Route or Highball Boulder Problem?
Now if you haven’t read it already, and i would hope to high heaven that James Pearsons Blog has a greater following than mine, after all he can actually climb. James has some interesting things to say about much of the grade debate that has raged around his routes, and I’ll leave that to him. However I would like to take up the debate from the point he makes about crash pads.
In essence James argues very well and it is undeniable that the use of crash pads on gritstone routes does downgrade the risk, however some might say upgrades the experience. Mainly due to the reduction in the ‘real risk’, when falling off doesn’t just become possible but an almost essential part of the process the E grades must have to change. As something that was at the frontier of adventure before has been switched to an elaborate form of play.
Now E grades probably still need to be there, after all, some of the heights people are falling from are getting stupid. I remember lobbing off reaching for the break on Poseidon Adventure an E4 (or highball V4?) at Bowden Doors, with just one old DMM mat to fall on, it looked like postage stamp when i fell off and felt like I had pile driven myself into the earth when I landed. Getting up to do it again seemed reckless, but a friend and I still did it, managing to clear the crag of climbers in the process.
If I returned today, I would want to have ten pads, my age and a generally increase in common sense and the number of available pads has lead to that (Although I still don’t own my own pad!). The added confidence you’d would expect to gain in using multiple pads as a safely cushion means that general performance would be much better as well. In fact I would imagine that it would actually be fun, and that you’d happily go for it again and again in a teletubbies fashion.
Now whilst James has chosen the ethical high ground of trying his new routes without pads, you have to question his logic, as he himself says that pads reduce the grade, and that modern climbers turn up on mass with two pads each, and therefore the grade has to be reduced by his own logic. Just because he wants to have an E10 experience on a E7/8 doesn’t mean the rest of the world wants too . As such is James acting a little like King Tut trying to oppose the ‘tide of change’, which is well and truly behind the use of as many pads as you can carry.
Think back to a few conversations when the Heights was a good pub, discussing some of Paul Pritchard’s routes, specifically one of the Red Walls Broccoli lines that was originally given E8, mainly because of an upside down RURP belay, whereas six foot down and left was a much better and safer belay, which as a result reduced the grade and the notoriety of the route. However for Paul and his partner the route was E8, but mainly because of blinkered thinking and unneccessary danger. Is making something deliberately more dangerous a valid approach to high E grades?
I am sure that climbers have moaned about technological advances in climbing equipment over the years. From the when the Reverends William Bingley & Peter Williams used a trouser belt to aid their ascent of the Eastern Terrace of Clogwyn Dr’r Addru. Ever since then each subsequent advancement has brought about the reduction of risk. From hemp rope, karabiners, slings, nuts, pegs, hexes, wires, harnesses, kermantel rope, rock boots, sticky rubber, Friends (camming devices), all have made climbing safer and safer. So what makes a crash pad any different from any of these technological advancement?
I am from a generation with an ethos of ‘why tear your arse when you can fart’ mentality. As such we want to find the line of least resistance to reaching a goal, if this means using pads to reduce or totally eliminate danger then so be it. What James is right about is that when we do this we need to be honest about the grade, Ulysses with ten pads is not E6, it would be a very, very good high ball boulder problem.
Totally Insane! He survives BTW, he is the person moving around in the dark at the beginning of the video.
If we want quality of experience over danger then I have been thinking, and investigating the future, and its already upon us, we have just not engaged with the technology. Athletes have regularly been falling over 5 metres on pads for years during the pole vault, and Stunt men have been jumping off building for years onto little more than stacked up cardboard boxes. They have evolved to use crash mats and air bags, and can fall safely from 100ft. I have looked into this market, and you can get a porta-air bag, as well as some very substantial pads. Given enough man power, I am sure we could get any of these to below a gritstone route. I have put a couple of video’s on to give you an idea of the potential, LPT anyone?
Even Madder than the first video!