[Bradders]

There seems to be a trend toward recording multiple "problems", all of which essentially climb the same line but with varying starts and finishes. As far as I can tell it's a fairly recent thing. This is separate to eliminate or training venues naturally; specifically where there is a clear and obvious line with no rules other than where you start and stop.

I've been thinking about this for a while but El Mocho's FA of Big Leviathan is a classic example, as on UKC you now have:

- Leviathan; starting crouched and finishing at an obvious decent hold where the rock becomes vertical. 7C+/8A
- Leviathan Sit; from a full sitter starting further back in the cave. 8A+
- Leviathan Extension; from the crouch start, continuing upwards to a higher hold (described in some places as a more obvious finish which I disagree with personally, it's just more climbing not more obvious). 8A/+
- Big Leviathan; the full thing, lowest possible start, highest possible finish. 8B

I'm quite in favour of this. I quite like the idea of having lots of options especially for climbers of different abilities, and it allows you to pick a challenge level that suits which isn't subject to some external idea of the thing you're trying not being a "real" thing. In the above example, I enjoyed a couple of absolutely lovely sessions down there trying the original problem, whereas I never would have even gone if the only option was Big Leviathan. Or even if it was only a stand and sit, as I'm just not as brave as Ben on my own and that top section feels fairly high above some spiky rocks!

There's some precedent for it too. A few examples which spring to mind are Handy Andy's block start/the ground start/Patina Turner, and more recently we have One Redeeming Feature/Total Redemption and Bank Manager.

However, I can see various arguments against; such as encouraging green tick wankery, over consumption, over documentation, the distillation of the purity of a line (Big Leviathan is for instance an incredible line). And clearly a line needs to be drawn somewhere.

A good example where it could have been done but hasn't been, to my mind, is Ben's Groove at Caley, which currently has a stand and sit but could easily have another documented problem starting three hand moves in from the sit - in fact in some ways that's the most obvious stand start. But the simplicity, purity and clarity of how it's currently documented is quite nice.

Discuss 

[Hoseyb]

In a previous time I'd think the other versions of leviathan would be consigned to the history section of how the line evolved.

However, there does seem to be a movement (aided by the ukc logbook) to record every single variation as a separate line.

Link up blocks and shed venues have always existed, but I guess people are more hungry for validation nowadays.

[Fiend]

One Problem Four Sections

[Ross Barker]

You'd love the dugout at Grinshill

[andy moles]

I was thinking about this recently when bouldering at Jerry's Roof.

Jerry's Roof Finish is written up as a 6C+ and is popular, but most people who aren't very tall have to start off stacked pads to reach the post crux pocket, so it's a bit random. Why not have the far more natural Jerry's Stand Start at 7B or whatever, from the obvious head height holds that everyone can reach? Also why not have Bus Stop Finish (and indeed Bus Stop sit start?) I'm surprised (though glad) that no one has tried to add the three different starts to Jerry's on UKC, given that most viable link-ups and variations have been recorded.

It's hard to come up with a hard rule as to what should and shouldn't 'count' or be worth listing as a separate problem. Something I do find a bit annoying/misleading is when people give slight variations a totally different name.

[teestub]

Jerry’s is also interesting in that (IMO of course) the Tourist Start is substantially better than the original start, which adds moves but reduces the quality!

[andy moles]

Jerry’s is also interesting in that (IMO of course) the Tourist Start is substantially better than the original start, which adds moves but reduces the quality!

Agreed. Obviously the Tourist start wasn't possible because of the ground level when the problem was first done, but ironically neither was the 'standard' start.

If you took the 'add everything' principle to its logical conclusion and listed all three starts and also all three for all the other links that start up Jerry's (and maybe reversing from the Tourist start along the standard start to go back the original way for good measure, and all the other links from there) you would have one of those unintuitive multiplicative things where it turns out that cave actually contains 36 million problems.

[spidermonkey09]

Bradders, I have a vague memory of you being annoyed a while back when someone added the stand start to Two Squirrels at Caley to UKC, (admittedly they did inexcusably call it One Squirrels!) unless I'm getting you confused with someone else. Wouldn't this be the same thing, or have you changed your view?

[36chambers]

Bradders, I have a vague memory of you being annoyed a while back when someone added the stand start to Two Squirrels at Caley to UKC, (admittedly they did inexcusably call it One Squirrels!) unless I'm getting you confused with someone else. Wouldn't this be the same thing, or have you changed your view?

That thing was given 7A, we're talking 7C+ and above around here (jk obvs)

[Hoseyb]

In humour, but probably another factor driving the issue.

Doing half an 8A is still a solid effort, but some people would rather "complete" a variation and get a grade for their efforts.

[Fiend]

So wait, this sort of thing is okay if it gets Bradders his 7C+/8A tick, but is an abomination if it allows a mere mortal to get a 7A tick (and One Squirrel is a great name for it)??

[teestub]

Hopefully it was actually written up as One Squirrels rather than One Squirrel, as it then suggests a verb rather than a noun.

[spidermonkey09]

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/caley_crags-540/one_squirrels-641886

[Fiend]

2/3 star classic unless you're Will / Bradders?? Count me in!

[jshaw]

I can't think of specific examples but I remember noticing this a lot when climbing in Fontainebleau. One line would have a stand / crouching / sit / Dyno and / or eliminate versions with different grades and sometimes names.

Is that a recent thing too?

[teestub]

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/caley_crags-540/one_squirrels-641886

Excellent! FWIW I think this is all good, as that’s a nice bit of climbing along the shelf feature

[remus]

Fair play where there is a natural spot to pull on/drop off but like anything if it's taken to extremes it can get silly. I think things like Big Leviathan and the stuff in the roof at Biblins Cave are interesting examples because the intermediate lines only really exist because the FAs weren't able to climb the full thing. You wonder if they'd exist if e.g. James Squire had been the first person to work on the lines at Biblins (the 'finish' of Godzilla being particularly weird).

[Bonjoy]

It's the logical and inevitable direction of travel for an activity which is very slowly understanding that it has more in common with dancing than it does with mountaineering.
I think now that online databases are the definitive record as opposed to physical guidebooks this is actually more of an engineering problem than a fundamental one. How to accommodate variants without obscuring the principal lines and the who/what/how of applying some quality filter. Not everything is a worthy variant - there should be some guiding logic behind what is worth recording publicly, or at least some way of filtering by levels of abstraction.

[remus]

I think now that online databases are the definitive record as opposed to physical guidebooks this is actually more of an engineering problem than a fundamental one.

Agree with this, and fortunately I don't think it's overly difficult to solve either. Something I've done on climbing-history.org is added a way to say how a climb is related to another climb e.g. 'Hajj is an extension of Mecca' https://climbing-history.org/climb/6/mecca-extension Obviously ch is never meant to be definitive, but you could imagine UKC doing something similar and having a little dropdown for climbs which says 'x is a variation of y', then you could filter off variations pretty easily.

I suspect the main difficulty would be finding some development time for what is ultimately quite a niche feature.

[andy moles]

an activity which is very slowly understanding that it has more in common with dancing than it does with mountaineering.

Nicely put. Though this may be true, what bouldering does have in common with mountaineering is not negligible, especially in the sense that plenty of climbers do both activities and tend quite reasonably to regard them as falling under the umbrella of 'climbing'. I suppose as one of those, coming from a more traditional background, I've been a bit resistant to the way that bouldering has disrupted the concept of 'line' (which I get the feeling a lot of climbers now don't really grasp, reducing it to a purely visual thing). Perhaps you could say the same of sport climbing, in a slightly different way. It still bothers me a little bit when you start to see that mindset bleed into trad climbing.

[turnipturned]

Interesting thread.

An example that springs to mind is, I did a lower start to Matador at Attermire- I knew that it was probably possible to start from lower but that starting position seemed obvious at the time. Subsequently, Jack did a much lower start which is a lot better, in my opinion, the start I did has been superseded by a better quality line an therefore should be forgotten.

Similar example is Amma Gamma is Grampians- Fred originally did it from the pocket, then Klem did it from a lower start, which is arguably better. It's been superseded and no one goes and does the original line.

A couple of us are developing a new area at the moment, I have done a cool problem from a sit, however, there is defo a lower start, but it would be a bit naff, reduce the quality and not obvious starting holds. What do you do? Write it up as a problem or do the lower start as the full problem.

[andy moles]

there is defo a lower start, but it would be a bit naff, reduce the quality and not obvious starting holds. What do you do? Write it up as a problem or do the lower start as the full problem.

Surely always have whatever is best quality as the default line, at least where there is a significant enough loss of quality that most people would agree.

As mentioned above, I'm amazed given the popularity of Jerry's Roof that no one has documented a sit start to Bus Stop - it's dead obvious and it's obviously been done, but it adds nothing in quality and only a fraction of a grade in difficulty. I suspect if it did bump the grade it wouldn't stay unrecorded.

[Bonjoy]

In reply to Turnipturned:

It depends whether you're trying to curate a collection of the most aesthetic conceptions, or maximise the utility of the crag.
I'd argue that you can engineer a way to represent both visions though. In some ways this already happens in some areas with print guides covering the 'best' versions of lines while online records are more completionist. You could in theory achieve the same online by categorizing problems/variants by their level of abstraction and then being able to look at a crag in its whole or only showing certain categories.

I'd say this though TT, I suspect that if you are conservative about what you record it will almost certainly be undone by other people filling in the blanks further down the line. As like as not this organic process will be less careful and coherent than if done by the initial developers who will be taking the broad view.

[jwi]

What I have done for printed guidebooks and online databases is to report only what I think is the best way to climb a line then write "A lower start has been done at about the same grade" in the description, or "the sit start adds a grade but has no other redeming qualities" or "starting from (description) is easier/a lot easier but misses out on some great climbing". People can obviously fill in whatever they want on their scorecards/online repositories. Regardless, with time the populus decide how the problem should be climbed, not the original developer.

[teestub]

A couple of us are developing a new area at the moment, I have done a cool problem from a sit, however, there is defo a lower start, but it would be a bit naff, reduce the quality and not obvious starting holds. What do you do? Write it up as a problem or do the lower start as the full problem.

Record the quality, let Jack worry about crawling into the back of the cave and turning the topo into spaghetti 😆