3 ms·

Yeah, and it's more than just the grade too. The Steck Salathe [1] is "only" 5.9, but I suspect it would rebuff ~60% of "5.12 climbers" [1]: http://www.superto

• weaksauce 12y ago
  oh yeah. anytime you look at a grade you have to look at when it was put up first. never trust a valley 5.9 put up in the 50's. also, never trust an old climb that is 5.9+ as that's likely 5.12ish. also, that route is heinously hard with a majority of it being offwidths and runouts. the crux, mandatory free, pitch on it has some really airy 5.9 squeeze chimney with large cams as pro... to the point that the large cams you brought are not big enough so you leave a tipped out #6 and climb for another 50' above it. edit: derp. I was talking about the salathé wall on el cap.
  • Intermernet 12y ago
    Here in Australia we have a similar problem. The local climbers had no international input for quite a few years and the "official" hardest climbs were around grade 21 (on the Ewbank system). Some of those 21s (5.10-ish) have now been upgraded to the high twenties (5.12d - 5.13c-ish). It was really the visit from Henry Barber in 1975 that introduced chalk, and a more gymnastic style, that allowed local climbers to realize that some of the more recent "21s" were actually a lot harder. This visit was a perfect example of why it's important to have global communication and cross-pollination within any niche interest. It accelerates progress immensely. This is why we go to trade-shows and meetups :-)
  • steveax 12y ago
    It's not that the Steck Salathe (and other long traditional climbs) are mis-graded, it's the breadth of competencies required by them.