What Nobody is Saying About the Dawn Wall

I'm not sure who the blogger is, or see anything in his blog that suggests that he's old (which, quite frankly, has become the go-to pejorative of anyone who doesn't like someone's opinion). Skimming the piece, however, I don't even find any reference that the guy has climbed the Captain himself. Given that, I don't know where he believe he has the right to determine what an El Cap climb should resemble.

I've done the Captain (but only a measly four times). Each ascent was your usual barebones, minimal food and comfort type ascent. However, we were cruising along a well established line. We weren't spending days at a time on a particular section or pitch. Frankly, even the time we were up there, some comforts, like warm food and drink, messages from friends (rather than someone just shouting up from the meadow) would have been AWESOME. Those guys are essentially living up there, busting their chops everyday. Their climb in no way resembles your normal El Cap grind. Let them enjoy some conveniences that make their hard work a little easier.

It should be noted that some of these same criticisms were levelled at Todd Skinner and Paul Piana when they worked on the Salathe. There were some commercial aspects to their climb as well. However, none of that ever detracted in my mind, the basic fact that they were up there, working hard, getting it done.

Climbing is by your own words incredibly emotional, it is also intensely personal which brings that emotion out. The community is lots of climbers seeking that personal experience, that climb that means something to them. Whether its pulling on gear on a 5.9, free soloing a 5.11 after work, or yelling your way up a 5.14. Whatever personal experience tickles your fancy.

The problem is each person needs to define what an adventure is for themselves. An adventure to a brand new climber is a 6 pitch 5.6. An adventure to a professional climber is Cerro Torre, a trek to the north pole, a several hundred mile bike trip through a desert climbing 45 towers.

We are all seeking that adventure that really means something to us, that's why we got into climbing. With the advent of social media the climbing community is experiencing a population boom. Lots of new climbers who have an adventure plateau far less than someone who has been at it for a decade or two. This makes the average "epicness" of an adventure for the whole climbing community to be a bit less grandiose than the adventures of yore. Give them 10-20 years and they will have your same mindset.

I also don't believe dragging a camera around with your takes away from any adventure. Or a camera crew. The expeditions of Ueli Steck are no less adventurous with a camera crew there. How could they be?

I have no particular love for the bolts that were removed from Cerro Torre, dragging an air compressor through Patagonia is an adventure by itself. You could bewilder people with amazement today if you told them you took a compressor into and out of Patagonia.

Chris,

Your thoughts echo my own on this subject. I thought your article was brilliant and is a topic that should be addressed and at least recognized as the contrivance it is.

I just can't chance reading that blog entry without having a really large cup of coffee or something. Too sleepy. Way too sleepy.

Couple thoughts:
1) The world is constantly shrinking. If you want the purest sense of adventure, usage of up-to-date gear and technical clothing in Antartica is probably against that principle.
2) As others have said, this route wouldn't be possible in a 5-10 day push at this point in time. Maybe eventually, but that's how it goes - one party does something, then another comes and does it "better." Maybe Mirko and Ashima will come do the dawn wall in a day 10 years from now - who knows.
3) We all get different things, or different measures of the same things, out of climbing. I really do care about the athletic pursuit and pushing my body to its limits. I care about adventure and all that as well, but if sport climbing and bouldering were the only types of climbing that existed, I would still climb. May not enjoy it as much as I do, but I'd still love it. You're perfectly free to feel the way you do, but I don't think that it bastardizes the sport to do things in a more controlled environment - as long as people are out there pursuing all the different aspects of the sport, I think we'll be fine. However, with the way Amazon Prime is heading, one day you'll have to climb on Mars to actually get any real "sense of adventure" because we'll be able to get 12 hour shipping to the Arctic circle via drone.
4) If you take your "couldn't they just send each pitch, or just send the crux pitches" idea to its logical extreme, you could say "can't they just climb the single hardest move on the route and call it a send. Thinking about it this way, it becomes a little clearer that doing it in the way they are doing it is far superior stylistically than any of these other methods - and it also shows that if someone ever onsights the Dawn Wall in a day, it will be considered a superior send to what Tommy and Kevin are doing.

yeah the good old days when there wasn't a media circus around the captain. Like... before 1958?

I think I'm going to start a thread called

"It's amazing rock climbers ever get laid"

Just make a big list of links to threads like these.

Chris,

In many ways, I agree with you. I think that adventure is core to the spirit of climbing, and that we should strive for the adventurous ideal. Still, we all make up our own rules in the climbing game.

I think the point is that they are finding adventure, but they find enough adventure in the physical difficulty of the climb. Adventure is seeking the unknown, and even with all the tactics and support, they are still up against the unknown of actually climbing the thing.

"what do people in MP land think?"

That is a dangerous question to ask.
I actually wrote a much longer and better thought out reply, but then it disappeared into the vortex of the internet, here's the essentials:

Chris,
As someone who doesn't think one's climbing resume has anything to do with the value of one's opinions or that it is heresy to critique our elites, I agree wholeheartedly with your article. If more people were, like you, willing to think critically about our not-sport and willing to put those thoughts out on the public forum to be ridiculed by morons on the internet, climbing would probably not be as fucked up as it is right now. keep it up,
- Jacob

What I am more concerned about than them, is us. The obsession that the climbing media and the rest of us ordinary climbers (aka, mere mortals) have with documenting the constant progress of the physical aspect of climbing

This, I think, is the crux of it and mirrors my thoughts. The writer is not complaining about TC & Kevin. The reason their climb is being productized is us, and our appetite for that product. The writer is unsettled by our (the royal "our") appetite for climbing-as-spectacle.

Adam Burch wrote:I think I'm going to start a thread called "It's amazing rock climbers ever get laid"

I would say it's the Boomhauer method.

Patrick Shyvers wrote:What I am more concerned about than them, is us. The obsession that the climbing media and the rest of us ordinary climbers (aka, mere mortals) have with documenting the constant progress of the physical aspect of climbing This, I think, is the crux of it and mirrors my thoughts. The writer is not complaining about TC & Kevin. The reason their climb is being productized is us, and our appetite for that product. The writer is unsettled by our (the royal "our") appetite for climbing-as-spectacle.

Except TC & Kevin are very much mortals; they are no Marvel comic characters. They may have been born with a bit more climbing potential, but they sure as hell have realized much more of it than the whiners here. I (and I'm sure many others) do get inspired by people out there pushing the boundaries of human limit and that's why I care, and that's why I think the OP's writing is a bunch of drivel.

Adam Burch wrote:I think I'm going to start a thread called "It's amazing rock climbers ever get laid" Just make a big list of links to threads like these.

LOL!

Stich wrote: I would say it's the Boomhauer method.

I probably shouldn't ask, but what is the Boomhauer method?

Highlander wrote: The media has jumped all over this and I would bet that Tommy and Kevin would much prefer that it was just them up there focusing on the climbing...

Which is why Kevin is running a daily video blog and why they have a full camera crew up there on their ropes?
That's pretty odd, if so.

climb already wrote: I probably shouldn't ask, but what is the Boomhauer method?

Just be proud of the fact that you dont know.

Minha cabeca mora dentro do meu cu

Tim Lutz wrote:... they would be blackballed (ex: Skinner/Piana)

For Salathé Wall? I didn't know that.

Tim Lutz wrote:If anyone else were pinkpointing, toproping, rehearsing in the Valley, they would be blackballed (ex: Skinner/Piana)

I was wondering when the word would pop up. Will the headline be- Tommy C and Kevin J Pinkpoint the Hardest Line in Yosemite?

What Rob Dillion said!