One Line Four Problems

[petejh]

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'.
...

OMG! I didn't realise that boulder had 70 more problems than the few I'd done. I remember going there after Doylo developed it and haven't been back since, thinking I'd done all the stuff I could do. Clearly not! There are way more 2-star f7s in N.Wales than I realised

Not sure how I feel about this.. I think the old-school approach with boulders like that would have been to do a topo with every hold numbered and you treat it like a school-room board, where the more popular challenges get names. But this always seems a bit of a shit experience when applied outdoors - who wants to drive 45 minutes in average connies to spend 2hrs in the cold to see if they can do 'holds 1-15-27-32', f7B? There's far more perceived value in driving 45 minutes to spend 2hrs in the cold to see if you can do 'Wong Shong Tong', f7B. I wonder if that's a manifestation of something profound about human nature, numbers and language, but have no idea what.


edit: 'perceived'

 

[JamieG]

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'.
...

OMG! I didn't realise that boulder had 70 more problems than the few I'd done. I remember going there after Doylo developed it and haven't been back since, thinking I'd done all the stuff I could do. Clearly not! There are way more 2-star f7s in N.Wales than I realised

Not sure how I feel about this.. I think the old-school approach with boulders like that would have been to do a topo with every hold numbered and you treat it like a school-room board, where the more popular challenges get names. But this always seems a bit of a shit experience when applied outdoors - who wants to drive 45 minutes in average connies to spend 2hrs in the cold to see if they can do 'holds 1-15-27-32', f7B? There's far more perceived value in driving 45 minutes to spend 2hrs in the cold to see if you can do 'Wong Shong Tong', f7B. I wonder if that's a manifestation of something profound about human nature, numbers and language, but have no idea what.


edit: 'perceived'

I have to be honest I'm not really a fan of this. Sort the page by logs and you'll see that roughly half the lines have only ever had 1 log. And only about 10 or so have actually got a decent number of logs. Did all those extra problems really need recording? Or could it just have been left for other people to make their own link ups, climb them and then walk away with a warm fuzzy feeling.

This all slightly harks back to the Grinah Stones debate. Does everything need to be recorded? I don't think so, but I also don't really care that much, I just don't get it, as I said I don't keep a logbook. I feel that if a problem is worth remembering then I will just remember doing it. If I forget and then climb it again, great it's like a brand new experience again. The only minor frustration I have is having to sort the wheat from the chaff when you visit somewhere new. As bonjoy says maybe there needs to be an 'arbitrariness scale' or something like that.

 

[Bradders]

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!

Well on things like that a reminder that I said this in the initial post:

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.

Penmaenbach to me is a training venue, so to me can and should be treated completely differently. I'm specifically interested in things like Leviathan, where it's one line, but has the potential to hold four problems which can each logically be recorded in their own right.

 

[Dexter]

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).

I am aware of one example (left wall traverse in the cave) where a route has been done in full and then some variations of earlier starts have been added back in afterwards.

How does that fit into this.

 

[andy moles]

Penmaenbach to me is a training venue, so to me can and should be treated completely differently. I'm specifically interested in things like Leviathan, where it's one line, but has the potential to hold four problems which can each logically be recorded in their own right.

I get what you're saying but it's not remotely clear to me that there's a bright line between a training venue and a ...venue. Sure on one extreme you've got Minus Ten wall or Parisella's which are clearly 'training' venues and at the other you've got the Ship or Grand Hotel but in between? Is Dumby a 'training' venue? How about a 'systems' boulder like the one in Beddgelert Forest? As for Penmaenbach, it's a freestanding boulder and I think Big Trouble in Little China Low Start for example is actually an excellent problem - if it was situated in Ogwen and didn't have an adjacent boulder to diminish the visual prow effect, it would be considered a minor classic.

 

[teestub]

. Sure on one extreme you've got Minus Ten wall or Parisella's which are clearly 'training' venues and at the other you've got the Ship or Grand Hotel but in between? Is Dumby a 'training' venue?

Ned and Varian (plus others?) had a session a few years ago linking Careless into NTBTA etc, so even grand hotel isn’t safe!

 

[Bradders]

Penmaenbach to me is a training venue, so to me can and should be treated completely differently. I'm specifically interested in things like Leviathan, where it's one line, but has the potential to hold four problems which can each logically be recorded in their own right.

I get what you're saying but it's not remotely clear to me that there's a bright line between a training venue and a ...venue. Sure on one extreme you've got Minus Ten wall or Parisella's which are clearly 'training' venues and at the other you've got the Ship or Grand Hotel but in between? Is Dumby a 'training' venue? How about a 'systems' boulder like the one in Beddgelert Forest? As for Penmaenbach, it's a freestanding boulder and I think Big Trouble in Little China Low Start for example is actually an excellent problem - if it was situated in Ogwen and didn't have an adjacent boulder to diminish the visual prow effect, it would be considered a minor classic.

I think you're getting distracted by the "venue" thing. Again, I'm talking about lines here, where the ultimate is something completely inescapable and purely defined. Big Trouble in Little China is clearly very escapable, and others can be linked into it, so it's not what I'm thinking of here. Training venues can have good lines, I've always thought Grand Opera is a great line, for instance, but it also naturally lends itself to the myriad different ways of starting it.

 

[andy moles]

Fair enough, you did specify lines where the only difference is where you get on or off as opposed to links and variations.

I guess I don't see it as a particularly discrete phenomenon from the general trend towards recording all possibilities.