Thought

Bouldering. Is it too hardcore for mainstream recognition? I'm reading the ron book at the moment, and it strikes me as the thing which gets you widespread recognition isn't the hardest moves you can do but routes. Punters don't get boulders, they think that its about going up high. How often have you been asked 'how high have you been then?'. They don't ask what's the smallest hold you've pulled on, or the hardest move you've done is.

Anyway, that's not the point, the point is that bouldering is too specialist for widespread recognition. If you want to be a big name, you have to do hard routes.

The thing with bouldering is that its the distillation of the essence of climbing. None of the faff of ground up or of grabbing the belay, pre clipped bolts, top rope practice etc, its you either climbed the line or you didn't.

The thing with routes is that hard ones are enchainments of boulder problems separated by plodding. So the extrapolation of the bouldering = doing hard moves is that being able to do hard moves after some rumbling is harder than bouldering. I suppose the argument ben moon once made which is that one day somewhere, someone will be doing a sequence of moves where its just too hard to take a hand off to clip. And then what's the difference? Who cares how you do it? Surely its about the climbing rather than the logistics of protection?

In fact, when you think about it, the higher you go, the more recognition you earn - right the way up to mountaineers at the top of the scale. If its kudos you want, bouldering is not where its at.

I might get to do some routes this weekend. To be honest I'm a bit scared. But what better therapy than a bit of aversion?