There is an interesting phenomenon in climbing that involves what I am going to dub “contingent ascents.” That is,  ascents that often are not cutting edge but garner a lot of attention or interest because the ascent hinges on some kind of contingent. This category of ascents contains a degree of gradation, from the “first female ascent” (which may or may not be significant due to many factors) to something as contrived as the First Deaf Columbian ascent of Mount Everest (not that being deaf or Columbian is contrived).

Other contingent ascents might be: Climbing a famous route and downgrading it. Climbing a route without a chipped hold. Mixed climbing without heel spurs. Mixed climbing without leashes. Climbing a Grit headpoint without crash pads. Everest without oxygen. Everest without porters. Everest without fixed ropes. Not using kneepads. Climbing a sport route on trad gear.

Don’t get me wrong: I think that a lot of these contingencies equate to an improvement in style and a better, more impressive ascent. Yet, they are still contingencies. In other words, the ascent itself would be otherwise uninteresting or not noteworthy and therefore it gets qualified in order to make it seem somehow greater than it may actually be.

Appearing a few years ago, my infamous “Sprad Climbing” column discussed this issue by looking at how self-proclaimed new-school trad climbers were, in fact, not pushing trad-climbing standards in the strictest sense, but were simply blurring the line between sport and trad, with a greater reliance on sport tactics than anything else. It seemed disingenuous to me at the time, and it still does. Of course, it’s fine to ruthlessly wire a route on top-rope over many days, dial in all the gear placements, place crash pads at the base of the climb, drop packs filled with rocks onto the gear to test it first, skip all the bolts (even though they offer an easy out at any point on the lead), and then go through the perfunctory motion of actually leading a climb, which is probably rated a grade that most leading sport climbers could onsight (if not warm up on). But doing so doesn’t entitle you to get to proclaim that you are pushing trad climbing standards, especially when “trad” means, above all, a ground-up ascent, which would include figuring out gear and moves on lead.

[To go off on a quick tangent: At what point does all the top-roping, bringing crash pads to protect the landing, and all the trad gear degrade the simplicity of experience that is often touted in so-called “minimalist” traditional climbing? I don’t know, but to me it seems a less aesthetic, more cumbersome, more complex style of ascent than to simply bolt a line (boldly, even) and just get the climb done. But bolts also don’t bother me like they do some Americans …]

And that is what really the beef is: the talk/spray and disparagement of the other style of ascent that often goes along with these contingent ascents. My contrived style of ascent is good because this other style is bad. My ascent is significant because it’s not like someone else’s.

It seems as though that attitude might be more of an American trait than anything else–at least if this excellent and inspiring video says anything. In this short, Arnaud Petit climbs Black Bean (8b/5.13d) on trad gear. In this video, he doesn’t fall into any of the usual tropes: declaring this to be an improvement in style; calling for the bolts to be removed; saying he is now some kind of big, bold badass trad climber. He just strikes me as a dude who was probably kind of bored with his home crag since he has sent everything else there and so he decided to do something fun and different to keep himself interested. Above all, the climb looks just brilliant, and he describes the difficulties, danger and thrill of the ascent in a very humble way that I really responded to. Thanks, Arnaud, for this very refreshing perspective and excellent video.