No Need For A Mountain - NYT article

[Peakbagr]

I thought this might be of interest to folks. Today's NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/s...limbs-in-popularity.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

 

[audrey]

I've never found this type of competition interesting in the Olympics because the artificial course makes every move predictable. It's how well one makes those moves that determines the winner. Moguls and kayaking immediately came to mind. A few inches of real <gasp> snow on a downhill course and it's all ruined!

But watching these athletes seek out different challenges and overcome them is fun.

 

[nartreb]

In most indoor bouldering competitions (there's not much in the way of standardization, and climbing is not an Olympic sport though there was an unofficial demo in 2006) the climbers have never seen the routes - they may get something like two minutes to stare at it just before the clock starts on their climb. If the route-setters do their job well, you end up watching different competitors trying different techniques as they try to work out which method (if any) works to "solve" a particular "problem." (Generally the route-setters also include a few unsubtle but spectacular "dynamic" (leaping) moves.)

At the other extreme, some gyms are installing totally standardized routes to be used in speed-climbing competitions. Speed-climbing is a separate discipline whose goal is not to do hard moves or solve difficult sequences, but to dash upward as fast as possible.

 

[DougPaul]

IMO, the main thing that is new is the commercialization and the definition of competition events. Bouldering itself probably predates roped climbing...

See also goats playing "King of the Hill".

Doug

 

[Papa Bear]

I would just point out that the gist of the article (maybe 95% of the text), and all the photos emphasized outdoor bouldering. There is a nice shot of Beth Rodden on on a Rock in Norway on front page of the Sports section; another shot of her hiking along a river and a 3rd shot of crash pads under a boulder. There are a few more shots in the on-line version. The only fake rock was ironically in Central Park. Gym artificial bouldering was just mentioned in passing (IMHO).

As for competitions, I didn't think that was emphasized. For example it mentioned in the context of Rodden's exploits, that anyone who does a new route unofficially gives it a rating. That sticks until someone else does the same route and challenges the rating (too low, too high).

Yes, the Olympics was mentioned in a caption (in the paper) and in this quote :

"Tracking participation in any sort of rock climbing is difficult because outdoor climbers do not report their activities to anyone, and only some indoor gyms report activity to the Climbing Wall Association. But bouldering has become so popular that it is on the short list of sports being considered for the 2020 Olympics. "

Seems like a very individualized type of competition. Sort of like Cave Dogs "meta rules" for setting time records on peak lists which I would paraphrase as "You can make it harder (not easier) only if you beat the last record using that record holder's rules".

This type of "competitiveness" is sure a long way from the Olympics. May it stay that way.

Just my take on the article.

 

[nartreb]

drifting further...

outdoor climbers do not report their activities to anyone

I skimmed right over that quote in the article but I had to laugh when Papa Bear showed it out of context. You could get some good estimates of popularity over time by running some searches on YouTube.

Bouldering itself probably predates roped climbing...

Technically true, but bouldering as a discipline in itself (as opposed to a warm-up for bigger things) is much younger than roped climbing. Only with the advent of dynamic ropes and better forms of protection (e.g., cams) did serious climbers start to evolve a more gymnastic style, in tandem with a change in the "ethics" that had frowned on trying the same route multiple times even after repeated falls. Those changes allowed climbers to find the most technically demanding climbs humanly possible and attack them as "projects". That top climbers see bouldering as a legitimate sport is a consequence of that change in attitude; it probably would never have happened if rope safety hadn't improved first.

edit: history is a little more complicated than that. The gymnastic influence goes back to the 1950s, and you could argue that bouldering was established as a separate pursuit since the 1930s in Fontainebleau, and (abortively) in England in the 1880s. http://www128.pair.com/r3d4k7/Bouldering_History1.0.html See the first mention of Jim Holloway for the "attitude" it describes and which I mentioned above, which would give a date in the 1970s for "modern" competitive bouldering as I see it.

Now, who wants to pick a date for the birth of roped climbing? Ropes were certainly in use by the 1860s, not that they did very much good in those days...