UKC

Any ideas?

What technological advance has allowed climbing to advance the most? Ropes? Pro? The internet? Or maybe just the plain old car?

What do you choose? And what has its impact been?

Humour me.......

In reply to dan cowley: The bolt. Done more for pushing the standards than anything else IMHO.

Andy F

In reply to dan cowley:

I'd say sticky shoes. Having said that Ivar Berg did do the Scoop in bare feet!

In reply to Chris Tan Ver. XLIX SP2: maybe he had sticky feet.

In reply to dan cowley: chocolate....

Best hill food ever!

Cx

In reply to dan cowley:

1. Bolt.

2. Sticky rubber.

3. Bouldering mats.

4. Friends.

5. Chalk.

(In that order)

In reply to dan cowley:

tevas....approach shoe and flip flops all in one. (just not good for walking down off the cromlech in)

In reply to dan cowley:

s'gotta be the car, right?

Climbers being able to travel to remote mountain areas or crags, even just within the UK has led to sharing of knowledge, ideas, grades, etc.

In reply to dan cowley:

Sticky rubber
Chalk
The bolt
DHSS

In reply to dan cowley:

7075 T6 and 6061 aluminium alloys

In reply to dan cowley:

Impact = less impacts

The bolt is getting many votes, are you guys meaning from a very early setting (as in hammer in pitons?) or the newer type of expansion bolt?

Pish Pah - chalk. Thats not technology!!!!!

In reply to dan cowley:

Spandex, it enabled the 80's sports climber and trad climber to ascend even higher on the geek factor of climbing

In reply to dan cowley:
Been reading some classic climbing literature and Chris Bonnington writes how the massive steep routes being put up in the Dolomites etc simply were not possible before the advent of the expansion bolt so that has to be a pretty major influence on climbing in that sort of environment.

In reply to dan cowley:

Ropes. Ones that actually absorb, rather than snapping.
Unless you fancy sport climbing on hemp?

In reply to dan cowley:

budget airlines

In reply to dan cowley:
depends what you mean by climbing.

At one end of the spectrum, crampons revolutionised ice-climbing and Himalayan mountaineering, as did the short axe, (McInnes)

At the other end of the spectrum, what about bouldering mats?

But my choice would be, hand placed protection, nuts etc.

In reply to Fredt:
If you want to include snow/ice climbing, it was the curved axe, pre McInnes's Terradactyls.

In reply to dan cowley:

The car and modern roads.

In reply to dan cowley:

The sit harness and guide books.

In reply to dan cowley:

This is actually hard, my natural inclination would have been either nuts on wires on the basis that I would not like to embark on a climb without them. But then the same would apply to dynamic ropes and sit harnesses. So on reflection I'll go with dynamic ropes.

For the frivilous answer I'll go with Geese.

In reply to Rid Skwerr:

Yes, surely nylon ropes is Number 1 ?

Specialist climbing shoes - e.g. PA-->EBs-->Sticky boots

Nuts on sewn slings---> Rocks/Wallnuts etc etc

Camming devices (Friends)

Sit-harness

Belay device - in particular, sticht plate


Personally wouldn't say chalk was a major innovation.

In reply to dan cowley:

Ron Hills, Shirley?

In reply to Norrie Muir: yes, curved the right way, I had a pair of the clog axes (vultures?) which were no better on knuckles than terrodactyls

In reply to Marc C: Oiy, get back under your star ridden rock you!

I'd have to say leather patches on tweed jackets for grit climbing.

In reply to dan cowley: indoor walls have made a big contribution to standards. 20 years ago there were very few about

In reply to dan cowley:
Gutenberg and Caxton?

In reply to Marc C:

Right on Marc, none of the others are any use without ropes that do not often break, but stretch to absorb some of the fall. Nuts with hemp, one of them would fail,

Rock shoes only improved grades a bit, look at the average climber and the grades they climb were achieved over a hundred years previously. Nuts and decent karabiners made climbing safer for the masses, a lot less would be pushing the grades without them, and routes like Cenotaph would still be a top climbers route.

In reply to sutty: Good points. I'm not climbing that much harder now than I did 25 years ago (NB in EBs, no chalk, no climbing wall training).

In reply to dan cowley:

I'll vote for the two John Brailsford inventions; acorns and moacs, the first proper nuts.

In reply to Alison Stockwell: I miss my moac. it just seemed to slot in anywhere.

In reply to Glyn Jones:

I've still got one somewhere.

In reply to dan cowley:

cams

In reply to Alison Stockwell: I think mine went with my old climbing partner Adam.

You are very lucky

In reply to woolsack:

I never used factory made curved axes, other than Terrodactyls, until 2 years ago. The modern axes are superiour, but not revolutionary, like the origional curved axes.

In reply to Glyn Jones:

I still use my MOAC wedge.

Regularly. (Well, at least as regularly as I get to climb these days!)

In reply to JamieAyres:

<<sits in corner jealously>>

In reply to dan cowley: as somone who climbed on a hemp waist band ,and screwgate crab on it ,and the rope clipped to that ,,i think the thing that changed all our lives was the first ever nuts for protection, drilled out nuts literaly,and then the forerunners of the modern nut...changed everything

In reply to Fiend:

Bollocks!

In no particular order

None of the things you list have revolutionised climbing...

Ones that have are;

Nylon ropes, that permitted a leader to fall and survive,

Climbing shoes, possibly,

New ice gear (front points and curved picks) for ice climbing fast, possibly.


The only one I'm sure of though is the nylon ropes.

In reply to Norrie Muir: have you found the modern axes a quantum leap? the fact of not having to cut steps must be the step forward. That was ballsey climbing

In reply to dan cowley:

No-one has mentioned synthetic shock absorbing rope. Before that there were hemp ropes which led to the dictum that "The leader never falls".

Hemp ropes absorbed the energy created in a fall about as well a thread of cotton.

I think it was the move from hemp to synthetic rope which was one of the greatest contributions to the post war surge in Grades.

When you look back at those early and even not so early pioneers who climbed on hemp ropes it makes you realise just how bold they were in putting up some of the routes they did.

In reply to Alison Stockwell:

I know Basil claimed to invent the MOAC but what was an Acorn?

I think anyone who climbed before proper belay devices will probably vote for the Schict Plate. They did take a lot of uncertaincy away.

In reply to woolsack:

I found step cutting real hard. It was great to then 'front point' up routes, the tools were good for the time, however the modern tools are great. I only started using Pulsars 2 years ago and are amazed with them. However, thin ice routes have not progressed with modern tools.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


Sorry Bruce, I have just noticed this - didn't read your post through properly the first time!

In reply to Norrie Muir:

In the ice climbing scene modern axes and crampons have probably been the biggest leap forward, mostly eliminating step cutting as you say.

A friend who died later of cancer said even he could climb ice with them with confidence, he was usually a belay bunny for good climbers on rock.

In reply to sutty:

Not really, it allowed that masses to get up old routes, the masses still don't do 'thin ice' routes.

In reply to Chris Tan Ver. XLIX SP2:

You are thinking of Stanley Jeffcoat.

In reply to dan cowley:

Very hard to say which of the following was the most important breakthrough: nylon ropes, not to mention thin nylon rope and tape slings; the first climbing shoes (PAs); the first custom-made nuts (clogs, hexes and the MOAC); and the first belay device (the Sticht plate). In some ways the latter was probably the biggest breakthrough in safety. Almost overnight climbing became several hundred per cent safer, with failures by the belayer to hold the leader - very often with fatal results - being rendered a thing of the past.

In reply to dan cowley:

Microfriends and RPs. Where would be hard Britsh trad climbing without them? Still at E5 I guess!

In reply to dan cowley:

Campus / fingerboards
Broccoli steamers
Toothbrushes
Beanies (more aerodynamic than previous wooley hats).

;-P
HD.