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There's no such thing as a purely technical climb, just as there's no such thing as a purely strengthy/powerful climb. All climbs involve some combination of each, and defining technique is very difficult to do - it's not just about standing on smears. There's lots of different ways you could define a climb as technical or powerful but most people will be able to intuit what category something falls into.

One way to define it could be to look at how strong the weakest climber capable of a problem is (a method thwarted by stamina plod traverses but let's focus on real bouldering for the sake of argument). C3P0 is probably accessible to almost everyone if they're good enough. Red Baron not so much. Obviously I haven't seen or felt the holds on these climbs but I can imagine things like Alphane and Return of the Sleepwalker being done by "weaker" climbers then those who do Burden :shrug:

Given that the problem Webb just repeated looks about E3 I might book a flight :lol:
 
abarro81 said:
I do agree that defining what is "a technical boulder" or "a power boulder" is very vague. But we all know roughly what is meant.

Yes, I think this is right, and our views probably aren't too dissimilar, but I clearly lean slightly more towards seeing failure as primarily a technical issue in more instances.

I chose to use Burden of Dreams as an example for debate because it appears to be one of the most basic hard boulders, but clearly still involves a lot of technique. The first example I gave to counter Webb's 'hardest technical boulder' (apparently not what he actually said) was Livin' Large on the basis it's graded harder and is a 'techy' arete. I'm just not sure what 'hardest technical boulder' could actually mean.
 
Wellsy said:
Is that not kinda true though

Well kind of, but most of the time we all know what the difference is as Barrows says. It seems counter productive to break down a pretty useful, on the whole, method of categorisation and make it essentially meaningless. Much like how its counterproductive to break down long accepted ethical practices/ concepts of what makes a problem or route good :devangel:
 
spidermonkey09 said:
Wellsy said:
Is that not kinda true though

Well kind of, but most of the time we all know what the difference is as Barrows says. It seems counter productive to break down a pretty useful, on the whole, method of categorisation and make it essentially meaningless. Much like how its counterproductive to break down long accepted ethical practices/ concepts of what makes a problem or route good :devangel:

I agree that it's a useful categorisation, but I don't think it works just by looking at something; you have to try it to know (or take someone else's word). I could go into my garage right now and set something on the board that I can't climb because it's too technically difficult for me. It being a technical issue might not be apparent if I were to show you a video of my attempts.
 
Liamhutch89 said:
I clearly lean slightly more towards seeing failure as primarily a technical issue in more instances.

Oh no, I think technical ineptitude is most people's issue on lots of things, I just think plenty of people fail on not-very-technical things for technical reasons! Most climbers, including me, are surprisingly bad at climbing :lol:
 
I'm pretty shit at climbing and it's primarily lack of technique, but I suppose my raising of it is that aren't all boulders technical? Which I admit is a bit obtuse

What I do think is odd is saying "is this a contender for one of the hardest technical boulders" because I don't think there's really enough of a distinction as to what counts, its a bit like asking what's the hardest crimpy boulder or hardest boulder with heel hooks. Imo.
 
I don't think anyone would object to "contender for the hardest crimp boulder" or similar though? Obviously it's hard to define but we kinda all know what they're driving at
 
The whole idea that BoD isn't technical is a load of nonsense imo. From the attemps I've seen of both Shawn and Will, even a single slight misplacement in foot or hand position is the difference between success and failure on the boulder.

I think people confuse tehnical with slabby, yeah burden isn't a slab, but to say a problem which involves body tension on awlful footholds isn't technical is a load of tosh.
 
Maybe we shouldn’t consider powerful and technical on the same scale. A better contrast to technical is basic. And a better contrast to powerful is . . . eh not powerful. Maybe fingery.
 
Wellsy said:
its a bit like asking what's the hardest crimpy boulder or hardest boulder with heel hooks. Imo.
I was broadly agreeing with you until this. I'd have said the exact opposite - deciding a hardest crimpy or heel hook boulder is really easy in comparison to technical. Categorising a boulder as eg. contains heel hooks, is not too bad, and then we just need to find the hardest of that list. The problem with "technical" is that literally every boulder requires technique, if climbed by someone at or near their limit - I think you'd be hard pressed to find many boulders that aren't "technical". Even if they require strength in a particular way, that isn't what causes people to take a long time to climb it. For example, using BoD like everyone else has done, what caused Will to take ~10 sessions in Finland wasn't the fact his fingers/other muscles were too weak, and then he suddenly trained them stronger in a couple of weeks; instead, he had to spend time learning the technical aspects of the boulder (as well as the usual skin, conditions, etc).

So I'd agree that when you say "aren't all boulders a bit technical", but actually I'd think we'd have a much bigger chance of finding the hardest boulder with a heel hook!


I am intrigued now though... what's the hardest not technical boulder? Or just any examples of very non technical? My initial thought was something like rainbow rocket, feels like it'd be one where you either have the power or not, but actually I'm sure there's plenty of ways to use technique to make it easier, and therefore maybe it is technical!?
 
Surely there's just different styles of technicality whereas power is is just that. Theres balancy moves, weird body positions, awkward transitions, difficult to use footholds and handholds. The most 'techy' problems are just the ones which combine most of these difficuties.

The one which jumps out at me when I think about this is maybe marie rose ? for the grade it's got difficult feet, slightly weird body positions awkward transitions and you've got take the handholds pretty well to the most out of them. There's no mystery as to why a ton of top drawer climbers have blown the flash on it.

Is there anything in the UK that jumps out at you when thinking about it like that ? maybe honorary called is a good contender ?
 
edshakey said:
Or just any examples of very non technical? My initial thought was something like rainbow rocket, feels like it'd be one where you either have the power or not, but actually I'm sure there's plenty of ways to use technique to make it easier, and therefore maybe it is technical!?

Dynos are often really technical in my view. Unless it's really easy it's never about pulling harder on the holds, it's about timing and learning how to launch, the precision in the catch etc. I've got plenty of mates who are massively stronger than I am (and not significantly shorter) who are pathetic dynoers.

Never tried Rainbow Rocket but it looks hard to get the pull, launch and foot stomp to flow as one continuous building of momentum. Footwork, bless him, is almost uniquely dreadful at that sort of thing. Every time he completes the pull of a dyno he stops dead then pumps his legs. Very amusing to watch.
 
Blue Meanie at Dumbarton, 5+ but often >7A climbers often take a few goes to get it right. Absolutely lovely problem when you know.
 
It does but zeppelin is just a pure 8a (probably more like 8B) mantel whereas dirt has a tricky end with some hard climbing beforehand. They’re also very different styles of mantels - which kind of lines up with the conversation about how you discern difficulty across styles, even within mantels, you have different styles (balls, friction, shelves, rockovers)
 
spidermonkey09 said:
Honorary Caley is miles easier than Marie Rose! Maybe Strawberries is a better corollary?

Wait really?? I've never tried Honorary Caley, but Marie Rose was pretty straightforward a few weeks ago, I'd love to get a 7A for even less effort ;D
 

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