🚀 go-pugleaf

[Hope this gets thru the newsfeed.]
> 
> I've seen only seen a couple 5.12 routes with my own eyes.  Most of them
> seem to be contrived out of 5.10 or 5.11 routes with little twists to make
> them difficult (no, no, you're only to use the crack....)  The remainder
> seem to be face climbs with very few/shallow holds.  I've never seen a
> 5.13 and couldn't imagine a 5.13+ face climb (!).
> 
> 
> What is a superalpine route? What is an example of a VII route?
> 
> 
> -eli
> -- 
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Eli Liang  ---
>         University of Maryland Computer Vision Lab, (301) 454-4526
>         ARPA: liang@cvl, liang@lemuria, eli@mit-mc, eli@mit-prep
>         CSNET: liang@cvl  UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!cvl!liang

Good questions, this is fun.  [Camp fire discussion on the net.]
I felt like you do about contriving things.  That is why I only recently
saw a 12.  I can assume you this route was beyond 5.11.  World examples
of 5.12s include Yosemite roofs like Separate Reality (the Jardine's
Friends picture shows this).  I have not seen a 13.  These routes are
typically steep overhanging cracks with sustained 5.11 to reach a
harder crux.  Most are aid routes (A3 originally in this case) done
free.  There is still a lot of climbing to be done in Tuoloumne Meadows.
Certainly this is contriving in some ways.  By the way, I don't know of
any 5.12 friction or face routes only cracks and roofs.  The worst
tend to be slight overhangs rather than horizontal.  Any climber
who has done hard climbs will tell you this.  This is because horizontal
roofs are clearly bombbay.  True vertical things make balance [90%
of climbing difficult], but you can typically plaster your yourself on
a hold [this `sounds' bad to intermediate climbers but on things
that are steep require this to rest].  Off vertical things are hard because
you have a hard time trying to get good rest angles off of holds.
You can just feel the palms sweating up, slipping off that crystal
you are trying to force that Feldspar crystal deeper into you skin
for a jam.  Boots slipping off..... ;-)

Superalpine and Grade VII:  background for armchairs:  In 1974,
a book was published by R. Messner titled the Seventh Grade.
Messner [overblown by the press] is probably the greatest living Alpinist
in the world.  He's not a 5.12 climber, you don't understand climbing
if you form that question in your head.  He took climbing's eyes
away from America in 1968-198? because of extremely fast calculated
ascents.  Not that his times just faster, but the `style' [that difficult
to define thing] was `elegant:' clean, frill-free, sort of like Unix...;-)
He said that with another alpinist of good caliber, he would do 8,000M
peaks in fast style.  This he has done. from 1975 to present.

Messner was not alone.  The first acknowledged Grade VII was the ascent
of the Uli Biafo tower in Pakistan.  Other climbs proposed include
several routes on Fitzroy, [East Face direct, Alpine-style] Patagonia,
Argentina, The Infinity Spur, Foraker, Alaska [90 steep pitches,
but no climbing of 5.8, but highly sustained, but it's of question
because of the technical difficulty].  Oh, Latok, 30 day attempt by
the Lowes.  [Oh!  the recent changabang and Cholatse,and lots of
other ascents.]

Grade VIIs are all `Alpine' style: no seige tactics, no fixed rope.
They tend to be done at the 20,000 foot elevation, but note Fitzroy
and Foraker are 11,500 and 17,000 respectively.  An excellent essay
was published by Lito Tejada-Flores in the 1967 Ascent entitled
Games Climber's Play: unfortunately, now an over used title, and
no good essays [almost] have come out since then.  The original
paper is very good, and mentions the migration of `games.'  One
earlier posting mentioned comparing a VII to a McKinley ascent.
This is a good point.  The expeditionary nature of climbing: cost,
O(n log n) costs by the way, are seeing evolution toward the super alpine.

The reason, why my original posting and this one are long is because
most climbing texts are far from up to date, on these issues, like
computing.  Climbing has undergone radical technological change.
A good home example if the evolution of the Class 6 -> 6.0..6.9 ->
A1-A5 -> A1-A3+ -> A1-A4 and now -> A5 again.  Anyways.
Enough of this talk.  I think I contributed to this dicussion just by
update.

Too much work.  By the way, I decided yesterday that I want to
go to Colorado in a couple of weeks and do a quick ascent of Longs.
And a few other things , weather permitting.  I've had my say on this
topic, and I will only send private mail for responses now.  Thanks for
reading.

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  {hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene
  emiya@ames-vmsb