Limit redpoint selection: close to home vs far away crag

[Chris W]

So I just got back from my road trip and finished eating a large portion of humble pie. I'm fairly certain that, at my current level of fitness, I would have needed the majority of this fall season to work the route to send it. I've also come to the conclusion that, at least for me for the time being, limit redpoint routes should be at my home crag (an hour away) as opposed to at a distant crag 10 hours away.

Has anyone attempted a limit redpoint [hardest route you've ever done] at a far away crag? How much time did you have to work the route [week long road trip or month long sabbatical?] before you sent it?

[ablum]

This is a really good topic, and I have struggled with this. I think that as you go through more seasons and learn what your limit really is on a variety of styles, this will be less of an issue. Somewhere in the book they talk about 4 days as being an ideal amount of time to need to redpoint a route, so if you can't get four quality days in at a crag it should probably be off the table for RP climbing.

To answer your question, I am working a 12c that is six hours away. There have definitely been some sacrifices made on my part to find four days of time to get out there, and I was VERY nervous on day one that I was going to blow the last two weekends of my performance phase on a route I couldn't do (just sent my 1st 12c weekend before, but totally different style). This one will go within 4 days of effort, but I definitely need at least 3 days to work that grade at my current fitness level.

Next season, I plan on picking true limit projects (12d/13a) at local (4 hrs or closer) areas, and filling in the bottom rungs of my pyramid on longer trips, or weekends at places far, far away (6+ hrs). Like so much of this stuff, I think it is a case of "try it out, take notes, evaluate, refine the approach for next time"

[Chris W]

Nice to hear your thoughts ablum. I'm finding that a lot of this (my experience with formal training) is a bit of "try it out and see". I've found that my training log is very helpful even though it only goes as far back as March of this year.

Interesting that you mentioned your route pyramid. Since coming back from my trip, my plan for the spring season has been to work on my route pyramid. I almost dismissed this idea the first time I read through the book, but it seems like having a good pyramid is much more important than I originally thought.

If you just sent your first 12c last week, how many 12b and 12a routes did you have under your belt going into your current project/season?

Good luck with your current route!

[ablum]

Chris,

My pyramid looked like this:

2x 12a
1x 11d
2x 11c
3x 11b

This is a little misleading, because I took a long break from climbing recently. I have sent a lot of routes in the 11+/- range over the last ten years, but my pyramid "begins" in the spring of this year. I struggled a lot with whether or not to reach for the sky and try things in the 12+ range, or just focus on filling in the pyramid, as this is my first cycle. I put one day of effort into a 12d, but the weather (and the difficulty) were tremendously discouraging, so I decided to notch it down one letter grade. This seems to be the perfect "about two to four days of effort" sweet spot for me. I could probably reach for 13a next season, but I feel like it is really important to keep the pyramid balanced too. If I aim high and can't pull it off, then I guess the season isn't wasted, but killing 4-8 climbing days when I could have been filling in the blanks on the pyramid would definitely feel like a poor decision.

I really hear you on a the training log, having those benchmarks and reference points to refer to in the upcoming season is going to be invaluable for me. Even if someone just totally abhorred the idea of training, I think they could make solid year to year progress just by using a log, and the route pyramid framework. It really forces you to think critically about your strengths and weaknesses. For instance, I sent a 12c . . . but I am NOT well rounded at the grade, and I only onsight about 11b, which is silly - there are obviously some tactical and mental issues I need to conquer to notch up my onsight level, and I would not consider myself a "12c" climber until I have ticked the grade on a wide variety of styles.

Does your local crag have projects that you can get super psyched on?

[slimshaky]

i try to keep my limit projects close to home, and do micro-projects or bulk sending on trips. nothing worse than slinking into work on a monday morning after a 2 week vacation feeling like it was a waste.  particularly if you don't have a ton of vacation time.

[Chris W]

I like the idea of a micro-project on a trip Slim. How much time do you allow for a "mini-project"?

As far as projects at my local crag, there are tons to be psyched on. I've been trying to break into the 5.12 grade, but seem to definitely need to work on building up some 5.11 climbs. I've picked a section of my local crag that includes about 6 "walls" and have my sights set on sending every route there between 5.10a and 5.11d this spring. That would be about 25 routes total. I can warm up on the 5.10 routes (and sometimes do), but the 5.11 routes will take a bit of work. I can likely do the 11a/b routes in 1-3 tries, including hanging the draws. The 11c routes may take 1-5 tries, and the 11d's will probably take two separate days each.

Hopefully this base would help give me an idea of what would be feasible on a road trip for a mini-project.

[slimshaky]

for micro projects i shoot for something i can usually do in a day (1-3 tries give or take). sometimes this might leak over into (hopefully) a quick RP burn on a second day. for me, if i will be travelling to an area that has similar climbing to what i have been focusing on lately, it is fairly easy to estimate what grade to shoot for. if it will be something i am rusty at, i usually dial it back around 2 letter grades. i also like to onsight as many pitches in the 10 to 11 range as possible.

this works out pretty well, as you can challenge yourself but still have a good, successful trip. also, my wife doesn't have to go to the same place every day.

i think your strategy for building a base is a good idea, and the micro-projects are excellent for this purpose.

[Chris W]

Thanks for sharing your approach; very helpful and helps me to put things into perspective.

[daustin]

I also just took a trip to the RRG (I think I remember reading in other threads that's where you were going?) for the first time, and struggled with the same dilemma. On the one hand, I had just finished my first training cycle and was psyched to see how much better I'd become by just throwing myself at a route I felt like was my near my limit. On the other hand, the rest of my group was more interested in sampling a variety of crags/climbs rather than coming back to one for multiple burns. And ultimately, I was more psyched on 'touring' the area than projecting, too, but it's much harder to feel like you 'accomplish' anything on when you're touring, unless you do some good onsighting.

So I didn't RP my hardest route or even really come that close, but I think I was able to measure my progress from training in a different way: I was definitely able to put in more burns on hard/near limit routes than I ever have been before. This didn't result in more sending, but it was tons of fun being able to try a bunch of different climbs, work out the beta, and still have enough energy to try more. Especially given it was my first time at the RRG and even though I knew what to expect in theory, the routes were significantly steeper and more resistant than anything I've climbed on before. In that context, I was psyched that my forearms weren't totally trashed after one go on any route harder than 11+ =)

Even though we did a full week of 'touring', we only scratched the surface, which is a given at any first-time trip to an area on the scale of the Red. For me, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to change my mindset for those long-distance trips, and I know that if I go back to the Red any time soon, I'll probably have a similar experience: onsight a few routes that aren't total gimmes, make progress on a few routes that feel hard, and flail on a few routes that feel really hard. Hopefully by that point, though, there will be an upshift in the overall difficulty level. And there are a couple specific routes that I know I'll want to go back to tick. But for the most part, like others have said, I'm going to save my real projecting for home crags because realistically I know I'll keep bringing the 'touring' mentality with me on bigger trips.

[Chris W]

I was out at the RRG, and my project was Twinkie. One problem that I had in the redpoint process which I didn't anticipate was that it was so steep (seemed steeper than my 35 degree wall at home)that when I fell I couldn't get back on the wall without lowering (or wearing out myself and my belayer boinking back up the rope).

I've also realized, after talking with an objective observer (my wife), that I am mourning the loss of my fall season. Besides my trip, I was only able to make it outside to climb ONCE between July and now. This was largely due to bad luck involving work issues, sick kids and a sick wife, weather and poor planning. I didn't get to climb on my trip nearly as much as I wanted to either since my kids started running fevers on our first day on the rocks. Perhaps if I had been on the rock more before hand it would have been psychologically easier to devote time to one main route.

Either way, I think I'll try the approach of fun climbing on trips and hard projecting close to home for the coming year.

[MarkAnderson]

I was really hoping to leave this thread alone, but then I read this:

Oct 30, 2014 9:54:39 GMT -7 daustin said:

. On the one hand, I had just finished my first training cycle and was psyched to see how much better I'd become by just throwing myself at a route I felt like was my near my limit. On the other hand, the rest of my group was more interested in sampling a variety of crags/climbs rather than coming back to one for multiple burns. And ultimately, I was more psyched on 'touring' the area than projecting, too, but it's much harder to feel like you 'accomplish' anything on when you're touring, unless you do some good onsighting.

So I didn't RP my hardest route or even really come that close, but I think I was able to measure my progress from training in a different way: I was definitely able to put in more burns on hard/near limit routes than I ever have been before. This didn't result in more sending, but it was tons of fun being able to try a bunch of different climbs, work out the beta, and still have enough energy to try more...

Even though we did a full week of 'touring', we only scratched the surface, which is a given at any first-time trip to an area on the scale of the Red. 

I can totally relate to this, it was something I struggled with the entire time I was in Germany. I think for me, projecting only works if I'm totally focused on the singular route I'm working, and that works best if I've already done all the easier, more appealing lines at an area. Once you've "climbed out" everything within your grasp, you really have no choice but to try the next hardest thing. Smith Rock is the only place I've ever done long distance projecting (I'm thinking flying distance), but its worked out several times because I had previously climbed through all the classics in the lower grades (like, literally, I've done almost every single 4 star route at Smith that's easier than 5.14).

It's been so long (5 years?) since I've done a "touring" trip, and since then I've been totally devoted to hard redpointing. It was really refreshing to do something different, but I had a hard time convincing myself that its ok to just have fun and see the world every now and then. I this uneasy feeling the whole trip that I was somehow wasting my time, which is ridiculous! Wolfgang Gullich said that traveling to distant crags was integral part of climbing, and a key to what makes it such a special sport. I have to agree.

[slimshaky]

i was really curious if the gravity of action directe was pulling at you like a moth to a bug zapper.