Therefore by changing the definition of a redpoint we lowered the difficulty for a given grade. And if modern grades take this into account then doing a route while placing the draws means you are climbing a harder grade.

Most of the new hard trad routes are of the headpoint nature! These routes are top-roped, cleaned and gear is set on rappel! So let's talk about how we lower the difficulty of trad-routes.

You seem to missing the point, sport-climbing is about doing fun, safe, hard routes with the protection equation taking out of the picture. No one is trying to hide anything. The bolts are there to see and if you want to pre-placed the quickdraws or placed them on lead, no-one really cares. I know I don't! I would be a little more concern with lowering of the trad-standard in the past decade!

Calling that a trad route is a joke. I would call it a p---- route.

The point is that I care and I don't like it when people say there is no difference because there is a difference.

Really, spud? Sorry, but not only was your answer condescending as hell, it was also about as accurate as most of the dis-information you spew here on RC.com. I can't touch you on the latter... you're a master of beta... but on the former I can offer you the same attitude, in spades...

Your rationalization is perfectly understandable, jt512. You make it patently obvious that you are all about the numbers, not the style or spirit of the sport with a moniker centered around a grade... one that was cutting edge about ten years ago, BTW.

To paraphrase, since when do you make up the definition of what sport climbing is?

Seems like it would be a bit more accurate to define sport climbing as a method of ascent in which expansion bolts and hanger take the place of traditional gear in order to ascend otherwise unprotectable faces.

Ah, yes... the old "I don't know of one, so it ain't been or being done" line, so popular among the profile-padding spraylords of online rock...

Try this one on for size, then: I've been climbing sport routes for about a decade, bubba.... that experienced enough for ya?

And, as I so ably demonstrated (read "rammed down your throat") in another thread, I've put up more than my share of lines, as well.

In all of that time, I have never, preplaced the draws for a FA. By rough estimate that'd be 0 preplaced draws for 50+ routes. So much for your conventional tunnel-vision wisdom.

I don't make up the rules... some cats far harder than I will ever be took care of that a couple of decades ago. And what they said was, it ain't cheating... it just ain't a redpoint, either.

Because "Sharma Pinkpoints Realization" doesn't really have a ring to it, does it? Doesn't make ya want to run tight out and buy his shoes/rope/hair gel/crash pad/laxative/ ad infinitum... And climbing, these days, especially at the "cutting edge", is all about the PR, baby... glossy shots, sponsorships, and the big $$$.

To paraphrase: "If you can't climb at a certain arbitrarily chosen grade, then your opinion doesn't count, and we, the ones who can climb above that grade, all agreed long ago to say that the Emperor's new clothes are lovely... so there!"

And, again, we can all stand; awed, humbled, and more than a little amused at the presumptuous egotism of jt512.

Who cares if they preplace the QDs? I care, poser, and a lot of folks whose water you couldn't carry also care, so pull you Teva out of your mouth and step down from your soapbox. I don't put up routes that way, and neither do a lot of other folks who climb 5.8 for a warm-up, in street shoes.

I need you to spell it out for me. You're saying that draws are pro and that clipping fixed draws (pro) invalidates the redpoint. But bolts are pro too! (Actually draws aren't pro, bolts are, but I wanna hear you dig yourself outta this one.) So according to your logic (sic) there's no such thing as redpointing because clipping preplaced pro (bolts and draws) is pinkpointing! Is it possible you've been climbing as long as you claim you have and you don't know what the fukk you're talking about? Enlighten us.

Try this one on for size, then: I've been climbing sport routes for about a decade, bubba.... that experienced enough for ya? And, as I so ably demonstrated (read "rammed down your throat") in another thread, I've put up more than my share of lines, as well. In all of that time, I have never, preplaced the draws for a FA. By rough estimate that'd be 0 preplaced draws for 50+ routes. So much for your conventional tunnel-vision wisdom.

People call them trad-routes all the time. Where have you been the last 5 years?

Climbing in Joshua tree, Indian creek, the Needles, Tuolumne, the valley, the tower, RMNP, Paradise forks, red river gorge. If you rap pre-placed gear on a trad route and claimed to have sent the route at any of these places people would laugh in your face.


To you there is a difference and that's ok. Climb anyway you want. Just don't expect the sport-climbing world to care! Your opinion might change the way you climb, but I doubt that it will effect the way 99.9-per-cent of the sport-climbers in the world, climb!

It is only people that have ego problems that say that there is not a difficulty difference between doing a route with the draws in and with the draws not in. What you choose to call it does not matter to me.

There is also a difference from when a lot of old trad-routes were first established. Sticky shoes, friends aliens etc, etc... These things have make a lot of old, hard trad-routes a lot easier to climb and protect. Do you do old (pre-1980s) routes with these advancements and would you consider that aid if you did? If you don't believe me wear a pair of EB's and leave all your high-tech camming gear at home on your next hard trad lead and tell me it doesn't make a difference!

*Draws are pre-placed gear, bolts are fixed gear. This is an accepted distinction in the original definition of a redpoint.*

So according to your brilliant logic, if the draws are fixed too, with chains or hardware-store screwlinks for example, then it's a redpoint because the draws are fixed, just like the bolts. But if they're just normal draws that you or somebody else left on there, it's a pinkpoint.

The original definition was bottom to top without weighting the gear and had nothing to do with how the gear got there. Clintonesque word-gerrymandering and quibbling over semantics is ALWAYS the sign of a weak argument. Not that I expected anything else, you did the best you could considering the hole you dug yourself into.

My first pair of shoes were EB's, I traded them 2 months later for a pair of Pa's?? a while later I switched to fires and never looked back. Other then that I don't understand your argument. I don't equate advances in equipment to a degradation of style. I hangdog sport routes now, for my first four years of climbing I didn’t. But that is as far as I am willing to go.

*lame tactic
I was speaking in terms of the places I actually climb at.(see above)*

Those are all trad crags except for RRG (hundreds of fixed draws at the Motherlode, btw). So now you're saying you were speaking all this time about trad climbing? No wonder it all sounded like total BS! Since when did the original definition of redpointing have anything to do with trad climbing?

The point is that I care and I don't like it when people say there is no difference because there is a difference.
It is only people that have ego problems that say that there is not a difficulty difference between doing a route with the draws in and with the draws not in. What you choose to call it does not matter to me.