What's the general consensus on adding a climber's log to your profile page if you didn't summit? I know it has a check box for a successful summit, but who really goes in and looks at that. I always thought of it as a bit of a cop out, but there are a lot of peaks I've been on where I've been close to summiting then had to turn back. My ego wants me to add these to my page, but until now I've held off.

Maybe I just shouldn't care so much about notching my belt, but hey what can I say. This is like Facebook for climbing.

Climber's log vs Summit log??? I view the climber's log as a way to journal what mountains have been climbed. Whether I made it to the summit or not is more of a personal benchmark or goal, and that I believe, is why the check mark option is there. If I climb 3000 feet but have to skip the last 100 because of some obstacle I personally don't believe that negates the effort put forth and the experience I gained on that particular mountain. In that situation I would sign the log but not check the "successful" button. For me this is just a record keeping journal, a way to keep track of where I've been.

Some of the best beta comes from unsuccessful attempts; usually those entries are longer and more informative.

I do not log in any peaks I do not complete my goal on. For example if my goal is to summit Mt. X and climb NW arete route on it I would not log in Mt. X summit log if I got in a thunderstorm just bellow the summit, but I would check off the route page if I completed it. If there is a rock climb on some face I usually check the location as well as the route. For example I would check El Cap if I climbed E buttress route and didn't continue to the true summit. Just my thing.

I've had way cooler attempts on many mountains that "successful" summits. An example, I could have done what my friend Gimpilator did when he climbed Shuksan via the Sulphide Glacier, but I wanted to do a more challenging route even though I knew there was a much lesser chance of me making it up on the Fisher Chimneys. So I think after the epic trip I still at least deserve the honors of signing the climbers log for saying "I tried, it was intense, and had the time of my life".

Since there is a checkbox option, I think it is proper to do whatever you like with respect to signing the log. Just don't say you climbed the peak unless you did the whole thing, including the summit block, or make any comment misleading or imply otherwise. That said, I personally do not sign the log unless I made the summit, just my own preference.

I think a seperate item would be to have a feature so users could identify on the profile pages which items were summitted and which were not, probably easy to do. However, given no work is being done on the site performance/speed, which is a much more important issue, I wouldn't expect any changes here.

I agree with Mr. Chad, it would be cool to have a section for "My Attempts". I personally have no shame in showing off my attempt list. Although Matt is very skilled with what he does here with sp, I know he is a very busy guy, so perhaps if we had another site maintainer (excluding elfs) that would be good for sp.

Does anybody actually feel strongly about somebody else's summit/attempt list?

I look at log lists on profile pages when somebody asks a question (say, about gear) in the forum; it helps me judge whether they know enough to know what they really need to ask.

I haven't met a lot of partners through SP, but I certainly would look at someone's summit list before signing up to a big or technical objective. If they only have one or two comparables, I'd read the log to see things like what time of year it was and (if they provide the info) what conditions they encountered, how long it took them, and how hard it felt to them. If they've got dozens, I'm not going to check how many are listed as DNFs. I just assume that not everybody summits every time, and it's more than OK with me if my partner knows how to turn around.

I gotta agree with MoapaPk. I'll usually sign a log for a mountain if I attempt it (getting at least the Lion's share of the route done) but won't check the box if it wasn't successful.
I've used others' unsuccessful beta so much on a pletheria of peaks.
Hell, I think my overall success rate is somewhere around 50% for everything I've done/attempted.

Having current beta on Peak-A or Peak-B whether or not someone has successfully summited benefits the community as a whole and I for one, appreciate it when others sign in.
So thanks folks!

So if someone climbs Liberty RIdge on Rainier, tops out at 14,200' after 7000 vertical feet of alpine ice climbing, and (as most people seem to do) doesn't bother to take the techncially trivial detour over to Columbia Crest, but instead heads down the Emmons Glacier, would you not give them credit for successfully climbing Mt. Rainier?

I sign the summit log for failed attempts (using the checkbox appropriately, of course), and just state in the message that I failed, and usually the reason why. I figured that's good enough and can be informative for other parties.

JHH60 wrote:So if someone climbs Liberty RIdge on Rainier, tops out at 14,200' after 7000 vertical feet of alpine ice climbing, and (as most people seem to do) doesn't bother to take the techncially trivial detour over to Columbia Crest, but instead heads down the Emmons Glacier, would you not give them credit for successfully climbing Mt. Rainier?

You just described my last 2 climbs on Mt Rainier Although at this point since I've already been to the proper summit, I care less about the summit than completing a route, though visiting the summit is always nice.

JHH60 wrote:So if someone climbs Liberty RIdge on Rainier, tops out at 14,200' after 7000 vertical feet of alpine ice climbing, and (as most people seem to do) doesn't bother to take the techncially trivial detour over to Columbia Crest, but instead heads down the Emmons Glacier, would you not give them credit for successfully climbing Mt. Rainier?

Of course not.

If you don't stand on the highest point, then you didn't climb Mt. Rainier. The individual would have (argueably) successfully completed the Liberty Ridge route however.

mrchad9 wrote:

JHH60 wrote:So if someone climbs Liberty RIdge on Rainier, tops out at 14,200' after 7000 vertical feet of alpine ice climbing, and (as most people seem to do) doesn't bother to take the techncially trivial detour over to Columbia Crest, but instead heads down the Emmons Glacier, would you not give them credit for successfully climbing Mt. Rainier?

Of course not.

If you don't stand on the highest point, then you didn't climb Mt. Rainier. The individual would have (argueably) successfully completed the Liberty Ridge route however.

It's all so very confusing. Someone who has climbed Liberty Ridge has (arguably) demonstrated much more competent climbing skills than someone who has walked up the DC route. But perhaps they haven't demonstrated summiting skills. So I suppose someone who climbs the Nose but doesn't walk to the high point of El Capitan afterwards can't claim to have successfully climbed El Cap, whereas someone who hikes up to it via the Yosemite Falls route can. It would be so much easier if the Elves changed the name from "Climber's Log" to "Summiter's Log".

I don't see why it is confusing.

If you want to climb Liberty Ridge, then go up Liberty Ridge. If you want to climb Mount Rainier, then stand on the summit.

If you go up Liberty Ridge, but not the summit of Rainier, then sign the Liberty Ridge route log and leave the Rainier one alone (or don't check the box). Easy.