Well, so far, it has not worked out very well that way. When I was climbing a lot, I had a pretty good discernment for shades of difficulty in climbing. Since I no longer do rated climbs, I currently have almost no discernment. But I can climb up things in slot canyons fairly well. There are SOME canyoneers that also climb, but…
I just don’t see it working.
But perhaps you could give it a kick-start, Bootboy and Gordon. Name 10 canyons and suggest a climbing rating for their moves.
Tom
Kevin
Thanks for the video, that downclimb looks pretty sweet. Have to get out there to give this one a shot soon.
Kevin
ratagonia
Awesome! The downclimb looked fun, to that point.
Tom
Hikster11
This is referred to as the 3rd rappel in the book. It looked like an easy down climb. The book says 85 ft and I think that is correct. This is after the silo that you have to stem over the top. The last part can not be down climbed as the canyon get too wide. This should just be rappelled.
This is the stem over the first silo
Hikster11
In my opinion this was not a difficult canyon but If you do not like high stemming it could be very scary. I think I have a video where I down climbed most of the 100 ft drop. I rappelled the last 30 ft of the 100 ft drop. It would be very difficult to down climb the last part of it. I will post it when I get a chance.
Ram
Nice. You sounded pretty excited about the experience at the VC. Thanks for sharing the info and hopefully the video.
Cheers
Ram
Scott Patterson
One “problem” with ratings is that they are often depending on body size. In some canyons, the stick folk can squeeze through, while the hefty folk have to climb high.
gajslk
A very good question. I won’t be much help. I avoid all R and X rated slots because of their amorphous nature. Age and shape have a bit to do with it, too. I’m old enough to worry about getting hurt and too old to get a charge out of cheating death. Even though I’m slender, I’m also so thick through the chest that I have to go high in Egypt 3 and over and out in Zero Gravity. That makes me nervous that the published difficulty may not apply to me and I’ll find something harder than expected. It’s worse than contemplating an old-school 5.9. I do know that a canyon with a 5.10dX OW crux gets an X rating … and that’s about all. So I don’t go into any.
Gordon
ratagonia
Best evaluations I have heard on Sandthrax is 5.11 a or b OW or C2 5.10a. No X involved, takes protection well, if you bother to bring it.
Almost all climbs are X if you don’t bring any protection along. Although it is fair to say that the fellow that fell out of the crack high up and ground-fell did not get seriously hurt…
Tom
Kuenn
Well said…and can relate.
As for the discussion of adding a YDS rating to canyons, I’m all-in for that. Could certainly assist in the vetting process for casual canyoneers, as well as others.
Bootboy
I need to get into more of these slots that are well known. I’d be happy to assess and ad my input. The few obscure slots I’ve done with any appreciable amount of high- stemming wouldn’t mean much to the community.
Give me some suggestions as to which slots I might add to a list to rate.
John Diener
I’ll throw out a couple of popular or well-known canyons for which a rating would be interesting:
– Hogs (any/all)
– Trail
– Tracheotomy / Witch’s Cauldron
– Chambers
– Psycho D
One problem is that the canyon environment often provides multiple ways to get past a single obstacle… so for any rated moves in these canyons, a description of what was done needs to go along with the rating.
-john