Alex Honnold & Ex-Girlfriend Lost in Yosemite...With Style || Climbing Gold Podcast w/Alex Honnold

we're talking about style so what do we call good style you know like oh he did that in good style like what does that mean you know it's like you know it when you see it because there's so many things if you hear an example you're like bad style good Style bad style good style like I mean you can know when you hear each example but it's really hard to codify yeah I mean there's also like medium style too where you're like oh I could go back and improve upon that person's style but like I wouldn't necessarily call it bad style right I mean some real traditional purists would consider fixed draws at all to be bad style and so of course we would just consider them leyes at this point right I mean that's just style has evolved yeah yeah exactly we're all but I mean that has evolved like initially maybe like 20 years ago we would have felt the same way but you AR why aren't fix draws considered pink points you know I never really understood that like if you pre-play gear in America it's considered a pink point but not fixed draws but you know you go to austr go to Australia and climb and I mean sadly bunch of these Cliffs are closed now like in the grampions and stuff but like they leave fix gear all over the place and there and that's just normal they don't consider that like they don't distinguish a pink point the part of that I think is because their freaking bolts are the stupid Australian carrot bolts where you have to hang your own hanger and so it basically is the same as place in gear and so the whole thing is totally different where you're like this is absurdly annoying to clip the bolts so it's like of course you're going to leave them fixed of course you're going to leave the gear too it's just like I ran found my carrot bolt hangers like in the in the climbing pin the other day and I was like I hope people aren't still using these things did did you immediately throw them away because you're like this is stupid and this [ __ ] I like I'm never I'm never using that again but I guess that sort of takes me to this place where your version of style is something that you were taught where you started climbing so in some ways that kind of style is similar to the to the rule based style where it's kind of like well if this is the the cultural norm then I will adhere to this cultural norm I suppose style is all about just conforming to the the cultural norms yeah that's true which now I'm like f that should we be doing that I mean climbing's supposed to be all about counterculture I'm like should we be caring about style at all then just do whatever you want as long as you don't damage the rock or hurt other people are you guys in the not about people using laser pointers at the Craig yes I've seen that this is new to me I was just in 10 sleep and I saw it quite a bit and I was just sort of Blown Away by that that's been around a long time I've seen people doing that like 10 years ago in Maple and random places yeah but it's just I still feel like it's a little niche like how many laser point yeah um especially so then here's something too about style like people were doing that at T sleep people will be across the Craig shining their laser pointer at the holds for someone's flash go essentially but then they would call it an on-site wait what how is that onsite yeah that's it's not but I mean that was but that's but that's misunderstanding the terms I think I think that's somebody like not I mean we actually had a conversation about this on climbing gold recently talking about lying and climbing and uh and I brought up example of some of my family members like my my mother-in-law and and other family members who just don't honestly know what the terms are we're like oh I sent this thing in the gym and you're like oh with seven hangs and you're like yeah you know you're kind of like well I don't think that's technically sending you know or like you know she has examples of like oh my friend climbs 513 in the gym and you're like well I think they top her up to 512 and took four times but you know it's close enough like because basically I think that I I try not to judge somebody if they honestly don't know the rules or don't understand the the definitions of the the terms and things like that because you're like you know everyone's just learning definitively say that using a laser pointer does not count as on-site yeah yeah that's for sure but it but it totally counts for flashing because I mean flashing is such a big broad gray area cuz sometimes flashing you've already like lowered down the route from from something nearby and like looked at it and maybe even touched some of the holes or like brushed all the holes or chocked them or done whatever so I mean flashing can range from like somebody just gave you some rough beta for the Crux to like you have touched every single hold and like thought about it on your way down and you're kind of like well that's a huge Spectrum it's like I think a laser pointer fits well within there yeah yeah I I think it's interesting there's all these like new terms I'm sure you guys have heard them that maybe even at T sleep probably at T sleep um that are like evolving in the sport like I hear day flash a lot at the crack now and I'm like what does that mean how are does that mean doing it in one day yeah but maybe you've also tried it before is my understanding of it it's like you tried it last week and then today you got the day flash of it yeah like you did it on your first try of the day basically that's totally stupid yeah I'm not into that that's that's confusing thought just a little thought experiment if you were from another planet and you arrived here and you knew nothing about football would football be hard as hard for you to understand as the rules of climbing like like how hard would it be to understand what a first down is I think that climbing is is fundamentally easier to understand than than many other sports because at the end of the day you're trying to get from the bottom to the top of something and and yeah you can kind of split hairs and and get into the rules and everything but ultimately you're just trying to climb up a face and and certainly at its at its purest climbing is pretty understandable you know in the same way that hiking or whatever else is you're trying to travel over a certain type of terain I think that's where it gets contentious though I I think I just got baited but um it's just that Alex you and Brad did Father time in a push in a day all free you know whereas like Katie and I spent two weeks up there and we have like various asterisks on it but somehow we both sent you know and I mean I don't think you're that worried about about it but you know if I'm calling my thing a sin and you're calling your thing a sin and how can they both be sins if they're so different you know I think that's where people get upset about style and climbing dude I I actually did I actually did Father time with an ex-girlfriend and it was one of her first times jugging and she supported me on it and uh and uh yeah I mean maybe the climbing was good style the jugging was so so style and overall it turned into like a survival experience cuz she was so worked by the time we got at the top that that there was like a storm coming we didn't know how to get down and it was all it was all pretty Mega but it was a but actually I would consider that a really good style day for me because I think I just went up to the bottom climbed the whole route uh maybe I had to try the hardest pitches twice or something I don't totally remember but but basically I just climbed from the bottom to the top and climbed things as many times as I needed to to do them and then went to the top and managed to not break up with my girlfriend after after an epic day where she freaking was way over her head it was like it was it was I was like yeah you're not going to just like dump her on top or anything and be like see you yeah her headlamp died we had no headlamp we did i' never found the gun site before the The Descent way off the top I was kind of like oh man I have no idea how to get down freaking Mikey shaer the first Ascension sent us a send us a map with like the whole you know I'm like on top be like how do we get off this mountain it's like dark and the storm's coming and I'm kind of gripped and and yeah it's very exciting I mean that's where it becomes like that's why you start to like get the difference between you know a touchdown versus a field goal right that like one actually has more value than the other sty is like a differentiator like another way of ranking or like sort of judging people's a sense actually I I would say when I was thinking about personal wor style was like doing a first Ascent with Tommy on o cap that has sort of asteres where um like basically the two of us did one of the last pitches from a stance in the Middle where we like climbed half the pitch fell off and then just went from a no hands to the like from The Middle the pitch to the top because you know we were sort of like well we plan to be on the wall three days it's already been four Tommy's about to miss his family's Halloween celebration and you know he's going to be getting divorced if we don't get off the wall and we're sort of like oh you know like well we'll just call it good with half a pitch instead of but the thing for me is that I was kind of like well the whole Ascent was not had left room for improvement in style anyway so I was kind of like you know we didn't do this perfectly but realistically someone down the road will do this all better anyway cuz like you know we team free we each top RI half the pitches the aspiration would be for somebody to do it in a day and so I was kind of like oh this isn't perfect anyway so I'm not too stressed that that our Ascent isn't isn't ideal I was kind of like either way we established this new clim that anybody else can now go do go do themselves in better style so I'm like that's fine you know I feel like for establishing it for descent you're like that's to me that's good enough though obviously you know other people have different standards for that kind of thing yeah but I mean it for sure always comes down to like time ability and then yeah like do you have to go do you have the time do you have the sight to keep coming back up here yeah it's like in our case it's second to last pitch on the wall it's a 13d slab and you're kind of like can we just be done and go down like my fingers hurt I'm over it this is it was like the 10th pitch of 13 plus or something on the route and you're just like you know what this is this is fine like this is terrible let's let's call it good I feel like when it comes to like multi- pitching or longer routes in general there's just more room for like a variety of style whereas like sport climbing bouldering it seems like we allow for less room within like that style component like it there's a lot more reasons when you're multi- pitching that it makes sense to be like I did this but you know but with a sport climb and a boulder there's not as many reasons to do that yeah the standards change in relation to how easy it is to to enforce those kinds of standards like I feel like with hard bouldering sends nowadays people sort of expect uncut footage of a send you know because it's so easy to just set your phone there and like get the you know for Cutting Edge bouldering but for sport climbing that's less the case and then for big wall climbing nobody cares at all and then big wall climbing in the mountains people are like you know as long as you get back to base camp alive you can just just say whatever you want about about the ascent you did it's like basically depending on how hard the overall experiences is the the standards just just change which is which I think is understandable that's the weird thing with style nowadays is that it's all kind of choices around like what you're choosing to do as an adventure but it's very rarely required you know it's like you can always just use fossil fuels you can always like get in the plane get in the helicopter it's like you know even on the biggest mountains now even 8,000 meter Peaks you know it's like you can get picked up a helicopter like Camp four on Everest it's like there just is rescue available almost anywhere on earth now if the weather permits you're kind of like no matter how you choose to do your style it's like you know I don't know the world has shrunk a little bit it makes it feel a little more contrived the definition we were using earlier where where style is just a way to sort of rank a performance then it makes sense that good style is always harder you know which which in climbing often means more painful but you know it's like yeah is style always going to be the harder way it's like I mean it does kind of seem like it because that's you know we're using climbing style as a way to differentiate a sense to sort of Judge what's a better or worse as Sun so you're like yeah well the harder way is generally better style but that is an interesting question though it's like does it need to be like do you always have to do it the hardest way for it to be considered good like well if not then you can be like that kid on your first trip to the buttermilk fits and just run up the back you know I think climbers realize at a pretty early age there's always an easier way to do something yeah it's funny you guys earlier you brought up the uh I didn't get to share my wor style thing because I was like thinking through of it and I've had plenty of bad style trust me but like and this is a funny one to pick but somebody uh just recently freed this rout I put up 25 years ago and it was it like I tried it for many years it was on press Peak way out there it's like you know kind of minimum weekl long trip back there and when I I put it up ground up and I didn't really know how to put up Roots at that stage too and so like it was super dangerous and I would come back you know I was able to drill a few bolts on Mead I think I added one boltt but at that time the things I were like stylish and cool or like proud were things that were difficult and run out or like that was the sort of style of the the community you know like I think that that was like when you thought about routes like that that's what you wanted to create and when people in the last five years have come gone and Revisited this this route they've called me and be like dude this is [ __ ] up can we put some bolts on this and I'm like yeah of course because I remember going back like year after year and being like godamn old me or like goddamn like prev me like what the [ __ ] why didn't you why didn't you deal with this and it was so funny how it that even like as I aged you know going back five years on this route I came to realize like what I thought was maybe good style that first year actually produced something that took away from what was actually important about that route which was how difficult the moves were right and like how difficult the movements were because it ended up being 514 when I put that up that would have been one of the hardest Trad lines in this country if I'd been able to free it which of course I wasn't strong enough then and I didn't make a route like the style of the thing didn't actually accentuate what was important about it and it took growing up to kind of realize like of course you can go put some more bolts in that because like I mean one I was probably out of bolts because I was broke but two it was just you know it was I was hand drilling as a pain in the ass but it was also there was that side of of it of being like well I did this once you should be able to do it again even to myself as I projected it and you know that that ultimately like I think that side of it if I had to come back to it is is that there is that I don't know it's it's it's I think it's how we style maybe ultimately is how we accentuate the most important part about the experience of climbing for ourselves or even for others in those [Music] situations talking about putting up new roots and and whether or not something run out is good style or not actually you kind of think that uh that Mikey Schaefer and his roote father time which we were talking about earlier is a is a great example of good style in that way because it's a safe route it's well bolted it's like everything about it is like modern and repeatable and and and really great to climb on and yet he still did the whole thing ground up as this epic adventure by himself rope soing and like hand drilling a million bolts and hand drilling them again when he freaking went from quarter inches to 38 inch and so I'm sort of like I think that that's a that rout proba time is a good example of a really good style first descent that's still modern safe you know reasonable like it's still good for anybody to go and do like it didn't have to be crazy for it to be good Style

Channel: Climbing Gold with Alex Honnold

Views: 9,061

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Id: AAZeMi7YQ5s

Length: 15min 15sec (915 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 28 2023