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General Climbing Discussion

Poll Option

Votes

Graph

It's got FHs and a lower off. no trad

22%

It's got FHs but lower off or topout. no trad

It's got FH's all the way topout to trad belay OK

It's got any old bolt all the way

54%

It's got any old bolt, runout possible

13%

it's got any old bolt but may need trad when easy

scrap the symbol, they are all just climbs

i only climb at ben lomond so i dont understand Q

Author

When is a route a sport climb


Superstu

15-Jan-2011
7:20:49 PM

When you're flicking through a guidebook, and a route has a symbol next to it that indicates its a "Sport Climb", what do you want that to mean?

Where I've said FH's in the choices I mean fixed hangers, ring bolts or U bolts. Anything safe that doesn't need a bracket. Any old bolt includes carrots of any variety.

As you only get one option to vote, then vote for worst case acceptable scenario. ie fully equipped euro clipups are still sport climbs when 2 carrot topout wonders are also sport climbs.


Superstu

15-Jan-2011
7:44:47 PM

I mean what do you want the guidebook to say, not what you want the climb to be! In other words, if it doesnt make the criteria you vote, then it doesnt have a sport climb symbol.

Sturge

15-Jan-2011
8:27:48 PM

"Any old bolts with lower off" option?


Superstu

15-Jan-2011
9:03:43 PM

Maybe a new symbol system is required.

For climbs with any old bolt, use:

And for climbs with all rings to a loweroff, use :

One Day Hero

16-Jan-2011
5:54:13 AM

How long is a piece of string? Don't try to put climbs in boxes, just enjoy the broad spectrum of what is available......or stick to the one style you can manage, and accept that a bunch of crags are not for you!

martym

16-Jan-2011
10:13:02 AM

Surely there's some flood victims who would benefit from the abundance of free time chockstoners seem to be exhibiting at the moment??

Doesn't the Ewbank scale pretty much cover this:
Grade plus description - ie. U bolts all the way or bring 12 bolt plates or mixed pro, bring medium to small gear....


ambyeok

16-Jan-2011
11:26:15 AM

Questions are too complex. Sport route is more about protection required. If it needs anything more than quickdraws its not a sport route. So speaketh the Ambyeok.


Snappy

16-Jan-2011
2:16:12 PM

Speaking to an older climber once his definition was something along the lines of "any single pitch climb, with easy access (walk in) and good protection".

That is, he was referring to Frog as a sport climbing spot. Don't know if I agree but it's an interesting point of view.

widewetandslippery

16-Jan-2011
3:23:20 PM

A route is a sport climb when someone with an inferiority complex develops a name for being conservative, calls themselves traditionalist and can't get up the routes other climbers cruise and instead of calling them poofs, protestants or dolebludgers they call them sport climbs


Miguel75

16-Jan-2011
3:53:46 PM

On 16/01/2011 ambyeok wrote:
>If it needs anything more than quickdraws its not a sport route. So speaketh
>the Ambyeok.

Amen! I am constantly amazed by the profundity of the Chockstone, and the Ambyeok. As it is written, let it be done.


bw

16-Jan-2011
5:46:26 PM

On 16/01/2011 martym wrote:
>Surely there's some flood victims who would benefit from the abundance
>of free time chockstoners seem to be exhibiting at the moment??
>
>Doesn't the Ewbank scale pretty much cover this:
>Grade plus description - ie. U bolts all the way or bring 12 bolt plates
>or mixed pro, bring medium to small gear....

I guess it's handy to know at a glance, like when thumbing though a guide looking for a particular style for the day - ala mr carter's bluey's guide, different colour dots show what you wanna know in an instant...

btw, i think ambyoek has got it right


Superstu

16-Jan-2011
7:18:40 PM

There is a valid reason for this post. I want to decide what system to use for the upcoming Sydney Climbing Guidebook.

Simon has gone out of his way to detail this info in his excellent Bluies guide, with four possible categories. (Rings, All Carrots, Mixed and Trad I recall) and loweroffs are marked on photo topos (when there is one) What do people think of that system?

The Sydney cliffs are a big mismash of history and technology. You'll find trad, mixed carrots, plain carrots, retrobolts and french sport. At the moment my data simply has a 'sport climb' tag for some climbs, but some of the data (particularly from SSS) was very open with the interpretation of a sport climb. A couple of carrots and the odd trad placement in the easy sections got sport climb symbols! The simplest situation I just stick with that, but I want to clarify what people are expecting when they see the sport climb symbol in a guidebook.

How about this for consideration:
* Carrot symbol for any climb with one or more carrot bolts. Includes climbs which need some trad gear and some climbs where the carrots are the only gear. Route description details if trad is needed at all and belay options. So basically you are being warned to bring brackets, the rest is in the description.
* Ringbolt or croissant symbol for all ring bolted/U/FH climbs. Specific mention if no loweroff. otherwise assume there is. Basically you need draws only.
* Everything else gets no symbol, read the route description for details and figure things out at the base. Basically all trad I guess.

I would also like to stick with the skull & crossbones symbol for any climb which is generally considered dangerous due to bad bolts, loose rock, poor pro or other objective danger.


bw

16-Jan-2011
7:32:39 PM

On 16/01/2011 superstu wrote:
>The Sydney cliffs are a big mismash of history and technology. You'll
>find trad, mixed carrots, plain carrots, retrobolts and french sport.
>At the moment my data simply has a 'sport climb' tag for some climbs, but
>some of the data (particularly from SSS) was very open with the interpretation
>of a sport climb. A couple of carrots and the odd trad placement in the
>easy sections got sport climb symbols! The simplest situation I just stick
>with that, but I want to clarify what people are expecting when they see
>the sport climb symbol in a guidebook.

I frequent barrenjoey & often see folks running around trying to find the climbs that match the ones with the 'quickdraw' symbol (often euros), they seem to be looking for rings (etc) I think it's a good heads up.

>How about this for consideration:
>* Carrot symbol for any climb with one or more carrot bolts. Includes
>climbs which need some trad gear and some climbs where the carrots are
>the only gear. Route description details if trad is needed at all and belay
>options. So basically you are being warned to bring brackets, the rest
>is in the description.
>* Ringbolt or croissant symbol for all ring bolted/U/FH climbs. Specific
>mention if no loweroff. otherwise assume there is. Basically you need
>draws only.
>* Everything else gets no symbol, read the route description for details
>and figure things out at the base. Basically all trad I guess.
>
>I would also like to stick with the skull & crossbones symbol for any
>climb which is generally considered dangerous due to bad bolts, loose rock,
>poor pro or other objective danger.
>
>

sounds great, I like the carrot symbol idea

martym

17-Jan-2011
2:22:01 AM

Then with all due respect and humility and gratitude to those who produce the guides:
are blue/black/yellow/red dots trademarked?
Why not just make that the standard for NSW guidebooks (or Australian?)

Surely visiting climbers would be grateful for one system after having to interpret the grading system as well?


pmonks

17-Jan-2011
8:24:44 AM

superstu, as a head's up, the definition of "sport climb" that I used for SSS was "It's got any old bolt, runout possible", without an option of placing worthwhile natural gear in any runouts (if natural pro was available, it was not flagged as a sport route, although in hindsight I probably would/should have differentiated sport-rings-Us-FHs vs sport-hangerless vs mixed vs trad, as Simon did in the Blueys guide).

For the crags I personally checked (I think I included that indicator in the data I sent you?), the sport climb information was accurate (according to the above definition), but keep in mind that (a) the bulk of the SSS data was checked only once, between 1996 and 1999, and a lot has changed since then, (b) from 2000 on, most of the information was contributed by others, without me necessarily checking what they'd provided, (c) human error is always a possibility, particularly for harder routes that I only scoped from the ground.

This is why readily-editable online information (ala ACA, theSarvo, etc.) is so important from a long-term accuracy perspective - climbs change regularly (particularly for somewhere like Sydney that has so many climbs), and the only scalable way to keep all of that information even remotely up to date is to allow all and sundry to update it as they discover inaccuracies.

Any update on working with ACA to avoid forking of the Sydney climb data?


tnd

17-Jan-2011
8:28:14 AM

How about a smiley face for ring/u-bolt routes with lower-offs and a turd for everything else?

Wendy

17-Jan-2011
8:45:11 AM

On 17/01/2011 martym wrote:
>Then with all due respect and humility and gratitude to those who produce
>the guides:
>are blue/black/yellow/red dots trademarked?
>Why not just make that the standard for NSW guidebooks (or Australian?)
>
>Surely visiting climbers would be grateful for one system after having
>to interpret the grading system as well?

This is a standard system somewhere? You might need to explain it to all the non visiting climbers!

bones

17-Jan-2011
9:37:23 AM

If consensus is that a sport rack is all that is required for the climb, then it is a sport climb.
If trad gear is required, then it is not.
Any possible variations can be discussed in the description i.e "could reduce run-out between 3rd and 4th clip with a #3 cam"

onsight

17-Jan-2011
11:06:14 AM

On 17/01/2011 martym wrote:
>Then with all due respect and humility and gratitude to those who produce
>the guides:
>are blue/black/yellow/red dots trademarked?
>Why not just make that the standard for NSW guidebooks (or Australian?)

Nah, not trademarked. I'd be happy for others to copy the colour coding system we used the Blue Mtns guide book and agree some consistency between guidebooks in the general region might make them less confusing to use.

onsight

17-Jan-2011
11:13:22 AM

On 16/01/2011 superstu wrote:
>Simon has gone out of his way to detail this info in his excellent Bluies
>guide, with four possible categories. (Rings, All Carrots, Mixed and Trad
>I recall) and loweroffs are marked on photo topos (when there is one)
> What do people think of that system?

>How about this for consideration:
>* Carrot symbol for any climb with one or more carrot bolts. Includes
>climbs which need some trad gear and some climbs where the carrots are
>the only gear.

Just to clarify - in the latest Bluey's guide, the yellow coding designates "Sport Climb with Carrot Bolts". Meaning, it's fully bolted but bolt brackets are required. Might just need one bracket, or it might need them for the whole route, that's often described in the text (or is obvious).

There are 35 messages in this topic.