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Don't be too concerned with the voice of the elitist. I recently read that elite climbers shun basic healthy leg exercise out of fear that it might (gasp) create a bit of muscle mass. They would sacrifice lower body strength and overall body proportion and health for the sake of something as practically useless as 5.14 sport climbing. Pfffft.

5.14 sport climber preferred supplement:

adventurer wrote:I can understand the points made by Roy. I think elitism in climbing, as in any other challenging endeavor, is nearly always the result of either a "I'm a legend in my own mind" attitude or a form of insecurity. The insecurity part comes when the so called elitist feels threatened by the possibilty that "lesser people" may become as good or better than him. This type of elitist usually reacts by attempting to minimize the accomplishment of the newbie by finding fault with his methods, style, etc.

Seems some of this would fit Mark Twight to a T!

Day Hiker wrote:5.14 sport climber preferred supplement:

Nice!!

[quote="Day Hiker"]Don't be too concerned with the voice of the elitist. I recently read that elite climbers shun basic healthy leg exercise out of fear that it might (gasp) create a bit of muscle mass. They would sacrifice lower body strength and overall body proportion and health for the sake of something as practically useless as 5.14 sport climbing. Pfffft.

5.14 sport climber preferred supplement:....
[quote]

I hate to say this but isn't this a form of elitist attitude My attitude is be honest and be honest. If someone wants to be a sports climber and they are not affecting the access situation for those around us, let them have their fun.

I has hit with the charge of "Elitist" recently, Fatdad knows the thread in Mountainproject... but my attitude is just be honest about what you are saying. A rating only means a relative degree of difficulty as opposed to the numbers higher and lower, and its still relative. It doesn't denote anything of quality, (ie: is the individual who is doing it any better or worse then anyone else as an individual or is the route of better quality then a route of another rating. ) This is why I do NOT like to use words like Hard, Easy or Moderate to describe routes, since the words denote quality. They denote something that is variable to the individual who is doing it.

And as I've always said, climbing is basically a useless thing except for how it changes oneself and our views of that which is around us.

Dougb thankyou. Now that someone has proven my point, I'll make this last comment and then forget about. Doug, do you remember when 5.8 seemed intimidating and looked to 5.10/5.11 wondering how you'll ever get there. You can deny it and lie to yourself, but you were there.

As for those with the constructive advice to not worry about this issue, thanks. I can now put this issue to bed and continue to enjoy the outdoors. Cheers talk later.

Roy1 wrote:Dougb thankyou. Now that someone has proven my point, I'll make this last comment and then forget about. Doug, do you remember when 5.8 seemed intimidating and looked to 5.10/5.11 wondering how you'll ever get there. You can deny it and lie to yourself, but you were there.

As for those with the constructive advice to not worry about this issue, thanks. I can now put this issue to bed and continue to enjoy the outdoors. Cheers talk later.

sarcasm radar is a bit off, eh?

welle wrote:

Roy1 wrote:Dougb thankyou. Now that someone has proven my point, I'll make this last comment and then forget about. Doug, do you remember when 5.8 seemed intimidating and looked to 5.10/5.11 wondering how you'll ever get there. You can deny it and lie to yourself, but you were there.

As for those with the constructive advice to not worry about this issue, thanks. I can now put this issue to bed and continue to enjoy the outdoors. Cheers talk later.

sarcasm radar is a bit off, isn't it?

Sarcasm radars don't work as well on the interwebs. I recommend upgrading to Sarcasm Radar 2.0.

rofl

Roy you'll see plenty of sarcasm around here, better get used to it

Gary Schenk wrote:

Dougb wrote:

Roy1 wrote:Dougb thankyou. Now that someone has proven my point, I'll make this last comment and then forget about. Doug, do you remember when 5.8 seemed intimidating and looked to 5.10/5.11 wondering how you'll ever get there. You can deny it and lie to yourself, but you were there.

As for those with the constructive advice to not worry about this issue, thanks. I can now put this issue to bed and continue to enjoy the outdoors. Cheers talk later.

No, 5.8 was never intimidating, that's called 5.easy my friend. Although I was soloing 5.8 once in a downpour and had to actually think about what I was doing once. I adjusted my flip flops and topped out then decided to take the trail down.

Weak!

+1

Too soft, Doug! 5.10s are the lines of descent unroped: http://ht.ly/1L7Kc

Elitism: so im at the crag in NW Arkansas last weekend. just got my first set of cams and I think this was the second time using them (not the first time trad climbing) so they were nice and shinny. as we were leaving, we pass a group guys from Fayetteville working some 5.12. we stopped to watch as this guy flashed the route and came down. I complimented him on the climb and so on and he replied back about how shinny my cams were and just generally made us feel unwelcome. Then his friend asked us where we were from. when they realized we were from Missouri, they proceeded to tell us how missouri climbers cause all kinds of problems with access and trespassing issues. im no 5.12 climber but i love climbing and what should it matter where im from and how strong I am. Never felt like climbing could be elitist until then.

...and he replied back about how shiny my cams were and just generally made us feel unwelcome.

My standard retort for that one is: "Listen, dumbass, I wear out three racks every year and send the worn out junk back to the manufacturer for testing, and they send me new stuff for free. If that old stuff of yours still works then obviously you don't get out climbing enough."

(I actually saw local Josh guide Dave Mayville drop that line on a guy once. It pretty much cut him down to size, which is of course what Dave loves to do.)

edit: PS, If the guy had to work on the route before he could climb it, it wasn't a "flash." If you run into him again under similar circumstances instead of complimenting him, tell him "it's a bummer you didn't get it first try for the flash..."

dien2liv wrote:Elitism: so im at the crag in NW Arkansas last weekend. just got my first set of cams and I think this was the second time using them (not the first time trad climbing) so they were nice and shinny. as we were leaving, we pass a group guys from Fayetteville working some 5.12. we stopped to watch as this guy flashed the route and came down. I complimented him on the climb and so on and he replied back about how shinny my cams were and just generally made us feel unwelcome. Then his friend asked us where we were from. when they realized we were from Missouri, they proceeded to tell us how missouri climbers cause all kinds of problems with access and trespassing issues. im no 5.12 climber but i love climbing and what should it matter where im from and how strong I am. Never felt like climbing could be elitist until then.

And that is too bad. My climbing partner and I were talking yesterday, and part of the conversation was about ability. We both commented on that we don't care if you climb 5.5 or if you climb 5.14 if:

a) weren't an ass about it to others

b) you were trying and didn't give up. If you are trying then you are learning something and that is the spirit of climbing. Something the 5.12 dumb#ss above failed to understand.

Here's a thought and very simple solution to all this...

Find crags where you will be the only ones around and having fun.

Simple, no elitism to invade your quiet serenity.

Avoid crags with crowds and you avoid any encounters with jerkoff's.

End of story.

Maybe this was raised already (after 9 pages it can be hard to tell), but don't confuse someone you perceive as elitism vs. someone who is just a tool.

To be honest, the elistism issue is getting raised pretty frequently nowadays and it's hard to tell whether it's code for someone who doesn't like receiving any comments about how they climb, belay, etc., vs. someone who's had the poor luck of bumping into someone who's just a big mouthed jerk.

If the person's a jerk, why complain about it? Some people are cool and some people are jerks. That's a pretty well accepted fact. Sadly, climbing does not have a membership requirement that everyone be nice.