The demonisation of bold trad

[petejh]

No demonisation from what I can tell. I think it’s more that the recognition and kudos for what constitutes cutting edge in trad has moved on and what the old guard of Gresh et al did (headpoint E8s and 9s) isn’t considered leading edge anymore. Headpoints of E9s have been done for a very long time. Onsighting E8 or harder is the standard for being leading edge now. Hardly any climbers are good enough to onsight E8 or E9. On that metric McClure is at the leading edge of UK trad climbing as well as sport climbing... Don’t see anyone demonising his trad ascents.

 

[andy popp]

Onsighting E8 or harder is the standard for being leading edge now. Hardly any climbers are good enough to onsight E8 or E9.

In which case things really have slowed to a crawl.

Genuine question, as I really don't know; what E9 onsights have there been?

 

[mrjonathanr]

I think most of the demonisation was done years ago by Crowley and Redhead. Very little progress since. It’s all far too wholesome nowadays.

 

[Will Hunt]

There's bold you can prepare for and then there's bold that essentially involves rolling a dice regarding snappy rock. I find the latter far more objectionable.

Let's be honest, choss is shit.

Alex, your entire climbing career has been on limestone :blink:

 

[Teaboy]

.
On that metric McClure is at the leading edge of UK trad climbing as well as sport climbing... Don’t see anyone demonising his trad ascents.

Doh, I totally forgot about McClure, it does however support my point that climbing hard trad needn’t be about performative acts of danger nor a function of sanity.

 

[abarro81]

Alex, your entire climbing career has been on limestone :blink:

Yeah, but all the best limestone routes are covered in enough sika to no longer count as choss ;D (apart from the ones at places like Ceuse where they're actually bomber rock)

 

[teestub]

Doh, I totally forgot about McClure, it does however support my point that climbing hard trad needn’t be about performative acts of danger nor a function of sanity.

I guess he had a massive grade buffer (in terms of fitness and strength), but I find it hard to judge how much something like his ascent of Nightmayer was hanging it out there. Maybe he felt within himself enough to reverse every move!

 

[remus]

Genuine question, as I really don't know; what E9 onsights have there been?

Very few. Not at my computer so I can't put together a comprehensive list, but James Pearson's flash of Something Burning in Pembroke is one of the hardest flashes in the UK (it was very much a flash though, lots of info before he set off).

In pure onsights, Steve Mcs ascent of nightmayer is one of the more impressive that come to mind.

 

[andy moles]

Pretty sure the short answer is none?

 

[kingholmesy]

Bold trad. was always frowned-on by normal people. The difference between 1981 and 2021 is that normal people now go climbing.

This made me smile.

Bold trad is demonised by my wife. She keeps telling me it’s irresponsible. I’m not sure it’s demonised by anyone else, it just doesn’t get the interest of strong youths.

@Barrows - choss is great. Preferably huge, tottering piles of it that involve a semi-religious experience while desperately clawing your way to the top.

 

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Really interesting thread. Too much to add, but this first from Andy P:

"When I started (jumpers for goalposts etc.) it was pretty much an integral part of climbing, something many/most climbers did in some form or another. I think I first soloed something - a Severe on the Sea Walls at Avon - on my third day out."

Those were the days Andy! ;D

There's different types of bold climbing though aren't there? In MacLeod's insta post he describes a type of climbing where he believes he can control all the variables given sufficient training and preparation.

There's bold you can prepare for and then there's bold that essentially involves rolling a dice

Re McLeod's comment, that's the ever enticing illusion - of being able to control the variables.

I did a new route up on Stanage with Andy many years ago. For me, the prep was kept at a level where the ascent still required rolling the dice, putting yourself in a position of uncertainty.

In many ways, that's what the debate was always about - the uncertainty of hard trad vs the uncertainty of a hard redpoint.

Bold meant uncertain.

I think we often don't understand what it is that we are actually risking. Often the physical consequences of a mistake are confused with the emotional consequences, because they are more obvious.

What does McLeod really want to be in control of. Lobbing off a sport route can often be at least as traumatic as falling off a bold trad route.

I'd want to contrast the different approach towards the Cloggy "great wall" between Redhead and Dawes. Yes, Redhead's attempts were massively compromised, but still maintained an "authentic desire", whereas to me, Dawes stole the girl just because he could.

In that, there's something of the underlying desire, which makes any critique of bold trad, about far far more than a number.

I want to sign off this post by saying that if there's one person I know who really f'ing loves climbing, it's Gresham.

Yes, he can be easy to take a pop at, as can anyone expressing an opinion, but anything from Neil that can be read as expressing the sense of something being lost in climbing, will absolutely come from the same heart and underlying motivation that we all really want to protect.

But then, in that last sentence, is the question about what might be changing.

"Applaud?" ;D

 

[mrjonathanr]

Yeah, no question Neil’s a genuine guy.

 

[andy moles]

Re McLeod's comment, that's the ever enticing illusion - of being able to control the variables.

I did a new route up on Stanage with Andy many years ago. For me, the prep was kept at a level where the ascent still required rolling the dice, putting yourself in a position of uncertainty.

Bold meant uncertain.

I think we often don't understand what it is that we are actually risking. Often the physical consequences of a mistake are confused with the emotional consequences, because they are more obvious.

What does McLeod really want to be in control of. Lobbing off a sport route can often be at least as traumatic as falling off a bold trad route.

I'd want to contrast the different approach towards the Cloggy "great wall" between Redhead and Dawes. Yes, Redhead's attempts were massively compromised, but still maintained an "authentic desire", whereas to me, Dawes stole the girl just because he could.

In that, there's something of the underlying desire, which makes any critique of bold trad, about far far more than a number.

Interested to scratch at your perspective on this Dave, as someone who seems both thoughtful and (on past occasion at least) exceptionally bold.

The distinction between bold and controlled is important - if you've mitigated the risk to such an extent that it is, to reference Dave Mac's Insta post, no more risky than a walk along Crib Goch (I'm dubious about this comparison, but leaving that aside...), that obviously isn't the same thing as setting off with a large degree unknown. Super-prepared, low risk headpoints are not the apotheosis of 'bold trad'. If Gresham perceives that headpointing poorly protected E9s is now frowned upon, imagine what those people must think of genuinely bold trad!

But then, I've got mixed feelings myself. You say it was important for you to 'roll the dice' - this suggests more than just uncertainty, but submitting entirely to luck. Roll a six, everything goes smoothly, roll a two, you break your spine... Is it not usually more controlled than that? You had a lot of skill and experience, many points at which you could decide whether or not to climb higher or downclimb, perhaps some possibility of rescue, etc.

And if there were moments that were genuine rolling of the dice, where it was in the lap of the gods whether you lived or died, what were the rewards that justified that level of risk?

I'm not a bold climber, but have done some relatively bold things - and to tell the truth, those which felt the boldest I'm not proud of, because I was flirting with the margins of my control in a way that I can't really justify. What did I get from it, other than a buzz of relief, a bit of lame kudos maybe, a little bit of self knowledge and know-better for next time? Perhaps I was doing them for the wrong reasons.

I guess my admiration for those who do hard bold things is not their willingness to 'roll the dice', but their ability to be cool and decisive in positions of extreme risk. So it's not the boldness in itself that merits applause, but the ability to marshal boldness intelligently.

On a side note, I don't quite follow your point about the confusion between physical vs. emotional consequences...

 

[webbo]

One my old climbing partners recently said me that one his worst climbing experiences was watching me solo a multi pitch route in the Lakes. Not that I looked out of control but he just felt sort of helpless watching. However I felt it was a memorable climb for the opposite reason that I felt so solid on it.

 

[creamtime]

Interesting thread. I used to do some bold routes but I certainly wouldn't describe myself as a bold climber, now or then.
I enjoyed the experience of having a degree of control over a relatively high level of risk, however illusory that may have been. But the experiences where I felt that I'd lost control and was merely fighting for survival rather unpleasant and they always left a feeling of guilt and nausea. Those were thankfully few, and I think many people feel like that, there is a very small minority of people who revel in that feeling of really being on the edge but I'm not one of them. It isn't necessarily grade dependent either; I didn't really like last slip in Avon even though I found it easy at the time and had no problems, however I loved climbing things like the Cad or edge lane. Perhaps it may just depend upon if I was in the right mood. I think theres probably a reduced capacity for perceived risk nowadays, but that many people don't take the risks of say, sport climbing seriously enough while dismissing trad as too dangerous for them. I wouldn't say I'd noticed anyone really frowning on bold climbers though.

 

[Oldmanmatt]

I was just short of 10 years old when my Dad first walked me across Crib Goch. I was totally shitting myself the whole way, spent a while clinging to one rock a refusing to move. A couple of German lads passed us, laughing at me.
I remember the cloud blowing across, just as my dad got me moving again (on a comfort rope) and the scream from a few hundred feet ahead. Still quite clear, in my head, forty years later.
Dad escorted the remaining German to the summit station and I had to grow up and “help”.
(Seems slightly weird now, but it was all but deserted up there. Would have been October half term. So, no mobiles (1980), everything at the summit closed except the station. Must have been hours before the MRT started looking for the lad, he went over the Llanberis side). Dad made me finish the horseshoe, rather than dwell on shit (he was a Copper).

Anyway, yeah, I’m a little dubious of Ste Mac’s comparison too. Possibly for different reasons…

That’s not an entirely spurious digression, though. Life is risk. I can think of many, terrible, accidents that hit people close to me, in the mountains/on the rocks, in frankly ridiculously banal circumstances. Moira, the wife (and fellow instructor) of Ron Hart, who ran the South West Adventure centre (Tintagel) where I first worked as a fresh faced 16 year old instructor; almost totalled herself, broke multiple bones and spent months in hospital/recovery, teaching a kids group in the Cheesewring, because she’d been standing on a 2’ high boulder and stepped backwards. A bold climber and mountaineer friend, Steve McCloud, was (basically) walking his brothers dog on Nevis, on a lead, when the dog bolted after something, he ended up taking a 400’ fall and about 18 months to learn to walk again.
Fuck, when I was 14, I was bouldering with mates in the mountains above Columbia (CA), over a towel (1984) and pulled over the top to come face to face with a friggin rattlesnake. I just let go, I didn’t break anything, but I was pretty banged up and Poison Oak’d all to shit, and that was supposed to bean entirely fun, easy day.

All of my life, there have been people queuing up to have a go at me for taking risks. All around me, I’ve heard the same shit thrown at others, for similar reasons. “Just think of how your Mother/friends/what ever will feel”, “You give X/Y/Z/blah blah a bad name”.
(I once had to endure a particularly obnoxious Methodist Minister, bible held before him, loudly praying that I would spare my Grandmother any further anguish and wake up to my sinful ways; at a family dinner shortly after I got back from the disastrous South Georgia exped in ‘93. If I hadn’t been in too much pain from the frostbite, I would have rammed my foot and his bible, where the sun doesn’t shine).

So, I get a bit irritated by people criticising others for taking risks and that’s compounded by having lost so many for entirely mundane and even stupid reasons. John (Mr World record 300msw on Scuba, disappeared on a recreational dive. My wife, veteran of a thousand scrapes and adventures of great risk, died of cancerous baby piles, ffs). However, I also think it all stems from people’s really appalling inability to objectively quantify risk in their own daily lives.
It’s your life, live it as you see fit. Only you are able to decide what achievements are worthwhile or risks appropriate, in all aspects of your life and the whining of others is irrelevant.
Fuck it, you could walk in front of a bus tomorrow, or you could fall off a cliff trying something you thought worth trying, with very similar consequences. Personally, I’d find the latter easier to deal with.


Edit:

I still didn’t write what I actually meant to.

Who gives a shit if bold trad is demonised or not? Because anybody doing any sort of “Demonising” isn’t worth listening to and anybody who wanted to be out there pushing themselves, isn’t going to be listening to (or deterred by ) it anyway. If it seems like a quieter scene than it once was, it’s more likely that it’s just a smaller slice of a much bigger pie than it once was, rather than absolutely a smaller activity (you could probably never exceed a number of “top” pioneers, that couldn’t be counted on one hand, in any generation) anyway.

 

[mrjonathanr]

Good post, especially

However, I also think it all stems from people’s really appalling inability to objectively quantify risk in their own daily lives.

 

[Hoseyb]

This is an interesting one to comment on as it's something that I've passed through in my personal climbing journey. Climbing has always been first and foremost about adventure for me, the personal experience (or that of myself and my partner) has always been more important than numbers (or in some of the more Esoteric adventures - significance).
While I always valued my life highly, I also considered risk a valuable tool for self discovery.
There was a time when I soloed quite close to my onsight limit for instance, and I often sought out first ascents in an onsight style in bold territory (the back wall of Twll Mawr for instance).
Around this time I did a short piece for an arty film of John Redhead's; soloing Opening Gambit in Twll Mawr. Here for those interested :
https://youtu.be/fzsSa7xgiJk

Time passes, and I drifted out of trad and more into bouldering. I still enjoy a highball.
However, I seem to have moved on from pursuing that risk /become less lassiez faire with consequences. Partially because I feel I've learnt what I needed to, partially because I've four kids so the weight of consequence is so much greater.

I guess I'm writing this because if the self introspection / inspection that bold climbing gives is lost because people don't understand it, that would be a bad thing.
However, I also think that the if the mascho labelling that bold climbing has had in the past is lost, that would be great, as it would hopefully stop people entering into 'deep play' too lightly.

 

[dunnyg]

When the rock pops out in that chimney

 

[Hoseyb]

I think in truth I may have dislodged that rock, but the banana flake did fall off a year or so later. I had led it a couple of times before and was confident I could handle the rock correctly