Aid to Free Progression Thesis: Case Study Hallucinogen Wall

I've read about 1/3 of all this and I agree that it IS an interesting post, despite some of the junk.

I like Topher's note about the experience being the real point - the quality and nuances of that experience. Agreed, and after that, I think it becomes sophistry. "Style"? Come on.

Yeah, free climbing is more athletic and natural-feeling, and physically harder, bla, bla, bla, ... but it's all climbing. And all practiced with plenty of nods to our human weaknesses, main one being fear of death. Hence all those ropes. Not a route until it's free? That is a total joke. Almost all hard technical climbing involves a LOT of gear for either physical or psychological aid. What's the big difference between those, really? The climbing game is at least half psychological. A toprope or a bolt for protection is aid. Sorry, it's a simple fact. Just ask any free soloist if his unroped ascents feel more "free." Roped "free climbing" is actually a confusing concept to non-climbers - they think we must mean free soloing. They are on to something.

If you're a modern free-climber and insist you climb in "better style" than the ground-up, on-sight "aid climbers," you have a pretty tough argument (and you've probably never done the FA of a big aid wall). Most free climbers use more aid on their efforts than the original aid climbers did. Seriously - how ridiculous is that? Mavbe they eventually "free" their route - sort of. But did they really? Jim Erickson and other "stylists" would have disqualified the effort after the first roped fall. If you were a true, natural free climber, you'd be dead. We'll let you live, says Erickson's rule, but you're out of the game. Pretty fair, really, if "style" is the game. Bludgeoning the thing until it goes "free" may be hard, but it isn't stylish.

If a person on-sights a big free-climb, OK, maybe there's a case for style - climbing fast, efficiently, gear just for the safety net, no pre-knowledge or rehearsal, just a natural encounter with the rock, done in half the time as the original FA. Rad. Style points. But anything less isn't style. It's fashion. Nothing wrong with that, but get real.

+1 on Topher, the whole mini-trax rehearsal, rap-stash inspection, support, style is in many ways more of aid climbing than going ground up and aid-climbing the route. Also +1 on the experience. Climbing big routes is about getting out and having your own little adventure, and I salute aid-climbers for often times approaching the route and embracing that attitude, I have yet to hear anyone tell me they rapped in to see if it would go on aid.

I primarily free-cilmb and have had some fun litte adventures doing it. However, even though I have free-climbed El Cap a couple of times at this point, the best moments of climbing for me were had aiding the Nose over 7 days, never pulling a single free move, and generally sloping our way up. I feel that adventure was more of a climb than either time I freed it...

What about situations in which route is freed using tactics that are extremely difficult to replicate?

For example, in Red Rocks, a route called Tri Tip has been reported in the current guidebook along with very enticing photos. I read about this route and I want to climb it, but later discover that it is X-rated. No big deal... but then I go on to learn that, apparently, the FA party aided up it first, TR'd it until it was wired, and then ultimately freed it on lead. Now I start wondering if the reporting of their ascent should have a bunch of asterisks next to it (it doesn't).

I have no desire to aid climb, so unless I want to risk X-rated situations onsight on difficult climbing I guess I'll never go up on that section of rock. But this begs the question: Would climbing the route ground up without using headpointing tactics (for the FA!!!), even at the expense of a bolt here or there, be better or worse style? I don't know... But really, why even report a route like this without any mention of the methods employed to free it? From what I have since learned, in my opinion anyone who goes up on that thing based on the reported description alone will either be sandbagged into their own death or will accomplish something that at the very least should give them a right to claim an FFA and name the thing.

It seems useful at this point to try to consolidate this idea of "style," which is the problem Topher, Jeff, Josh, and others have been grappling at. It seems that even the most old-school, traditionally minded folks would agree that the superlative style of an ascent is a ground-up, onsight, free ascent. Even my highly compromised, rap-bolting, headpointing, bolt clipping self could agree that it's a hard case to distinguish digressions from the superlative. In this sense, the tactics of narrowly defined "aid climbing" (i.e. aiders, hooks, pins, hammers, second jugging, etc) are on the same level as sport climbing tactics (rehearsal, bolts, etc). I don't have any problem with saying that all these things are similarly "aid."

The catch for me is that some of these tactics are simply for the means of getting up a piece of rock while others offer the possibility for future climbers to get closer to the superlative style. As I think it's dangerous (and slightly absurd) to make any strict ethical rules about climbing, I can only give my preference of style, which is that first ascentionists establish a line so that future ascentionists can improve upon the style of ascent with the hope of one day someone climbing the route in the superlative style. What drives me crazy, partly due to where I live and climb specifically, is the attitude of "I did it this way, so that's how everyone has to do it." Even the most visionary climbers don't always see everything perfectly, and technology and standards change. If someone can improve on the style of a route I put up with some minor changes, why should I have a problem with that? If I put up a line on aid, then someone else comes along a free climbs it (especially if it's particularly noteworthy in some way), then I've gotten to be part of "progress." Maybe they need to make some revisions to the original version - that's fine, too. Even better would be if I have the vision to see the line in the superlative style and, even if I can't climb it myself, establish it so someone else can.

J Achey wrote:I've read about 1/3 of all this and I agree that it IS an interesting post, despite some of the junk. I like Topher's note about the experience being the real point - the quality and nuances of that experience. Agreed, and after that, I think it becomes sophistry. "Style"? Come on. Yeah, free climbing is more athletic and natural-feeling, and physically harder, bla, bla, bla, ... but it's all climbing. And all practiced with plenty of nods to our human weaknesses, main one being fear of death. Hence all those ropes. Not a route until it's free? That is a total joke. Almost all hard technical climbing involves a LOT of gear for either physical or psychological aid. What's the big difference between those, really? The climbing game is at least half psychological. A toprope or a bolt for protection is aid. Sorry, it's a simple fact. Just ask any free soloist if his unroped ascents feel more "free." Roped "free climbing" is actually a confusing concept to non-climbers - they think we must mean free soloing. They are on to something. If you're a modern free-climber and insist you climb in "better style" than the ground-up, on-sight "aid climbers," you have a pretty tough argument (and you've probably never done the FA of a big aid wall). Most free climbers use more aid on their efforts than the original aid climbers did. Seriously - how ridiculous is that? Mavbe they eventually "free" their route - sort of. But did they really? Jim Erickson and other "stylists" would have disqualified the effort after the first roped fall. If you were a true, natural free climber, you'd be dead. We'll let you live, says Erickson's rule, but you're out of the game. Pretty fair, really, if "style" is the game. Bludgeoning the thing until it goes "free" may be hard, but it isn't stylish. If a person on-sights a big free-climb, OK, maybe there's a case for style - climbing fast, efficiently, gear just for the safety net, no pre-knowledge or rehearsal, just a natural encounter with the rock, done in half the time as the original FA. Rad. Style points. But anything less isn't style. It's fashion. Nothing wrong with that, but get real.

I believe there is an enormous difference between gear for protection and gear for upward progress. I'm trying to understand your perspective, and the only way your statement makes sense to me is in the realm of "summit-at-all-costs" climbing, which I think is an attitude that has generally been rejected by the climbing community.

Also, we shouldn't be looking to non-climbers to define our sport. In my opinion, the fact that free climbing has to be explained to non-climbers is a consequence of one of the biggest frauds in the history of sport. The conversation usually begins by explaining what aid "climbing" is...that most of those people you see on the side of El Cap aren't actually climbing the rock, and when they say they "climbed" El Cap, they are exaggerating. Only after that revalation will they understand that "free climbing" is actually what they consider "climbing" to mean.

Several of you have made the point that free ascents involve lots of aid. First of all, many don't use any aid, they are done in the "superlative" ground-up, on-sight fashion. The irony is that these tremendous feats of athleticism and courage receive very little media attention, probably because they didn't require dramatic multi-year efforts. Case in point: Caldwell's Dawn Wall climb probably has and will receive more media attention than any other big wall route, and by your arguments, is the least deserving of it...I can't say I disagree. El Cap has been climbed without pre-inspection and without a fall, but you won't find anything in a climbing mag about it.

Second, I reject the notion that falling on a route invalidates it as a free climb...again, that is an outdated notion that has been rejected. There is quite an experience that takes place in learning the nuances of a hard route, bringing yourself up to it's challenge, and focusing your energy to send it. This is a lot different than what happens on an aid ascent, especially one in which the "climbers" are willing to summit-at-all-costs. You don't have to climb walls to experience the effort it takes to climb something hard, either, it's what sport climbing is all about. Unfortunately, many mis-characterize sport climbing as trivial bolt clipping, mistaking it for something I call "recreational climbing". This then leads to comparisons such as yours that once a route is bolted, it's "trivial" to send it.

As for my opinion that it's not a route until it's free, I freely acknowldedged that it is an idea ahead of its time. Nevertheless, look at how crag climbs are recorded, and it's not hard to imagine this paradigm shifting to longer routes. It's a matter of time....

Mike - I agree with most of what you say about what's cool and worthy in climbing, yet end up disagreeing with many of your final conclusions. Maybe the real difference between us is that I put a lot more weight on efficiency, not for "summit at any cost" reasons, but for its own sake. For me, it's part of "style" - for the same reason you applaud on-sight free climbing, probably. Also, aid or mixed climbing involves a more natural use of the gear you're carrying. If you have it, why not use it? So aid has that going for it style-wise: it's less contrived.

That said, I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to free aid routes, and consider my successes to be worthy achievements. When we freed the Nose of Chasm View, in the Black right next to the Hallucinogen, we were super psyched. Ridiculously so. But I don't think we climbed the wall in "better style" than Earl and Bryan who put up the aid version. Maybe it was just that our egos were big enough already that we didn't need to belittle the aid climbers (who on-sight freed some wild shit, by the way) to make our achievement seem more significant.

I don't think style is something that gets gradually improved by eliminating aid. I think it's there, or not, in every ascent, and has more to do with the relationship between that ascent and the general state of the art of the times. Robbins, that lowly aid climber, did big routes in amazing style, unsurpassed to this day.

Jeff,

Well stated. I especially like the efficieny aspect, because I think that is the best defense of the tactics most commonly used today to free big routes. Its more efficient to work it out on top-rope, minitraxion, rapell, etc., than to climb 20 pitches up, fall, and rap down. Ground-up, free, onsight is for sure the "superlative", but if a person feels they cannot achieve that then they do what is an acceptable style to feel satisfied with their ascent.

I will continue with the Black Canyon theme in that I in no way consider free-climbing the Hallucinogen Wall better style than the first ascent on aid. That was a truly proud acheivement and made subsequent ascents possible. I would also throw in that Jared and Ryan's ascent using dry-tools was also a worthy achievment because they laid further groundwork towards the all free ascent, and recognized the potential where none had before. Its a progression that builds on earlier work, and I think the original post did a fine job of pointing this out, especially the "flood gates" phenomenon.

Jeff, I'm sure if we had a beer we would find that we have far more common ground than not. I certainly share your appreciation for efficiency...just ask my wife. Spending weeks to send a hard sport route is certainly not efficient, though, so there are times when it's appropriate to be patient and enjoy the process.

As for the notion that pulling on gear is a natural use for it, I would rather think about what is most natural for the climber to be doing, not the gear. To me it's most natural for the climber to climb the rock as it exists before him, and I don't believe protection taints the ascent anymore than a seatbelt taints whatever it is a racecar driver does. But then, I'm not a free soloist...that's a different sport, as far as I'm concerned.

Mike and Tank - Well said. (Are we even allowed to say that in an online forum?) I agree that free-climbing IS better style than aid climbing, and more natural in the way Mike describes. But aid ascents have their own claims to style, too, certainly on par with siege-free ascents. All I'm sayin'. So show some damned RESPECT for your predecessors, brother, as they do for you. Good climbing to you.

Until that beer ...

I've been chewing on this issue of style for a few days. It seems like the the debate has been fueled by the elitist implications of saying that free climbing is better than aid climbing. Then, in rebuttal, someone qualifies free climbing by saying that it is contingent on aid climbers' vision and hard work and that it depends on dubious tactics of rehearsal and what not. The final step seems to be that the issue of semantics comes up, claiming that once a route is a "free climb," the only legitimate style of ascent is as a free climb. Both sides of the debate like this because it is inflammatory, ego-driven, and easily attacked/defended.

I guess I didn't read that part of Chris's OP. I understood it more as an issue of the infrastructure of a given route. I think that anyone would prefer to free climb over aid assuming that it is within his or her ability in the given circumstances. Other than to practice for bigger climbs, I don't know anyone who would aid a climb that they could reasonably free climb. Free climbing is just more fun. Inversely, once a climb has been freed, there really is nothing other than elitism and ego that says someone shouldn't aid it.

This brings me back to the issue of infrastructure and what I thought was Chris's thesis. In reality, first ascentionists are architects - it's not like the route is there waiting to be climbed. Rock is just rock; we perceive features that become routes. It seems like the ethic of "the way of the first ascentionist or the highway" can be prohibitive of "progress." They established a route as best they could at that specific moment and under those specific circumstances, but with more ascents and perspectives, people often find the more natural (which usually becomes the more free climbable) way of ascending the route. Rather than making the claim that a free ascent of a big wall was somehow better than aiding it (we're not curing cancer here, folks), I think the OP is about how we talk and moralize about the infrastructure of a route. It seems that the thesis argues for a slight shift in the absolutist, "the architecture of the first ascent is the only architecture" attitude Obviously, this should come with restraint, but it seems like the sport, especially big wall free climbing (which, we all can admit is pretty cool), would progress more efficiently if we were a bit more willing to let folks change the infrastructure of a route (i.e. upgrade hardware, use more logical variations, etc) if it provides for an overall improvement of the quality, potential for fun, and - I can't avoid saying it - style of ascent.