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General Climbing Discussion

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Climbers are lazy 1-Jul-2003 At 2:38:41 PM (removed)

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I must admit I drove the road from Buchan to Jindabyne a few years back and I have to agree, the possibilities for new routing down there at ALL grades is virtually limitless, and that was just what I could see from the road, with all the limestone in the region, there must be dozens of caves and so forth. All it takes is for someone to establish a decent campsite somewhere close to one of these areas with half decent access and it could flourish.

But why would anyone ? The Grampians surely can't be even half developed yet. There's still bits visible from the road up Mt William that look great and haven't been developed. Slowly, slowly these are getting done (and mostly by Neil it seems !)

In regard to Taipan, yes everyone should go and climb there, I was always astounded that the most number of groups I ever found there were two others. I too don't understand why people don't climb there more. Even Spurt has quality sport routes at the 22-23 range so you don't have to be a superhard climber. Would Taipan lose its appeal though if there were 10 parties all the way along the wall ?

I find the argument interesting though. Europe it seems at the top end has dozens of climbers climbing "9a" (35), but virtually none of the routes have been repeated. Why ? Because all these guys would rather spend their time doing their own route and having their name attached to it for eternity. It takes a fair amount of effort to repeat a route that gives you neither fame nor immortality which is very hard. That too should be recognised. The result in Europe is that the upper tier of grades aren't established. Pretty much every 9a that has been repeated except for Action Directe (which has now become the benchmark for the grade) have been downgraded. I'm not suggesting that there aren't harder things out there, it is certain that there are, but who knows what all these routes actually are ? The trade off for massive new routing is a lack of establishment of the grading.

Gordon's comment of bottom feeders was something he picked up from Rob Lebreton who criticised those who weren't new routing. But I ask you all: what is wrong with repeating routes ? There's enough around that you will never run out so why does it really matter ?