what is a boulder?

mountainproject.com/route/1…

please click on the link above.  it's for a newish boulder called "low radiance", which is a sit-start to a v5 called "high radiance."  we saw what you did there, guys.  clever, really.

does anyone else feel this does not constitute a new boulder problem?  i'm not trying to start a debate, nor am i coming at whoever put up this boulder.  however, would it not be most convenient if we as a community would use a clear set standards and processes for establishing boulders?

for instance, with the boulder problem linked to above, i believe that when one establishes a new start like this -- a variation that adds a move to an already existing boulder -- then we have two options.  one is to add a comment to high radiance" (the original V5 problem) saying something like "here's a hard variation to this boulder."  another option is to delete the OG V5 and just have this "new" boulder .  

am i just behind the times?  back with guidebooks, one couldn't afford to include every variation, every eliminate, as it took up costly page space.  now with the inta-net anyone can post a problem to 8a or our beloved mountain project.  we then get small areas with a disproportionate number of problems.  obvious example is the lake of devil's, #blessed_be_the_fruit.  does this not make an area harder to navigate?  rhetorically, is this not annoying?  i mean if you can make a new boulder with one move, then is not just about any rock a boulder problem?

now, you might say "shut up, randy.  you dumb.  it's just rocks."  guilty as charged.  or you may say "but they did this in font."  i ain't no frenchie.  show some respect.  however, what if one went to rocklands or hueco or the park or magic wood and split an existing boulder into three boulders.  why have top notch when you can have top notch, middle notch, and top-out notch?  three boulders is better than one.  it's simple math!  more is better! #america #best

i await your comments.  may i be wrong and may a MP thread not again waste my time and teach me nothing.  :)

I agree, I don't think a lower sit or a variation necessarily constitutes a whole new boulder problem. I suppose the question then becomes is it worth adding it to mountain project as a new problem? I think thats a little trickier to answer. If a variation to a boulder problem adds five new moves that are all better than the moves on the original problem then I guess you could make the case that its worth adding. If the sit start bumps the grade of a problem a couple notches it could be argued that its worth adding. Personally, if I add a sit start to something that I think "hasn't been done" I'll just add a comment to the problem telling people to check it out. Ultimately though, humans, especially a lot of climbers, are egotistical creatures who could never pass on the chance of cementing their legacy with the fa of a futuristic new start to a shitty problem at their local pile.

Tl;dr - shut up randy. you dumb. it's just rocks.

Isn't that pretty well covered by "problem ______sit start" and "problem______stand start?"

It does sort of matter if they have different grades, one of the problems in my local area is a bit confused by people voting that it's either v5 or v7. Both of those grades are correct, the stand is a five and the sit is a seven. The consensus grade for the problem however is now V6, which is not correct...

No one likes boulderers anyway.

Joel Thompson wrote: Isn't that pretty well covered by "problem ______sit start" and "problem______stand start?"

of course that is fine.  but what i am seeing is either a. one move is added then the boulder is called a low-start (which i disagree with); or b. one move is added and then that variation is given an entirely new name (also a no no in my view).

Dylan B. wrote: Are you confused by what’s written? No? Then there’s no problem.

It only matters if for some reason the description confuses you. What you call it has no bearing on what it is.

yes, a confusing description of a boulder is problematic. that is not the topic at hand. the issue is what constitutes a boulder?

let's say we have an existing boulder problem.   if i exit a foot to the left, is that then a new boulder?  if i start with my left hand a bit lower, is that a new boulder?  would these new boulders be the sit start or does this variation deserve an entirely different name and I get the FA cred?

i say no on all counts.  

one needs to add several moves to the start or finish of a boulder in order for there to be a new line.  there needs to be two obvious starting or finishing positions for each boulder.  a great example is full throttle v13 (sharma FA) in hueco.  the stand is dry dock v7 (sherman FA). totally different starts.  the v13 adds 10 moves into the stand.   the two boulders start in totally different spots.  you could take these criteria and apply it to any part in the boulder.  take that new v15 REM in magic wood.  it's a variation to dreamtime.  the two boulders have the same beginning but very different endings.

another issue to consider is consistency of movement.  if i add some heinous one move v12 to the start of a v1, is that now a v12 boulder?  no, that is dumb.  don't do that. 

Its not climbing its bouldering so whatever

It probably took longer to write this than it did to "send" it.

ITS NOT A NEW PROBLEM! IT'S JUST BAD BETA FOR AN EXISTING PROBLEM!

Robert S wrote: It probably took longer to write this than it did to "send" it.

i haven't done the boulder in question, the one in link.  but, for sure, writing this post probably would take way longer.  we should probably give up any climbing media or literature as it all takes longer than most boulders.  you smart. 

FA Fever is well documented in boulderers. There is no cure.

randy baum wrote:

i haven't done the boulder in question, the one in link.  but, for sure, writing this post probably would take way longer.  we should probably give up any climbing media or literature as it all takes longer than most boulders.  you smart. 

Great idea!

I think if you can reach the top with a ladder it's not really worth arguing about. 

Seems like the lower start, while adding only one move, makes the problem 3 or 4 grades harder. This makes it seem worthy of note on MP if you ask me. If it only added one grade, I'd say don't mention it and just combine them or choose the start that contributes the best sequence. Anything that adds 2+ grades is worth noting IMO because if you only included one of the lines as a side note in the description, people looking for climbs of that difficulty on MP would likely not find it (it won't appear in the route directory, route finder, classic climbs, etc.) However, if I was writing the guide book it'd probably only get a sentence at the end of the description of the most well-liked climb (but would still be included in the index).

There are plenty of iconic boulder problems that are sit starts into existing problems (Chablanc (sp) into Sign of the Cross at Hueco). Quite often they'd warrant a separate entry in guidebooks and online. The fact that this sit start is only one move, however, definitely takes from points away, though. It is a significantly harder start, though, so I could see why they'd want to include it separately.

Hilarious.  Well the simple answer is the info is more easily accessible to people that actually want it.  And it adds more than a move.  So the folks that are taking the time to document these new things (and in many cases put them up or their friends do) want them to actually be findable... and why shouldn’t they be?  I can see the other side too but yah.  

Randy, it's not that I disagree with your sentiment, but who are you trying to convince by posting on this forum? Do you wish the admins would remove certain boulders? If so, message them directly and make your case. Do you wish that certain developers at Devil's Lake would change their ways? How about messaging them directly (there are only a handful of active developers)? These public posts do nothing but stir up drama and are often an ego stroke fest, which accomplish less than nothing.

Joel Ledvina wrote: Randy, it's not that I disagree with your sentiment, but who are you trying to convince by posting on this forum? Do you wish the admins would remove certain boulders? If so, message them directly and make your case. Do you wish that certain developers at Devil's Lake would change their ways? How about messaging them directly (there are only a handful of active developers)? These public posts do nothing but stir up drama and are often an ego stroke fest, which accomplish less than nothing.

Somebody has to do the dirty work and set the record straight. Devil's Lake bouldering is a laughing stock.

There are a few key concepts in this thread that I'd like to chime in on here.

What is a boulder problem?:
While there is a lot to be said for the creativity and purity of playing on a rock, getting to the top, and thinking "wow, look what I did!", you enter into some type of social contract when you tell another climber about it. It think the terms of this contract are what Randy is bringing up to everyone. When you start naming rocks, proposing grades, defining the parameters, and going so far as to document all of this on a public forum, you start to have accountability to the community and other users around you. If you want to stay off of the forum, and go out into the woods and play in your own way you can make up your own games and be accountable to no one.

So, what is a boulder problem? What isn't a boulder problem? Are these two different questions?

It is tough to answer because we do not really have any 'holy-text' for our rules of this game that we all play together. And what makes it harder is that each locality has slightly different rules. To muddy waters further, we have a long tradition culturally of adding 'sit-starts' and variation exits to things (See Randy's commentary above on Dry Dock/Full Throttle and Dreamtime/REM).

In my years of traveling to different places to climb world wide and listening to people talk about how they see rock, I'd say that, generally, boulder problems have the following criteria no matter where you go:
- An obvious start hold or holds, or the lowest conceivable body position to get your body off of the ground.
- A lip to top out or a specific finish hold to drop off of.
- Holds in between these two things.

I see problems arising culturally when someone tries to add something to an established boulder problem. Which is where Randy's comment steps in. A lot of times, someone will 'establish' a 'problem' on a 'new' piece of rock in a manner that meets them at their level. For instance, I visited a Midwest crag this last fall that had a 'problem' established on a 10ft face of rock. This problem started 1 or 2 feet below the lip (on big holds), made a single move to the lip, and topped out. I was shown this 'problem' by someone who was working on a sit start. This sit start he was trying started on a set of obvious holds in the lowest conceivable body position (about 5 feet lower) on the face. In my mind, the true problem had not been established yet, and this individual was hot on the case of establishing it. Knowing who had established the 'stand', it was obvious to me that that the First Ascentionist had simply picked whichever part of the sequence that they could do on the first day of interacting with the rock, and added it to their scorecard that same day, officially claiming it as a thing that should be taken seriously by their peers. In my opinion, this was wrong, and the problem is still sitting out there waiting to be established.

To make my view on this clear: Randy is right. Doing a thing on a rock, naming it, proposing a grade, and posting it to MP does not make something a boulder problem. Just because it is legitimate to you does not mean that it is legitimate to your peers to whom you have accountability to.

 It is our job as peers to one another to hold each other accountable, which is a big part of what MP, and other databases like it, are used for. And anyone reading this is not immune to this process because you, yes you, are sitting here on a forum reading, thinking, or discussing what the rules of this game are.

If you are adding a single move or hold to a pre-existing problem that is widely regarded as legitimate, you are not making something new, and it is pretty obvious to the vast majority of the others around you whether they say it or not. I am not saying this to hurt your feelings or to tell you that the way that you spend your time is illegitimate, but I AM agreeing with Randy that it doesn't really have a place in the public forum where we catalogue what we think the rules of the game are. Please, save it for your offline logbook, or texting your buddies who won't kink-shame you for adding a single-move variant to Alpine Club.

With the above said, I can only say that the only REAL sin when developing a piece of rock is to 'add' a stand start to a pre-existing boulder problem.

It gets tricky the further you get away from that single move concept: Randy's example of adding 10 moves to a problem established years later is pretty cut-and-dry: a new boulder worth cataloguing. But, is an additional 2 moves? 3? where is the line drawn? To me, there is no specific parameters to this, but it is obvious when you consider the rules I listed above, and the historical context of a boulder. Especially if you are standing at the piece of rock. Almost always you can take a look at the rock in say "yeah, that makes sense, I feel good about this addition" or "no, that is just an ego-driven variation, or so contrived that I am ashamed of myself for considering it". You know it when you see it folks, you just have to be honest with yourself.

Ultimately, it seems like Devil's Lake, and the areas surrounding it, have a disproportionate quantity of these Stand-sit, link up, variation type boulders, relative to almost anywhere else in the midwest, and other American crags. This is not representative of the rock itself, but the culture of the people that climb on the rock. Devil's Lake is an outlier, and that is why the culture that has propped-up the legitimacy or lack there-of of the problems there comes under so much scrutiny.  

Not every feature on every piece of rock need to be included in a problem. Not every problem needs a stand and a sit.

Grades:
There is a lot of language in this thread about grades as if they are fixed attributes of any piece of rock. Grades, just like problems, are soft and cultural. The rock does not have have an "actual" grade that we are all trying to discover... Grades are just a shorthand for us to use when talking about relative difficulties with one another. It really muddies the waters when you treat grades as a hard quality of a piece of rock while talking about what is and is not a boulder problem. The fact of the matter is that the difficulty of the moves is almost, if not completely irrelevant when the above rules are the topic at hand.

Cataloguing and audience:
I believe I covered this in detail above but I'll make it more concise. Not everything you do on a rock is worth telling the everyone on mountain project about. It is still okay for you to do and have fun with, but this is a place of public accountability. As such, you need to think hard about what you really want to catalogue here. I believe Randy's audience for this original post is the people reading this. Culture is not shaped in a single event, but by having many small conversations over time.

To the 5+ folks who just can't help but throw out a one-line-zinger how pointless bouldering and by extension this conversation, is: Its okay if you don't want to participate in the conversation, but just sit it out. Maybe you guys can't type more than a few words with a beer in your hand, you Casuals. Its not cool to put down other climbers any more. The culture is moving on. The best climbers in the world are multi-disciplinary. You're welcome to grow yourself as a climber and as a person and come along with us into the future. You're also welcome to keep high-fiving each other with your other free hand at your trad-dad meetings, but boy, is it ever so tiring to filter through your low-effort comments in an otherwise interesting conversation. I pity you. Try harder.

not sure wrote:

wow

Quarentine babyyyyyyyy.