"Efficient Climbing" vs. Speed Climbing

Opie alerted me to this thread.

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?m=57068&f=0&b=0

I posted the following:

Bill

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Ammon,

You wrote in your first post: "On one hand you have guys like Hans (no disrespect) who are frantically climbing when they are going for records. They run-it-out, cut corners and yell a lot at their partners."

Then you stated this: "If you’ve ever had the opportunity to watch an “efficient-climber” you will notice they are NOT in a hurry at all. They are usually calm and collective."

You make a number of good points, but let me start with this. If you've ever had the opportunity to watch Hans on a speed ascent you will notice that he is not in a hurry either. I know this sounds unbelievable to many climbers, but I watched his and Yuji's record ascent of the Nose and I videoed it. I just watched it again last night and it is so slow you have to watch it at high speed motion. I plan to put some clips of it up on my website in the future.

Anyway, back to the speed record. These guys climbed the Nose in 2h48m. You'd think they were just running up the rock, but they aren't. They ARE moving very efficiently. They ARE moving very continuously. And, yes, they ARE taking some chances, but for them these aren't huge risks. Yuji does run things out massively on 5.10 (and even on 5.12 on his Lurking Fear speed ascent), but Yuji climbs 5.15 and this is like me running out a 5.5 pitch. It isn't that crazy. For him.

I'm giving a speed show at Neptune Mountaineering later this month and I was doing to show Yuji's lead of the first 5.10+ pitch of the Nose. It doesn't look anything like that wild speed solo of Dan Osman on Bear's Reach at Lover's Leap near Tahoe (on some climbing video). Yuji is very methodical and it doesn't look all that impressive until you notice that he just led a 150-foot 5.10+ pitch in about 4 minutes (this is only 6 inches per second). The key is the efficiency. He almost never stops moving on the entire ascent. They simul-climbed 90% of the route.

So, even this extreme example of speed climbing is really efficient climbing. They aren't frantic and they aren't running. But they are moving efficiently and continuously up 3000 feet of rock, most of which is 5.10 or harder. That's impressive.

Is this as adventurous as your one-day, onsight, second ascents? No. Every climb isn't a huge adventure. At least for most of us. I love the adventure aspects and for the first ten years of my climbing, I almost never repeated a route for this reason. Now I see climbing as more than just an adventure, though that is still by far my favorite aspect. Sometimes, like when I do easy solos in the Flatirons above Boulder, it is just a respite from the run into the climb. Sometimes it's just a physical workout, done in a beautiful place. Sometimes it is a big adventure on a new (for me - I'll leave the first ascents to you experts), backcountry, alpine route. Sometimes it is working a sport project in Boulder canyon. And, sometimes, it is just to see how fast I can safely go on rock. To see how much climbing I can possibly get done in the two hours before I have to go to work on a weekday morning.

You know all this and I know (and you stated) that you meant no disrespect to "speed climbing." I just wanted to make it clear to others that even the really fast speed climbs don't look crazy, but look very methodical.

Oh, and Hans doesn't yell at his partners any more than a non-speedclimbing team. In fact, he communicates much less per pitch than probably any other type of climbing. The difference is two-fold: the climbing is compressed into a shorter time period and the climbers are very rarely near each other and hence the raised voices - merely to be heard, not to berate his partner to greater speed.

A great, fun discussion. I hope we can hook up for a route sometime. We've discussed it in the past, but no luck so far. I'd love to see such great, efficient aid climbing up close. Just like many others that posted here, I can't imagine how fast you climb those scary aid pitches.

Bill