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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

If its A5 where are the bodies? 5-Feb-2008 At 1:36:46 PM uwhp510

Message

On 4/02/2008 sliamese wrote:
>doesnt a grade indicate the POTENTIAL of what could happen??

Clearly it does, but if, in the course of a statistically significant number of ascents, these potential dangers are never realised, then either the dangers are not as bad as they're made out to be, or else everyone is very lucky (in which case your sample was too small anyway).

Its not quite the same as in scary trad, because the gear on a scary trad route would hopefully be seldom tested whereas on a scary aid climb, every bit of gear is tested every time the route gets climbed. I think the same sort of argument applies to run-out slab climbing. It definitely feels insecure, but then again, people don't fall much, so its demonstrably not as dangerous as it seems when you are up there.