Stand-start vs. Sit-start: It's Not the Size of the Wave, It's the Motion of the Ocean

If there's a sit-start to do, and you don't do it, have you done the full boulder? Is the "proper" start from an ass-on-the-ground position, or at least from the lowest possible starting holds? If you do a sit-start to a previously established problem, is it appropriate to give an entirely different name?

A notable example of this issue has come up recently with Vincent Pochon's ascent of a Fontainebleau line he dubbed "The Big Island." About two years earlier, Dave Graham claimed the first ascent of the same boulder problem, minus two or three beginning moves, and dubbed the line "The Island."

Following Pochon's ascent, some suggested that the difference between the two boulder problem versions was moot because the "proper start", from a sit, remained to be done. That version, from the ground, would amount to the fullest, most mature, complete version of the line.

For myself, I liked what I presume to be Pochon's aesthetic. Walk up to a boulder. With your feet on the ground, find the starting holds. Pull off the ground and climb to the top. Both ascents are admirable, but Pochon's vision of the line appeals to me more than Graham's.

I don't take sit-starts as "logical." Where a boulder starts is not written in stone. Where a boulder problem starts is determined by bouldering's history and cultural aesthetics, the things which shape our decisions as climbers. In short, we decide. And what I'm saying is, aesthetically, stand starts are more valuable than sit-starts. They are better!

Don't get me wrong. I love a good sit-start. But I like them the most when they're obvious, and, more importantly, when they complement the rest of the movement to follow. Too many first ascent hungry gym toads have developed the horrible habit of adding one single, powerful, finger-tweaker move into otherwise classic lines. Not only is this dubious criteria for a first ascent, it diminishes a former classic forever--particularly with the new ground-assisted sit-start is filmed and distributed willynilly over the internet. People watch the video and assume the shitty version is the only version.

Tweaker sit-start add-ons to otherwise classic lines should be explicitly devalued. Sure, they make the problem longer and harder. But as the saying goes, "It's not the size of the wave, it's the motion of ocean." Just because it got harder doesn't mean it got better.

Gym-bred climbers would do well to experiment with the now-nearly defunct practice of a stand-start. Just walk up to a rock, grab what's available, and climb. It is easier and more intuitive than scrunching into "boulder toad" position on the ground.

Moving over stone from a standing start just feels good.

What is a boulder?

"What is that?"

That's how the question is always put when you're standing next to a problem, ready for a go, and someone unfamiliar with the area walks up.

"What is that? It looks fun."

"Well, it's a fucking rock you idiot."

Nah, I don't really say that. But I admit, I've thought it before. Why? Because of what the question means, superficially and kind of more generally, culturally if you will, for climbing.

Of course, as we all know, "What is that?", means, "What is the grade of that climb?" And, you know, what's wrong with that question? I mean, you're in a new area, you're interested in maximizing your time, getting on stuff that suits your ability, having fun and not wasting your time or bruising your ego the color of purple.

Well, I'll tell you what might be wrong with that question, or if not "wrong," then at least consequential in a way that I think sucks for everyone, most significantly, for the asker. It turns rocks and rock climbs and boulder problems into a bunch of numbers. And it turns climbers into a bunch of cock-thumping chumps whose single pitiful appreciation for a rock climb or boulder problem is the possible higher social rank doing that climb will put you in. That's it. That's what climbing is reduced to: the size of the patch of silver hair on your back and the length of your monkey dong dragging over the topouts.

So the question, "What is that?", drives me crazy because it's a sad signal that the existence of the boulder is its grade, and the climber asking me is a cock-thumping chump with no capacity to see a beautiful line, an interesting and pleasurable series of movements, curious geology, unique handholds, or even just be interested in the climb's name.

Which is actually how I usually evade the reduction of rocks and rock climbing to Vgrade penis measurement metaphors and answer the query with the climb's name.

"What is that?"

"I think it's called My Passive Aggressive Deflection. It's a beautiful line isn't it?"

Sit-Start Scavengers

The other day I went out to the boulderfield and ran into a posse of local bouldering glitterati. Shiny, young and muscled, they roved like a pack of sit-start scavengers, tearing at the boulders, desperate to make their mark. Cameramen in tow, the strongest among them lead the jackal pack to the nearest overhang. He lifted a leg and pissed on a bush they all backed away. He sat to work on a few hard moves and eventually the problem went. A quick shoulder massage from his friend of lesser size, and off those jackals went.

Green Climbing: Polishing a Turd

Sorry, but to all the climbers aspiring to be green out there, you won't get kudos from me. My respect for you does not increase, particularly when your preaching pays lip service to the cleverly marketed moral pretenses of your new sponsor. That Patagonia patch on your chest ain't a Sheriff's badge, and self-benefiting subterfuge ain't a way to be respectable.

Which is why, once and for all, let's drop the grand moral pretense from climbing. All together, let's jettison the quest for ethically justifying what we like to do. Read this five times over: there is absolutely nothing ethically or morally redeeming in climbing (that's good, now four more times). Climbing is a nasty habit, and all the grousing about ethics and morals in climbing amounts simply to the lies we tell ourselves to keep on doing what we like doing.

We'd do better to take climbing off its lofty mantel and think of it as the equivalent, morally and practically speaking, of golf. That way, when we ask "What is ethical climbing?" or "What is green climbing?" it's just like asking "What is ethical golf?" or "What is green golf?": totally absurd.

In the same way most folks think of golf, let's take climbing for what it is: leisure, pure and simple. It's nothing more than a pleasurable replacement for work, a luxurious freedom from duty or obligation.

Climbing "green" is just the latest symptom of our uneasy moral relationship with climbing. We know it's a good-for-nothing leisure activity, but we don't want to admit it. So we inoculate ourselves against a guilty verdict with crumby little admissions of guilt, and cute articles about how to carpool to the crag, or how to work a route on bolts then lead it on gear.

These inoculations won't work. The idea of morally good climbing retains all the integrity of a chossy crag held together with glue, bolts, and the competitive angst of questionable humans from Colorado.

If we really considered the full environmental and social price of our frivolous leisure, the good moral response would be to quit climbing.

But since no one's going to quit, can we just get on with it, guilty as charged, without the fucking pretense?