[dave]

Is bring it down to your limit to "get it done" actually really any better than not doing it?

[abarro81]

I like onsighting. I also like redpointing. Back when I was a trad climber I mainly liked onsighting, but also liked headpointing.

Fiend, the irony of your post is that most people who are devout trad onsighters have so little concept of what it means to push their own limits. Most of your points are about challenge, but there's no inherent reason why a headpoint should be more/less challenging than an onsight - your points really only apply to people headpointing things which are easy for them, but the same could be leveled at people onsighting things which are easy for them.

Out of interest, if you sport climb (or were to sport climb), do you feel the same about redpointing?

Is bring it down to your limit to "get it done" actually really any better than not doing it?

As someone who redpoints sport routes quite often, I can confirm that 'bringing routes down to my limit' is, in many cases, a tremendously enjoyable experience.

[willackers]

Is bring it down to your limit to "get it done" actually really any better than not doing it?

Are you serious?

Is doing it better than not doing it? Really? 

[dave]

Yes I'm serious. Why is that so surprising?

[mrjonathanr]

I'm not saying 100% agreement with everything in Fiend's post , just glad that he's banging the drum for onsighting as it gets overlooked. i have a ticklist on grit which is mostly aspirational onsights. If I acknowledge I'm not going to get there I'll toprope them and have a think about whether to headpoint them or abandon them.

nb onsighting - term's a bit bit blurry now, I want to 'onsight' routes I've seen videos of for example, so maybe GU would be the better term.

Abarro, sure, but others push themselves quite hard on trad gear too.

[willackers]

Yes I'm serious. Why is that so surprising?

I just don't understand your thinking. Of course climbing a hard or dangerous route is better than not climbing it at all, regardless of the style you choose to do it in.

[Sasquatch]

Is bring it down to your limit to "get it done" actually really any better than not doing it?

for me - Yes. I want to climb everything I physically can.  and if that means TR'ing, Headpointing, or some such, I will. 

As long as it's at my limit, I'm pushing my boundry in one way or another.  Whether that be repointing, onsighting, sport, trad, boulder, highball, etc. 

Obviously, as long as what you do doesn't diminish the options for others. 

Because it's a naff, crass, pointless, challenge-avoiding waste of a route and one's climbing potential that is direspectful and demeaning to the route, any climber who climbs it normally or who intends to climb it normally (and has the brains and balls to leave it to a time until they are good enough), and even disrespectful to oneself by not giving yourself a chance to actually improve enough to meet the route's challenge. It trivalises the experience (especially the important psychological experience) and is contrary to the whole essence of a chosen climbing challenge, being, well, challenging. Especially in the case of obviously onsightable trade routes, especially in the case of habitual low-grade headpointers, and especially in the case of people who haven't even tried to push their limits in a conventional way and see what they are capable of.

So you're throwing a fit and saying "You can't play on the playground unless you play my way." 

My risk tolerance before I got married was vastly different than when I had young kids, which is different than now. 
Why should my risk rolerance match yours?  I have great respect for those who push new boundaries, but I certainly don't find it disrespectful if someone headpoint a route I established, regardless of how.  I've had friends TR highballs that I established ground up to suss out the beta, and I'm glad they did.  I don't find it disrespectful at all.  If anything, it's a sign of respect, as they are ackowledging the boldness of what went before. 

Conversely, the actions of those who avoid the headpointing pitfall and tackle the full challenges and push their own limits and sometimes the general climbing limits are glorious and respect-worthy and inspiring. As if that needs to be said*.

Hope that helps.

* - but I'll keep praising them anyway, if nobody minds.

And you should continue this. 

[andy popp]

To start with, there's headpointing and there's headpointing  - as a term it covers a very wide continuum in styles. Second, onsighting and headpointing are not mutually exclusive. I might have been seen as something of a head pointer in the 1990s - but I was actually doing much more onsighting. That's probably true for lots of people. Finally, there are probably very few headpoints that I really, really regret (in that I should have saved them)

[abarro81]

Didn't realise you'd flashed the joker Dave. Good effort.

[dave]

Didn't realise you'd flashed the joker Dave. Good effort.

Now you're just being daft to prove a non-existent point.

My point is if people are using the language like "bring it down to my level" then implicit in that is the acknowledgement that the challenge has been somewhat reduced, diminished, avoided, compared to whatever your initial perception of the challenge. Your words not mine (well, Will's words, but you get the point).

Now in some cases you might be alright with avoiding challeneges, and we all do it to some extent, but that's up to each person to judge themselves against whatever challenge it is. But if you're saying "brought it down to my level" then you've already judged yourself. Clearly the closer to whatever your percieved personal limit you get the easier that avoidance of challenge is going to be to reconcile with yourself.

To address the rather crazy Joker example, then if my mental picture of me doing the joker was to flash it (which it never was) then even so I did at some point in the past attempt to flash it, so the worst you could call that was a failure to flash it. You couldn't say that was brought down to my level by eventually doing it, quite the opposite.

On the other hand if there was a route that I'd always held in some esteem, always wanted to do in a particular style, then decided to not make an attempt that way and instead to take some tactic to reduce the challenge, then that would be different.

As I say, I'm no judging nobody, it's everyone own decision, but I find it just interesting, and perhaps telling, when people defend headpointing yet refer to it as "bringing down to my level" which is exactly one of the main reasons many folk avoid it.

[abarro81]

Sorry, I'd not noticed Will had used that phase, I'd thought it was you and Fiend using it, perhaps partly just presumed that since it's usually the anti-headpoint brigade who term it like that. Personally I think it's a dumb phrase, which is why I picked up on it, my mistake! I'll punter Will for it.

I'd certainly concur that for some things I'd want to onsight them, or at least try them onsight, and headpointing would feel hollow and like a cop-out, as would not going 100% for an onsight on a sport route and just going for a tactical 2nd go redpoint. For other things it would feel ace.

[Boredboy]

Is bring it down to your limit to "get it done" actually really any better than not doing it?

I think bringing it down to 'a level' to get it done is what climbers do and have always done.

[willackers]

Is bring it down to your limit to "get it done" actually really any better than not doing it?

I think bringing it down to 'a level' to get it done is what climbers do and have always done.

That's a better way of putting it, I agree.

All I'm trying to say is that if you really want to climb a route that's beyond what you think is your on-sighting capability then there is nothing wrong with headpointing it. Headpointing a route, in my opinion, is definitely a greater achievement than not doing at all.

I've only headpointed a couple of routes, but the ones I have done are routes that really stand out for me, and if I didn't top rope them first I'd never get on the sharp end and get them done.

Headpointing is still a massive challenge, it can be more nerve racking than going for the flash or on-sight. You definitely have more time to think about what your going to do, and what could happen if it goes tits up.

I've got a big list of routes I would like to do and I intend to headpoint the majority of them, regardless of what Fiend thinks 

[Jaspersharpe]

I'm not saying 100% agreement with everything in Fiend's post , just glad that he's banging the drum

I'm not glad. I'm just amazed it's not worn out yet.

He's banged it more times than that cunt in the Sheffield Wednesday/England "band" and it's just as fucking tedious.

[hstmoore]

re: headpointing diminishing the challenge. A headpoint of a really hard/bold route may be 'easier' than onsighting that route, and in that sense diminish the challenge, but headpointing can allow you to have a hard/bold experience that you wouldn't be able to have otherwise, if you would never go for an onsight of that route.

e.g a fictional e8 7a route that I would never consider going for the onsight on, I might headpoint and then get to experience 7a tech grade above a groundfall. I would never get to experience that hard/bold challenge otherwise.

So, in that sense, headpointing actually enables someone to increase the challenge they experience, even though in another sense it does diminish the challenge of the route.

This is of course supposing that the value of climbing lies in its challenge. Some people might find the experience of routes (for their movement, situation, history etc) as valuable as, or more valuable than, the challenge, and if that's the case then headpointing allows them to have more 'valuable' experiences, in which case it is a good thang.

That said, I'm all against headpointing where it diminishes the potential for onsights, e.g great slab routes at froggatt.

(nb I don't climb e8 or 7a)

[Three Nine]

I dont get what the problem is?

Headpointing is fine, toproping is fine, Simon Lee grabbing the chains is fine, Andy Cave pre-clipping the third bolt on chimes is fine, as long as there's no prestidigitation. Its just climbing a rock ffs!

[Nibile]

There is no such thing as "bringing a route down to one's level" except for chipping it.
I only know about "bringing myself up to the route's level", with hours of training and swearing.
The mental toughness (illness) that is required by long term projects goes beyond any onsight effort. Working a project for years, falling dozen of times in the same move, it's a hell on Earth. It's like preparing yourself for your hardest onsight attempt, only for hundreds of times, again and again. Sleepless nights, hours and hours of training, trying to find that little edge to gain one move. You must love the process to stick at it, because the joy of the successful ascent - if it ever comes - pales in comparison of the suffering to obtain it and leaves you competely empy both physically and metally, swearing "Never again!".

As for "headpointing vs onsighting" debate...
"I scarcely recall a commandment; nothing appears to me in the form of a law. There is an instinct which giudes me and always leads me to do what is right. I freely follow my inner dispositions and know as little of restrictions as of repentance."

Just go climb.
Sorry for the rant.

[jwi]

There is no such thing as "bringing a route down to one's level" except for chipping it.
I only know about "bringing myself up to the route's level", with hours of training and swearing.

+1

 

[dave]

That totally sidesteps the fact that many onsight or ground up attempts are the culmination of years of build up, training, mileage on the rock, climbing similar routes, mental conditioning, learning to place gear efficiently etc etc.

[Nibile]

Yes, but the onsight in itself can be only one.
So, years and years of preparation culminate in one attempt.
On extreme redpoints, years and years of preparation culminate in many attempts, with bigger tension buildup.
I'm not trying to give a judgement on the intrinsic value of the two styles.
As I said, I'm a big fan of "do what you like but preserve the rock".

[T_B]

There's a difference between a "quick headpoint" of a bold route, which is technically quite easy and therefore not that hard once rehearsed, and a headpoint near your physical limit. The former I have found to be fairly unfulfilling and as such I haven't done many. Plus I've walked away from a few due to lack of psyche. In my experience, the latter is different, but no less challenging than a hard on-sight. If someone boulders 7A max and headpoints End of the Affair, then that's a fantastic effort. If they boulder 7C then it's not.

[Johnny Brown]

There is no such thing as "bringing a route down to one's level" except for chipping it.
I only know about "bringing myself up to the route's level", with hours of training and swearing.

That's great. What's missing is that "bringing myself up to the route's level" includes an acknowledgement of the ascent style which is currently relevant for the route.

do what you like but preserve the rock

Amen. My big beef with top-roping was always seeing punters scrabbling about on routes which, in the case of gritstone, are actually quite fragile things.

[ghisino]

agree with nibs points, even though i'd say that an onsight (or flash) attempt can be mentally very challenging as well, under special circumstances - basically anything that would raise the anxiety levels and the obsession about not failing it.

examples: bold route/highball, competition, route "saved" for such an attempt and having a special emotional value for any reason.


also agree (although with limited experience) on the "quick headpoint" thing pointed out in the last post. Similarly, the "quick redpoint" is certainly a demonstration of climbing mastery and tactical efficiency but not of special "sports psychology" talents or will to suffer in this sense.

[SA Chris]

Obviously this doesn't apply to: new routing (where the challenge is unknown), cutting edge routes (where there is no precedent for current onsighting) nor early repeats / repeats of esoteric /scarcely climbed routes (where the challenge may be different from what is expected).

A lot of people seem to have missed this bit, and gone off banging their own drums?

[slackline]

In summary...

Horses for courses, some people prefer one style of ascent over another, for others its the opposite, some are capable of seeing the benefits and enjoyment from all forms.  No one opinion is superior to the other and as long as the activity isn't detrimental to future generations enjoyment and they are honest in their reporting people can do whatever they like (but don't expect Fiend to watch our video if it involves headpointing below E9).

Thats it until the topic resurrects itself in X months time and the same ground will be covered yet again.