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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

 Page 1 of 2. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 21
Author
to star or not to star?
_ross_
31-May-2005
12:13:52 PM
was at arapiles last week, doing, amongst other things, 60's classics on tiger wall.

can anyone explain why YoYo has two stars, with only a couple of 16 moves in 4 pitches, yet Boomer, which is two very nice solid well protected 15 pitches doesn't have any stars.

climbingjac
31-May-2005
12:43:55 PM
In my opinion Yo-Yo gets its stars for what I recall to have been the third pitch (the short chimney pitch). The belay below it eats much of your big pro, so on the pitch you tend to pull up short - thus creating a bit of "excitement" on the pitch. ie potential-to-hit-the-ledge type excitement. (!!)

Richard
31-May-2005
1:00:17 PM
and can any one explain why dracula has three stars and serpent gets only two?

IMHO a much better climb with two pitches at the grade and some well exposed but well protected moves, definately should be the (only) other grade 11 climb, along with blockbuster that gets the full three stars.

One of my climbing goals was to do (lead) every three and then every two star climb within my range at Araps. But just chasing stars can be a bad choice - some climbs with no stars are still good, some climbs have more stars than they desevre. If it's in the selected guide, its usualy worth doing - star status can be missleading.

mousey
31-May-2005
1:13:01 PM
stars are such a personal-t-the-experience thing anyway

IdratherbeclimbingM9
31-May-2005
6:13:34 PM
>was at arapiles last week, doing, amongst other things, 60's classics on tiger wall.
Maybe if you led them in 60's classic style on 60's classic gear the path of enlightenment by the stars will be revealed?

mousey
31-May-2005
6:18:19 PM
if thats your intention i think mike should establish a mortuary forum
RK
31-May-2005
6:46:07 PM
On 31/05/2005 M8iswhereitsat wrote:
>Maybe if you led them in 60's classic style on 60's classic gear the path
>of enlightenment by the stars will be revealed?

I did...and you're right. And many of us lived to tell the tale! Interestingly though, Yo-Yo was 15 then...and Boomer was 12. The climbs must be getting older too...!

rhinckle
1-Jun-2005
9:44:51 AM
On 31/05/2005 M8iswhereitsat wrote:
>>was at arapiles last week, doing, amongst other things, 60's classics
>on tiger wall.
>Maybe if you led them in 60's classic style on 60's classic gear the path
>of enlightenment by the stars will be revealed?

tried to convince jeff to go up boomer with slings and pebbles, but we couldn't agree on footwear (hiking boots or volleys). ok so i was relieved that there was an excuse to wimp out onto modern gear. i'll admit it.
BA
1-Jun-2005
12:04:22 PM
It's funny how the old time 'easy' climbs are the ones being upgraded and not the newer ones being downgraded. If you have a look at Lou's guide it has Dracula as 1 star grade 10 and Serpent as no star grade 9. Mentz has them as both as 2 stars and grade 11.

Who's right?

Maybe they both are!

PS Don't believe anything RK says about grades, he graded Celeste at 13 originally. It's now 16 in Lou's guide :-)
RK
1-Jun-2005
3:00:05 PM
On 1/06/2005 BA wrote:
>PS Don't believe anything RK says about grades, he graded Celeste at 13
>originally. It's now 16 in Lou's guide :-)

Can't recall you disagreeing with the grade at the time BA!
BA
2-Jun-2005
1:20:57 PM
On 1/06/2005 RK wrote:

>Can't recall you disagreeing with the grade at the time BA!

You must be getting old! I can remember saying that it felt about 15 as it was as hard as Yo Yo, which has now gone up to 16. And I won't mention Compulsion at Buffalo
RK
2-Jun-2005
5:48:35 PM
>You must be getting old!

If you're insinuating my memory is downgrading with age...I find that offensive Sir! I'm tempted to ask the mods to remove this thread! And what is this "Compulsion at Buffalo" thing anyway?.....

Just joking! Ha Ha Ha. Seriously though, it is interesting (a boost to an ageing ego?) to see a fair bit of upgrading of some of those old routes. If they were undergraded at the time, it certainly wasn't by design! Put it down to relatively few things to compare things with. That's my excuse anyway.

Don't think you can really hold me responsible for Compulsion though. As I CLEARLY recall...it was YOUR lead BA even though we may have disagreed. What's it graded now?

kieranl
2-Jun-2005
7:42:22 PM
On 31/05/2005 _ross_ wrote:
>can anyone explain why YoYo has two stars, with only a couple of 16 moves
>in 4 pitches, yet Boomer, which is two very nice solid well protected 15
>pitches doesn't have any stars.
>
I think it is because Yo-Yo has better climbing. While the climbing on Boomer is OK, I have never had any great urge to repeat it but I enjoy repeating Yo-Yo. It's not about the number of moves at the grade. The first pitch alone on Yo-Yo is a delight.
I guess it's all personal.

I think Compulsion is now graded "too wide"
James
2-Jun-2005
11:04:54 PM
if Complusion is anything like a lot of the cracks at Buffalo these days its probably unrecognisable
through the vegetation.... what WERE you guys thinking digging out all those cracks :)
RK
3-Jun-2005
10:15:24 AM

Is this "unrecognisable through the vegetation"?????? And I'll bet you're pretty glad someone did dig out a lot of the cracks in the gorge! Photo "courtesy" of the Chockstone gallery.

PS: You can tell I'm not real busy at work today!
hairy1
3-Jun-2005
12:17:09 PM
on the vcc trip to buffalo a couple of months ago I did compulsion. I then emailed Bill when i got back with a suggestion to modify the grade...'cause I thought - would someone who is at their limit leading 13 [even if they can jam] be able to lead this climb? no, was the conclusion i came to...It would be good for a laugh tho.

Actually it was good for a laugh... the reason i led it was because one of the other MUMC guys i was climbing with backed off.

to boost some ageing egos, it does seem that the climbers of old were pretty bloody hard - for example, the other weekend I attempted 'Beasts of Burden' at Bovine Wall. This was put up by Roland Pauligk at some stage in the early 70s i think. It had all the ingredients - sustained, technically difficult, a large loose block at the crux...i could go on.

BA
3-Jun-2005
12:44:16 PM
From an email in response to Hairy1 to Kevin Lindorff.

"I have heard some people say it should be 17! But they were either trying to do it as a straight layback or jam. When we did it I actually had some bong bongs for protection, before that I had tried it using wooden wedges for pro! When I got up the thing it was using 2 rests from the bongs in the crack, I was knackered after hammering them in. Julie Tulloch came up second and clipped in the rope for Rein Kamar. When we got to the top and started to work out the grade I said 13, Julie said 13 and Rein said 10.

13+13+10 = 36. 36/3 =12, which is what we originally graded it. Bangla upped it to 13 in his guide. If people are jamming and laybacking the corner then it is probably harder than 13, we climbed it with both feet and the right hand in the corner and the left hand laying away off a groove
that runs up the left wall. Maybe todays climbers aren't as aware of their surroundings as much as we were?"

Hairy1 was suggesting a grade of 15-16 for it. And if it actually is 16 then RK was 6 grades out!

But back to this post's topic for a moment. I'm looking at the October 1965 copy of Argus and in it says:
"Jammed Nuts

It seems that the era of the jammed nut has reached Victoria. As their use relies very much on the initiative and imagination of the climber concerned, and good possibilities should be obvious and plentiful on most routes, their use as runners will not be mentioned in future route descriptions except where they have been used in neccessarily obscure situations."

LittleMac
3-Jun-2005
12:49:29 PM
Don't you hate when you jam your nut's (sorry couldn't resist)
RK
3-Jun-2005
1:13:03 PM
On 3/06/2005 BA wrote:

>13+13+10 = 36. 36/3 =12, which is what we originally graded it.
Ain't democracy wonderful!

>then RK was 6 grades out!
OK. I give up. Consensus proves it. I'm ready to admit I couldn't grade for (pea)nuts.

IdratherbeclimbingM9
3-Jun-2005
1:21:26 PM
On 3/06/2005 BA wrote:
>13+13+10 = 36. 36/3 =12, which is what we originally graded it.
Good thing the maths worked out evenly, ... otherwise it could have ended up Grade 12.333 ... (The assumption being Julie and Rein doing it cleanly).
:-O
;-)


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