2011 has been an absolutely legendary year for rock climbing. We’ve seen a crazy number of 5.14c onsights (by Adam and Ramon), the first American woman to climb 9a (Sasha), two 5.15’s sent in a day (Chris), numerous cutting-edge sport climbs, continuing development of V14-plus boulders here (Dave) and abroad, Alex’s mind-bending streak of Yosemite free solos, the world’s hardest offwidth (Century Crack) and a recent redpoint of what may shake out to be the hardest pitch of trad climbing in the world (pitch 12 of Dawn Wall by Tommy)—not to mention the Dawn Wall itself, if Tommy ever succeeds in completing this four-year mega project, as we all know he will. And 2011 isn’t even over.
But it’s not just the top tier that is stepping it up. It’s everyone. At my home crag Rifle—if this is any reliable indication (and I think it is)—I noticed just this year that people, in general, are climbing harder than ever. The average level at which the average Rifle climber is operating is unquestionably higher than it was seven years ago when I first started going there. More weekend warriors are climbing 5.14. More women are climbing 5.14. People are getting better.
It’s hard to understand just how ridiculously good top climbers are these days without seeing them in action. There was a skeptical part of me that could always attribute the big numbers being sent to grade inflation and ego bolstering. Perhaps that’s part of it—but today’s climbers are not only much, much stronger, they have a broader vision for what’s possible on the stone.
There’s no doubt that many of the best climbers today are honed on the World Cup/competition circuit. There is a certain paradox to that idea because, at least in Europe, most of the World Cup climbers spend so little time on real rock because of their rigorous training regimen. The classic example is of Patxi coming close to sending the full Biographie but then leaving Céüse because he had to return home to his training schedule (he sent on a later trip).
I got a chance to spend some time with some of the world’s best climbers at the Petzl RocTrip two weeks ago (blog post about RocTrip coming up soon). It’s amazing to just be around this level of talent. I watched at least four women climb a 5.14a over the span of two weeks. A bunch of men sent a 5.14c. Gabri Moroni absolutely crushed a new 9a. I was most impressed by the fluid, confident style of young Enzo Oddo and the powerful elegance and grace of Nina Caprez. Climbers who can look like they do on such difficult terrain become something more than just athletes; they become performing artists.
We’re beginning to see the results of the enormous influx of talent that has been introduced to the sport in the last 10 years. And with this, of course, comes both good and bad—just take all the drama currently unfolding at the Red River Gorge, and the host of quagmires both empirical and philosophical that are resulting from the sport’s exploding popularity. As the country’s biggest, best and most centrally located crag, the Red is both a laboratory and harbinger for what climbing will look like in this country in the future. More great climbers, but also more buttheads—and also more heads to butt. We always want things to remain the same—or perhaps, change but only for the better—but protesting climbing’s growth is as futile as trying to not turn a new age on your birthday.
I recently observed one interesting difference: Climbing used to be a refuge for social derelicts. The best climbers in the world were often the poorest people. Today, the best climbers are instead some of the richest. You need money and free time to be able to train in gyms, compete on the World Cup, and be constantly traveling all over the world to different areas in order to be exposed to that variety of rock. That’s what it now takes to be operating on this top-tier level. The leisure class has always existed on both ends of the economic spectrum.
This seems to be a truly tumultuous time in climbing’s history, with moments of both sheer brilliance and uncertain peril alike. It’s hard to know what to make of it, other than I am enjoying being a part of this sport and excited for the future.
What’s “all the drama unfolding at The Red” about? Can you give us a quick overview? Is there a message board that can be lurked?
Sorry, I should’ve explained that … basically, from what I gather, a lot of perma-draws, including community-funded ones, are being stripped from routes. The grander problem, however, is not the perma-draws themselves, but that all the crags are over-crowded, people are misusing the resource, gumbies are decking off of routes every weekend, and the in crowd of locals doesn’t like seeing people on routes that are obviously above their heads. Perma-draws are an easy, tangible thing to blame (sort of like bolts were in the 80s and much of the 90s). I don’t think that fewer perma-draws is categorically a bad thing; it might be a good thing. However, I don’t think it’ll help the larger problem, which is that there are more people going to the Red every weekend than ever before …
Andrew, Thanks for bringing up the recent conflagrations in the Red. I think you described it correctly. Basically, we are very close to most of the large population centers in the East, and as Porter Jarrad said, “Climbing has become the next yuppie fitness craze”. Tongue firmly in the cheek, but nonetheless we have seen numbers of visits to the popular cliffs explode. As we have said here in Kentucky many times, “Bolt them and they will come.” We did, and they obliged.
You are quite correct in the that the perma draw issue is a distractor. While there may be some veracity to perma draws facilitating gumbies getting on routes over their heads, the acting out gesture of taking them down en masse didn’t address the underlying issue of too many folks going to a single cliff and those folks not having had cliffline etiquette modeled for them.
Ours is a transient culture. Jim Thornburg was bemoaning to me on a visit to the Red that no one who began climbing in the last ten years know what a Rose move is, and why it is called a Rose move. Trivia, perhaps, but our history is our culture and underpins our etiquette. The lack of mentorship that many of us got when we began climbing is lacking in the “boulder in the gym for six months and you are ready for the Madness Cave” mentality.
The street level view is that cliffs are too crowded, bring their dogs, being rude, giving laissez-faire belays and people are decking every weekend. We have had three fatalities here in the last three years and many injuries, and all due to poor judgement. When does this become a liability? When do we have to look to ourselves and question our etiquette/ cultural mechanisms that are either facilitating problematic behavior or could possibly correct it?
I don’t know. We are meeting as a community to discuss this tomorrow Nov 9th in Lexington. Open to the public. We know we have a problem, and you are again right, in that ours is the canary in the coal mine. It will indicate what we all have to look forward to.
Hugh
Thank you for this astute, informative comment. I wish I could be at the community meeting tomorrow with you all. Please let me know what happens. I have some ideas of my own for how to help this situation and some nationwide possible programs in the works that would address the core of the problem. …
AB
I was at The Red a few weeks ago, got a 1st hand view of the drama, and attended the back-row campfire meeting. I was left with a few overriding thoughts.
First of all, I’m relieved that there are some intelligent, mature individuals involved in finding solutions to The Red’s current challenges.
Secondly, having climbed in many areas in and out of the country, I have never in 11 years felt so unwelcome by “the locals”. “The locals” being in quotes because I think we can all agree that Dario is probably the only true local at The Red, and his hospitality is second to none. Perhaps it was because I yield a license plate from their favorite scapegoat state of CO, or because I’m friends with the “self-serving media driven pro’s”, meaning 3 specific people (2 who were named) who inspire other climbers, bolt new routes, and act as positive representatives of the climbing community. Instead of creating cooperative relationships that could benefit the cause, such as using the media to educate the masses, “the in crowd” places blame and acts out in the hopes that people will simply go away, and they will get the crag back to themselves.
I too wish I could be at the meeting, and contribute more than money to my favorite climbing area thus far. However I have faith in the handful of people who spoke (and listened!) at the campfire meeting, who seem to have a grasp of grassroots community organizing, and see a larger picture of solutions regardless of personal inconvenience.
Cheers,
Jen Herling
Maybe “the locals” (and contrary to what you might believe Dario is not the only true local) are sick and tired of visitors treating the red like some indoor gym where after hours the janitors roll in and clean up the mess.
For years most of the people who call the red river gorge their home crag have been friendly and welcoming to visitors. Perhaps what you felt at the campfire meeting was a reaction to being taken advantage of by guests over the years. If someone came to your home, by invitation or not, let their dog off it’s leash, hung out in front of your television watching what ever show they chose, was rude to your family when they asked to change the channel or lower the volume on the television, raided your fridge for all your healthy vegan snacks, and then top-loaded your toilet with a rancid steamer you might be pissed off too.
BTW… our favorite scapegoat state is Ohio.
What happened to the good old days when arguments like these were decided by fist fights in the parking lot?
Here are some of the richest climbers in the world:
Carlo Traversi- family made millions on corporate corruption. They are part of the 1%
Sasha DiGuilian- Ukrainian mob, land developer father made it rich in the Baltimore area
John Glassberg- sponsored by Nazi Gold
Daniel Woods- His father played Frodo in the Lord of the Rings
Dave Graham- Heir to the Graham Cracker fortune
Ty Foose- Invented Foose Ball
What pisses me off about ‘the crew’ and the act of removing permadraws is their belief that they are ‘locals’ and doing their best to manage the crowds. Jen Herling nailed it in her comment. Most of those guys are from Ohio or Michigan. They aren’t any more local than Colorado Jen. And while they are all believing that through draw removal and intimidation they can lessen the crowding, I’m the one who was more effective in lessening the crowd. I didn’t go to the Red this year. In my opinion, it’s ‘the crew’ that is crowding up the Red. If they weren’t there maybe there would be room for climbers like myself and Jen to find a nice parking spot and campsite.
I got really upset reading through the forum on redriverclimbing.com. This post by Cletus Wilcox in particular really bothered me:
“In my opinion the local climbing community here at the RRG should think twice about the impact mainstream climbing media has on our area. Try and find a climbing publication other than the alpinist that dosent have at least a picture of the RED. Whether it’s an advertisement or a full spread or a picture in one of their galleries. Its out of hand in my opinion. As a local climbing community we have opened our arms to people like Keith Ladsinsky, Andy Mann, Sasha Digullian, Jonathon Seigrist, Dan Brayack, (the list goes on…..) to come to the RED and plug us in completely to mainstream climbing media. I would add that the amount of exposure the RRG gets from these climbers/photographers benefits their pocketbooks and resumes and thats about it.”
Are you kidding? Good luck with your media blackout. Hey did you guys here about Sasha Digiulian sending that 5.14d at the NEW River Gorge? I of course, take it personally that the media is at fault for the explosion of popularity at the Red. I mean if we had to blame anyone, shouldn’t it be Kenny Barker? That douche bag bolted Lucifer, Golden Ticket, and Pure Imagination. Thanks a lot Kenny! Now everyone knows about the Red!
Not to mention the fact that the ‘crowds’ were the same folks that all pitched in to purchase outright the very crags in the PMRP that the ‘crew’ now wants for themselves! It’s also the ‘crowds’ that have generated business at Miguels so that he’s able to hire the ‘crew’ and give them jobs and/or a place to stay so that they can be ‘locals.’ I have a lot of energy on this topic and am already rambling…. I better stop now.
PS. Isn’t a ‘rose’ move when you have to rise really high on your toes to reach a hold? I had to do that once on this crappy polished route in France. It was called something about a Vampire, no maybe it was called Dracula but that can’t be it…that’s another shitty Kenny Barker route!
Yeah, Mikey, I agree with your assessment. I hate how people talk about “mainstream climbing media” as if it’s fox news or something, or as if people are making lots of money off of shooting photos, making videos and writing articles about climbing. Climbing can’t really get any more core … it’s still a small, niche sport.
Also, the people who are “in the media” are all friends with “the crew” … everyone is friends, belays each other, etc. But somehow, that fact gets drowned out and lost in people’s minds when they start thinking abstractly and looking for a scapegoat to blame.
With or without permadraws, with or without media, with or without sponsored climbers, people are always going to be climbing at the Red River Gorge because it’s THAT good and because it’s THAT convenient/close to a LARGE population of people in the U.S. The Petzl RocTrip there a few years ago raised how much money to buy some of these crags? $15,000? How much did Petzl as a company donate? I know more than a few sponsored climbers who have given more than $1,000 of their money to the RRGCC.
Don’t get me wrong because I AM sympathetic to the gripes voiced by “the crew,” or whatever … I think that people do need better education about proper crag ettiqutte. I’ve actually been interested in starting up an initiative called “ROCA”–Respect for Outdoor Climbing Areas, which would be an educational program that works with gyms to teach people about why and how crags are not the same as gyms.
Anyway, it’s a super interesting discussion, and a very important one. …
And Kenny is definitely to blame … for a lot of things.
Well… That was about the most complete answer to a question I could possibly have hoped for! Thanks guys!
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Obviously climbing history has seen similar over-crowding issues play out at crags like The Gunks and Yosemite but clearly this instance is different and I wonder if the Red has the management structure to deal with the problem long-term (Gunks is well-managed private land and Yosemite has the NPS looking after it)? Sounds like maybe not, but perhaps the local climbing community is organized and well-intentioned enough to play the role that the land managers have played elsewhere? I certainly hope so.
Re: People who write words and own cameras… Funny how we can all agree that the history of climbing is unique, beautiful and central to our enjoyment of the sport, but we love nothing more than to bash those whose job it is to write and report on that history. I mean, if you want to know what a Rose move is… wouldn’t you kind of need a back-issue from the “Mainstream media” circa 1990 or something? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
And since everyone has to have an opinion… I love ’em when I’m pumped and I clip them all the time, but outside of a very few safety related instances, fixed draws are lame and I find it hard to argue for them. Getting rid of them seems like a small compromise if it means limiting our impact and acting responsibly as a community.
Yikes! Glad I went somwhere else this fall…
This in reply to Mikey and in general giving some follow up.
Unfortunately this (the unilateral decision to strip draws at the Lode) has become a divisive issue. It, as I said, has become a distractor that keep people pissed off at the perps and fixated on the action. I don’t want to be an apologist for Cletus, the crew, et al… but they did help spur the discussion of a situation that was coming to a boil. I don’t know about nationwide, but it has helped us here step back and take a look at what are the underlying issues/problems that we are facing, and what are some solutions.
We did meet tonight, 17 involved folks had a very fruitful and organized discussion. We were able to distill down a few mostly agreed upon core values. Props to Shannon Stewart Smith who stepped up, called for and deftly led this potentially contentious meeting.
1. The stone is for climbing. The resources of the Red, as far as the land owners and land managers allow, is for everyone. It is a gift that we all should be able to enjoy. Yes, there are a lot of us, and likely more coming. If any area should be able to handle large numbers and disperse them, the Red should.
2. Pr-eminent to climbing is personal responsibility. You assume risk when you shoe up and step off the ground, be it to clip brand ss way over kill glue ins, or sketch your way up some gritty dihedral fiddling in widgets. This may seem so common sense that it doesn’t bare mentioning, but the fact that it has to be pointed out speaks to the type of unseasoned nascent climber (not all, but many) that are finding their way out of the gyms and to the cliff. This point is important for a few reasons. 1. It sets the ground rules for people to climb on their own gear. If an individual doesn’t trust left draws on a route (something I think we would like to encourage), then that individual has the right and should put their own gear on a route. Left gear, be it perma draws or project draws, are not sacrosanct, and can be removed. A climber should have no expectation that their lefft gear will necessarily be on a route when they return. I personally do not want to climb on shitty ginsu biners left on the Undertow. And to set the record straight, only a minority of the draws the “crew” removed were climbtech PDs. Most were abandoned aluminum biners/draws. Something else to keep in mind when discussing gear in the Red, our loamy soil is very sandy. Ropes get sandy. Sandy ropes make excellent cutting tools (ask the ancient Egyptians cutting block for pyramids.) Even ss biners on popular routes wear out in 2 years. Left gear becomes a maintenance problem. 2. We do have a group of young uninitiated climbers who, perhaps unlike areas in the West, have no exposure to gear, sac-up kind of climbing that might otherwise instill a sense of trepidation of fixed gear. It is my opinion that with PDs and fixed gear we are encouraging these young climbers to develop bad habits were a left draw is considered as safe as a bolt. We had two young climbers die three years ago by rapping off a piece of the shittiest faded weather beaten tat you have ever seen and it of course failed. This is something that anyone who climbed trad for any time at all would (hopefully) never do. Why did they trust it? Their friends have posited that they just didn’t question it, and perhaps it was because of a complacency toward gear learned through sport climbing. We will never know for sure. With all that in mind, and being aware of the changing nature of how young climbers are being intiated to the sport, do we, as a climbing culture, owe it our climbing progeny to put in place simple mechanisms that will re enforce this assumed risk and personal responsibility? Maybe I am being overly paternalistic, but I think we do.
3. Our third and as yet not fully elucidated value is some peripheral behavioral things, like leave no trace, pack out your shit, don’t dog a route over your head for an unreasonable amount of time, leash your dog, be respectful of others, maybe choose to go to another cliff if the one you had your heart set on is crowded, etc… The reality is we aren’t in the wild west anymore in terms of being an outlaw culture. There are a bunch of us, and when you get a bunch of anybody together you have to have codified ground rules so we can all get along. We all learn in pre-school how to live by societal ground rules, and like it or not, when you have fifty people at the base of the Undertow Wall, or any other cliff, you need them there as well.
I don’t know. We are just trying to help steward this amazing place. The Red is so stunning beautiful and the climbing is so good. I have climbed here since 1977/78? Long time, and I still get floored with how much stone is out there.
Andrew, I think there is a role for a national discussion on this. I, for one, don’t blame the climbing press and think that they are part of the answer. Were else can light be shined on this issue and a national conversation be had with industry, press, local climbing organizations dealing with the access, crowds, etc, occur?
enough, I’m out.
Hugh Loeffler
Hugh
Thank you so much for the update …
We recently ran Whitney’s decidedly unbiased article about perma-draws, which as far as I know, was the first and only time the greater issue has been covered in a magazine. Before that, we ran Pat Bagley’s article about the perma-draw debate at Shagg crag.
I see some conflicts in what you wrote above, however, that I wanted to point out. You say we want climbers to be self-reliant, but then later say that we owe it to (young) climbers to put in place the mechanisms that will re-enforce this risk–which is really just another way of saying that you’re going to make decisions for someone else about what is safe/risky by not allowing the the option of having to make that decision in the first place … Further, of course, we want climbers to be as self-reliant as possible and to be able to inspect their gear and make smart decisions about whether or not it is safe to climb on … but we honestly can only take that up to a point: For example, What about bolts?
Bad bolts are another problem that sport climbing is increasingly going to have to face in the next 10 years as many of the bolts in our classic American rock climbs of the 90s enter their third decade! This seems to fall outside the jurisdiction of personal responsibility insomuch as it can be hard (even for an experienced eye) to see what bolts are bad–and to do anything about it requires returning on another day to the climb with a bolt kit and having the skills to know how to fix it, which, to be quite honest, are skills that I DON’T want to see most climbers taught.
In Rifle, we seem to have this unique situation of locals who act as stewards for the whole crag and act all using the channel of the Rifle Climber’s Coalition. Both bad bolts, as well as aging perma-draws, fall under the same jurisdiction. The difference, of course, is we have 350 rock climbs, and the Red has thousands …
So, if we accept that some third party needs to be responsible for bolt maintenance, then ostensibly perma-draws can fall inside of that bubble too. Also, here, what climbs those draws appear on is also up for discussion. At the Rifle Climber’s Coalition, we have both approved and denied requests for people to add perma-draws. At the Clean-up party this summer, we cleaned aging “perma draws” (not steel, but the aluminum/nylon draws that had been left in place years ago) off of many classic routes, and either left them without draws, or added climb tech steel permadraws. Not everything should be perma-drawed, and likewise, no perma-draws seems unreasonable as well as potentially dangerous given that the alternative to the steel would be one person’s set-up that a large group of people use over the season, wear down to the point that the original owner no longer wants the draws, and then the draws get left and become a safety issue.
I think the real answer is education, like you say. This education is certainly a responsibility of the media (writers/books/magazines, etc) …
AB
Thanks for your feedback. As I thought about what I wrote today I realized what you point out. For me to assert on one hand assumed risk and self reliance are a core fundamental of climbing, and then on the other to take a paternalistic perspective of wanting to choose for people by dis allowing perma draws and basically forcing them to be, well, self reliant and have to hang their own draws. I think the resolution to this conflict is that what I am suggesting is an act of omission- that is, that something not happen. Through this everyone makes their own decision. I just don’t want that decision to already be made for climbers who might not know better by having “fixed” perma draws already in place.
I hear you regarding the bolts. Where does it stop? A group of locals at the Red took it upon them selves to replace all the bolts at one of the aging premier crags (The Lode) with 4″ stainless glue ins, because we wanted no one to have to question the safety of bolts, for the very reason that it is impossible to really tell if a bolt is safe (with the obvious exceptions of rusted necrotic jingus anchors that declare themselves). Anyway, yeah we have our challenges. Thanks for your forum.
great comments. Thanks, Hugh!