyway, taking flames and deprecation, because they want to see the games they played preserved for future generations to play, and they see little good in a homogenizing trend that sacrifices real variety in climbing on the alter of a pure difficulty standard, artificially separated from its naturally accompanying risk.

If I just really enjoy climbing (anything, anyway) is this wrong. You (xtremecat) are not from the midwest are you, would the red even be a crag with ethics like that, is that wrong also. This seems to be a common arguement that one type of climber is more of a "climber" than another.......Can't we all just get along, have a good time, a good brew and a good laugh......

...lowering and pulling the rope after falls and you get climbing as we knew it in the 70's at every major crag we ever climbed at.

I want to disagree that all climbing would, or will, become sport climbing. I see the new "progression" as top rope in gym, lead in gym, top / boulder rope outside, sport (single pitch) lead, trad lead (multi pitch)..

And then, BAM!- New Year's Day, 1980- it all went to hell. Unbeknownst to Joe and his gang, someone, somewhere yelled "TAKE!!!!!!" for the first time. It was the beginning of the end.

Have times and ignorance of climbings' past gone so far that the term Trad has lost it meaning?

I think the answer is yes. I try to give a new name at trad climbing: adventure climbing.

www.umallvt.com/ | jpolli@finardproperties.com
Ages: 0 and up
Cost: Free - $5/climb
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Indoor Climbing Wall at University Mall at the JCPenney seating area.

Oh no, you'd have had to have been blind to not see it coming - easily over half of all climbers in the mid-70's sucked at placing pro or were dubiously nervous about the whole affair or both.

Only in the manner of society losing its meaning in "Lord of the Flies"...

Of course, the crochety old farts are destined to fail in some measure, and they are well aware of this, having ignored the crochety old farts of an earlier generation.

In the 70's there were bold and brillient climbers and climbers who were bumbling morons, just as there are today. The old farts (which if it wasn't for the young climbers I hang out with, I'd be also) tend to forget that.