One Line Four Problems

[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 Subsequently, Jack did a much lower start which is a lot better, in my opinion, the start I did has been superseded by a better quality line an therefore should be forgotten.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 It's been superseded and no one goes and does the original line.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

 

[Bradders]

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?

I can't recall that discussion Your Honour.

My view has definitely softened. I particularly like the dancing analogy, although I'm not sure they do much documentation in dancing?

I think also there's a strong element of elitism in restricting documenting of certain things (which I may or may not have been guilty of in the past, no comment etc.). But if there's a logical starting and ending position without those being the absolute lowest and highest points respectively it makes sense to me that more people should be able to enjoy the same piece of rock as those operating at a more difficult level.

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.

It's interesting isn't it as it also goes both ways, in that I think boulder problems more frequently follow much clearer lines than sport or trad climbs. Obviously there are lots of fabulous sport and trad lines but comparing Kilnsey sport to Crookrise bouldering for instance it's a lot clearer what's what at the latter. This has been part of my objection previously in the sense that the line is the line and you should climb the full thing, but that's where the elitist element comes into it.

 

[36chambers]

I had a similar conundrum with a recent possibly FA. I initially climbed the stand to an obvious drop off, then came back to do the stand to the top out, then back again for the sitter to the drop off (being too pumped to top out...), then eventually from the sit to the top.

My initial thought was to propose the stand as the main event with a harder sitter, but ultimately I went with just the sit to the top. In hindsight, if I were to add some of the easier variants onto UKC the full thing would be much more likely to get repeated.

 

[36chambers]

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.

The secret to developing (which I probably shouldn't say) is to make sure you top out as many things as possible from wherever you can, so at least you can put an FA claim in. Then you can worry about doing the climbs from their "proper" starting points.

 

[Bradders]

I had a similar conundrum with a recent possibly FA. I initially climbed the stand to an obvious drop off, then came back to do the stand to the top out, then back again for the sitter to the drop off (being too pumped to top out...), then eventually from the sit to the top.

My initial thought was to propose the stand as the main event with a harder sitter, but ultimately I went with just the sit to the top. In hindsight, if I were to add some of the easier variants onto UKC the full thing would be much more likely to get repeated.

Out of interest, what / where?

 

[36chambers]

I had a similar conundrum with a recent possibly FA. I initially climbed the stand to an obvious drop off, then came back to do the stand to the top out, then back again for the sitter to the drop off (being too pumped to top out...), then eventually from the sit to the top.

My initial thought was to propose the stand as the main event with a harder sitter, but ultimately I went with just the sit to the top. In hindsight, if I were to add some of the easier variants onto UKC the full thing would be much more likely to get repeated.

Out of interest, what / where?

Anura at East Chevin, second viddy on my insta (it's private so can't link it)

 

[andy moles]

it also goes both ways, in that I think boulder problems more frequently follow much clearer lines than sport or trad climbs.

Certainly true that both can be either a really strong line or lineless, what I had in mind was the like of this:
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/penmaenbach_boulder-22771/#main_boulder

The main boulder has 75 listed problems. It's quite a small boulder! On first acquaintance you'd say it's got about 8 'lines', but it's the kind of rock on which they aren't that well defined - it's not soaring aretes with blank walls between. When you start digging in to make sense of everything that's listed there, essentially it's every conceivable combination of starting holds linking to every conceivable finish.

And why not? The original problems are not necessarily more natural than some of the 'variations'. The main issue I have with that boulder is that all the different names for what are often small variations make it confusing - at what point are you essentially just using a different sequence for the same 'line'? But like Dumby and various other places, the rock kind of invites that approach.

What I was saying before that I don't like is when the concept of slight variations - eliminates - with precisely defined sequences is transferred to routes - you hear people asking if this hold here is 'in' on a trad line, just because it happens to be shared with another line - of course it's in!

 

[JamieG]

the sense that the line is the line and you should climb the full thing, but that's where the elitist element comes into it.

I don’t think that’s elitism at all. This is basically the same discussion as one a wee while ago on here about whether some challenges are more arbitrary than others. In my opinion the less ‘rules’ attached to any given problem the better the problem is. That’s not saying you can’t start/finish wherever you like, eliminate holds etc. But it’s clearly not as good a problem. I don’t think that’s controversial or elitist. Just honest.

I thought it was interesting that in one of the wedge videos Jim pope said in Finland they’re quite strict about only climbing the purest/best lines. Aesthetically I like that. But understand that might be easier with less climbers and more rock. ‍

 

[JamieG]

Another thought on this is clearly online logbooks exacerbate this issue. If you do something and want to add it to your logbook it needs to be recorded. I don’t keep a logbook so this has never been an issue for me. I feel it can slightly turn climbing into something akin to stamp collecting. Got to log as many problems as you can.

 

[SA Chris]

the full thing would be much more likely to get repeated.

Subtle humblebrag?

 

[andy moles]

Got to log as many problems as you can.

...or at least come away with something in the bag for your efforts.

 

[JamieG]

Got to log as many problems as you can.

...or at least come away with something in the bag for your efforts.

Progress on your project?

I think there is definitely a tendency to over record and you end up with a situation where you think there are tons of problems but it turns out there are only actually a few proper lines and hundreds of eliminates and link-ups. I had this exact issue in Petrohrad in the Czech Republic. Sold as a bouldering paradise with a guidebook and online logbooks that look absolutely stacked with quality problems. Turns out its got a few decent lines and then tons of things that in my opinion shouldn't be recorded. There is an analogous issue with online app stores. Without some curation the actual good apps get completely buried under an avalanche of rip-offs and rubbish.

 

[Wil]

I think there are a lot of extensions to the "One Line Four Problems" Problem:

- Post Covid recording the most minor pull-on-and-grab-the-finish problems seem to be getting recorded, given an inflated (or misunderstood) grade and 3 stars. There are several local venues near me that would look worth a visit in the logbooks, until you realise that there are only really 3 problems and they're on boulders 5ft tall.

- Taken to the extreme we could also name and grade every conceivable bolt-to-bolt link on a sport route. If we stuck a lower off at every bolt we'd all go home feeling like we'd actually achieved something, rather than some nebulous link. It adds complexity when you're trying to link from the 5th bolt to the top, since you'd have to stay on the wall between attempts and have Chris Sharma pop in with supplies for it to count.

 

[Droyd]

Agree with the point about elitism – if I can climb the full line (whatever that is – the longest, hardest, least eliminate problem) then the stand/crouch/eliminate version is pointless crap added by puerile little wankers that can’t bear to go one session without getting a tick; if I can’t, then the stand/crouch/eliminate version is an entirely logical bit of climbing that serves as a useful stepping stone towards the goal of doing the full line. Hence why there are loads of what I reckon we can term ‘modular’ full lines in the eights and high sevens, but far fewer in the low sevens and basically none in the sixes and below – simply because the majority of keen boulderers either operate at that high-sevens/low-eights level, or aspire to.

I guess history plays a role too, in that if the ‘full line’ gets written up first then the ‘lesser’ version is less likely to later. Presumably that’s the reason Tsunami at Rubicon has a one-move 7B stand (where many have to stack pads to reach the start holds), a 7C crouch, a 7C+/8A non-eliminate sit (use of crimp + no sloper match), and an 8A eliminate sit (no crimp + sloper match), rather than because all of those are worthwhile problems in their own right. I wonder how that bit of wall would look in alternate universes where i) the 8A was the first recorded problem, and ii) the holds/wall angle were sufficiently different that every module was shifted down a number grade (so the one-move stand was 6B, and the eliminate sit 7A). I imagine quite different.

At the end of the day, what’s the purpose of writing things up? To me it means more climbing for me to do, which is a good thing, and to my mind I’m free to not do something if it’s clearly shit. I suppose the tricky thing is figuring out what’s shit and what’s not, which is particularly hard if you’re not familiar with a venue and/or the people that have written things up don’t have much of a handle on quality. One option is to clearly separate the non-shit from the shit in online guides – on UKC, Beef Buttress at Roche, for example, has a ‘Beef Buttress’ section for the things that you’d want to do going there for the first time, and ‘Beef Buttress Eliminates/Traverses’ for repeat visitors, and I think that that’s a pretty good approach from a functional perspective. Most similar venues (Forest Rock, Parisella’s, to name the ones I just checked) seem to have a similar distinction that I think works quite well.

With the latter category I do think that anything should go – if you want to write up Oppotrocity-type shite then you should be free to, given the potential benefit is that it gives someone less imaginative than you an added bit of entertainment, and the only downside that I can see is that it’s a bit annoying to read about if you’re above that kind of thing (I guess? I don’t really know why people get upset about crap stuff being written up, given they’re not being forced to climb it or even read about it).

 

[andy moles]

Broadly I think you're right Droyd - nothing wrong with everything being recorded (well, maybe not the most extreme and weird-rule eliminates, they can keep those to themselves) with the very big IF that it's recorded in such way that someone showing up for the first time is not going to be totally misled as to how many actual quality lines there are, and confused about where they go.

History definitely plays a role. It's amazing how as soon as something is written up in a guidebook it's 'official', even if it doesn't necessarily stand up to logic. Then you get that elitist bias against someone doing some perfectly natural easier version that's 'not the real problem'. Though on the flipside, people do generate some really arbitrary crap.

 

[andy moles]

Got to log as many problems as you can.

...or at least come away with something in the bag for your efforts.

Progress on your project?

It's not the same as a nice tidy Tick though is it?

(I'm not justifying this btw, just building on your point about how logbooks encourage over-recording).