Crack Climbing - Like, So, Such As, What's Up With It?

T.C. wrote:Of course it's harder to climb cracks. There are no permadraws, you have to put your own protection in and take it down when you are done.

Just keep telling yourself that placing pro is like rocket science and you can keep the myth that climbing 5.10 trad makes you a badass!

Eric Krantz wrote:What are you calling cracks? I mean, the ones you hate? So much variation out there. Do you mean stuff like IC splitters? I've only been to IC once, and it was WAY different than anything we have here in the Needles of SD. I don't really agree with Ryan when he says that it's "really not all the same move over and over", but, like I said, I've only been there once, and to me, it seemed like the same move over and over and over. But I didn't get into the harder fingers and offwidths which take more technique than the hands I did, and tell you the truth, the "Big Baby" kicked my ass. Definitely takes some technique besides just the ability to crank on micro crystals and nickel ledges as so much hard face climbing is all about. Funny thing is, I could manage 5.10 at IC (first time there), but 5.9 crack in SD or 5.10 at the tower still kicks my ass after years. I hear what you saying, it's frustrating... I feel like I never get any better. What has improved is route finding, judging a crack from the ground, placing gear confidently, considering rope drag on wandering routes, and figuring out how to get down from random spires!

I guess I meant that most crack areas are not the same move over and over again. Most of the time IC is... which is why it is such a good training ground. I can do 100 ring locks on one route at the Creek... if I want to practice ring locks anywhere else I just have to climb a ton of different pitches.

So yea... there is no place in the world like IC. It's like a crack climbing training facility. The way everyone puts bolts a third of the way up the buttress and never tops out... makes me feel like I'm in a gym. But a really cool one with A LOT of cracks to jam!

Plus, like you said, the grades are soft... or they don't really matter at all because it's size dependent.

Anywhere else I've gone to crack climb, it's more like where you are from. You take a double rack instead of 7 reds and 3 golds, you have to put runners on some pieces, you have to route find, you have to build belays, you have to place passive pro.

IC is sport climbing... but really fun sport climbing that gets you in shape. If you think of it like that, then you'll enjoy it.

Ryan Williams wrote: The way everyone puts bolts a third of the way up the buttress and never tops out... makes me feel like I'm in a gym.

no one else is stopping you from topping out or adding second or third pitches.

but i agree. IC is not too different from Rifle. think about it. ;)

After a perfect day last year on Serenity Crack/Sons of Yesterday I wrote down this thought:

Climbing ~900' up a relatively smooth granite face by way of a crack isn't intuitive for the non-climber. Many [face] climbs are like complicated ladders where the skill is obvious and easy to appreciate. Crack climbing technique involves twisting and stacking your fingers in strange ways so that when you succeed, you feel like you're doing something entirely different than climbing a ladder. It's like the difference between riding a bicycle and riding a unicycle, or walking on stilts. You feel proud of yourself when you make it work, almost like juggling (or riding a unicycle on stilts).

Crack climbing technique is further removed from the average person's (read: non-climber's) everyday experience than face climbing. To me that is what makes it more interesting.

Not to stir up the hornets nest, but wasn't the OP's comment about the Rapture looking at peoples religious views in a joking light? How is this so different from Dorsey's comment? I'm not saying either is right or wrong, just pointing out what to me seems like an overlooked inconsistency. I'm not trying to offend anyone, I just feel like this guy is kind of getting ganged up on.

Shelton - That's a fair point. I'm from the Bible Belt and most of my friends believe in the Rapture; I don't make fun of that belief. I'm referencing the fact that Harold Camping has predicted the Rapture a couple times now and every time it hasn't happened, he comes back a couple weeks later to explain that NOW he knows when it is. I'm poking fun at one man's insistence that he knows when the "End of Times" is even in the face of all evidence proving otherwise - NOT in anyone's belief in said "End of Times".

And everyone is ganging up on Dorsey because he's been fairly harassing in several other threads and in some PMs.

Thanks guys. I now get where y'all are coming from. It's amazing how many people have trouble with "Guideline #1".

I love crack climbing. When you start it's going to feel like you're doing it very very wrong... because you are. Whereas face climbing's difficulty (for me) comes from learning good body positioning, crack climbing has that aspect as well as learning 100 different ways to jam. It feels so awesome when it starts to come together though. I still have lots to learn.

-1 on 5.10 trad climbing being boring
I might have a different opinion though if I consistently led 5.11 on gear :)

Killis Howard wrote:Now say something supportive about crack love or be the first to +1 Missus Q's contention that 5.10 traditional climbing is boring, insignificant stuff.

I for one thought that Fine Jade, the N. Face of Castleton, Lucky Streaks, The Red Dihedral, and all of the 5.10's I did at the Needles were pretty damn boring. Way more boring than 5.12 sport. Guess I should move back to Thailand. Or better yet, SLAAAADE brah! ;)

I was in the same boat as you about a year ago when I climbed Center Route in the South Platte, a super classic 3 pitch 5.9. I was sport climbing 5.11+ and expected to walk up Center Route. I thought I could lead the 5.8 first pitch (I mean, 5.8, right!), but I got spanked. With no crack technique I got scared shitless and became frustrated and exhausted. Since then I have put a lot of time into getting hand and foot jamming down (which people say IC does right away) and have really come to love crack climbing. For me, the beauty of it is where it can take you. I now live close to Yosemite, and with some basic crack technique you can find yourself 1000' off the deck, all alone, in the most majestic place ever.

Plus, besides Indian Creek, most cracks vary in size, so you end up using several techniques as you climb them, like face climbing. So really they're usually not too repetitive and boring. Stick it out man, crack climbing is a blast, and eventually you will start scoffing at crimpers and opting for bomber jams. And if you want to know whether or not the cool kids are doing it, Chris Sharma uses a vital hand jam to rest during his FA of Jumbo Love.

Does anyone else think it's funny that we're all sitting around talking about how crack climbing is so different than face climbing... harder to get used to than "regular climbing."

Crack climbing is normal and is what has been pushing climbing since the beginning. Everything else is just contrived.

If you know can climb crack you will.
If you know the Rapture will come it will.

Peter Pitocchi wrote:If you know can climb crack you will. If you know the Rapture will come it will.

If I know the Rapture won't happen, will it still happen?And if "it is what it is";what happens when "it isn't what it is"?

Peter Pitocchi wrote:If you know can climb crack you will. If you know the Rapture will come it will.

"If you build it, they will come"

Ryan Williams wrote:Does anyone else think it's funny that we're all sitting around talking about how crack climbing is so different than face climbing... harder to get used to than "regular climbing." Crack climbing is normal and is what has been pushing climbing since the beginning. Everything else is just contrived.

I agree that crack climbing is "normal" and at the foundation of modern climbing, but it is as equally contrived as face climbing. Both are just using natural rock features to climb. The only difference is protection, and in crack climbing, it is just more convenient and cleaner that you can place and remove the gear.

Thinking of cracks in terms of Indian Creek or other 1,2, or 3 pitch venues is missing an important (the most important?) aspect of cracks - cracks are the features that let you get up the big, wild, and/or face-melting granite formations and ranges of the world.

If you don't learn to climb cracks, you can't climb the biggest, most-honcho lines - from El Cap to Cerro Torre, you need to know how to jam.

I think one of the main appeals of cracks is that they are often such definitive "lines". Everyone loves a clear, obvious "line". A lot of times with face routes they can be contrived, with bolts heading off in one direction when they could have just as easily gone off in another. A crack is like that improbable series of pockets up a blank face, or a protruding dike that thoughfully angles across the face to that next ledge. Cracks are just one of those features that beg to be climbed because they're so climbable.

Also, this thread needs pictures...

damn that first crack looks amazing, i think that may be a big appeal of crack climbing, the beauty! they are they natural features that let you ascend a huge rock face/ mountain sans bolts. cracks are historically how people got up, from pounding pitons to nowdays with cams and nuts. where is that?

If I know the Rapture won't happen, will it still happen?

no

And if "it is what it is";what happens when "it isn't what it is"?

then it won't be

I love the full-body workout that crack climbing gives. After a day at Arch Rock, say, I can feel exhausted to my core. Often with face climbing I'm just tired from the elbows down, or my tips hurt.

So, like, such as, that's one part of what's up with it for me. The fact of it being a crucial skill for getting way up there is nice. I like the intellectual challenge of protecting and route-finding, but this is not exclusive to crack-climbing really. The feeling of independence and adventure that comes with knowing how to use natural features to climb and protect is as big as anything, really. It's a powerful feeling to be able to walk up to any crag on earth and say "I could get up that" without having to follow somebody else's line of permanent anchors.

It enables me to play a bigger game. Simple as that.

Painful video. The Rapture should take us all and life on Earth can start with a clean slate.

This post would not have been written prior to the mid-eighties.
Yes, rock climbing actually existed before the advent and general acceptance of bolted face climbs a.k.a sport routes.
This was back in the day when a climber required cracks to accomodate protection points.
I truly feel that many younger climbers today who were introduced to the sport in the rock gym/sport route environment, and have never ventured out of that scene, are missing out on the finest and most rewarding aspect of ascent, the ground up trad lead. Ground up trad lead first ascents have an adventurous feel that can not be matched by repeating an existing bolted sport route.