UKC

How big does a rock face need to be before it becomes a Big Wall? Or does it relate more to the style in which you climb it?

In reply to humptydumpty:

Something that takes the average person more than a day to do with a sensible approach I recon

In reply to humptydumpty:

Here's a good image that explains the subtle differences

http://www.vdiff.co.uk/#!british-american/ysdll

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

I always assumed 1000m, god knows where I plucked that from. But I think you've hit the nail on the head with your description.

In reply to humptydumpty:

I'd argue more the latter (not that I have any experience doing any of the things below).

If you have a 300m rock wall in the Alps with a multipitch 6b sport route on it that people whizz up in X hours from the hut, I wouldn't really think about it as a big wall. But in winter, the same rock wall might hold some horrific aid route that takes 3 days with a portaledge, which I would think of as a big wall.

What makes a crag a crag and not just some random steep rock? The fact that people go cragging on it. I think similar logic can be applied.

In reply to humptydumpty:

One where you wished you'd brought a stack more water.

In reply to Cheese Monkey:


That's probably quite a good definition.

On El Cap for instance, the locals do not judge the West Face and East Buttress to be " El Cap " routes, just the full height routes in between.

In reply to humptydumpty:

I'd have thought continuity has to come into it too. For example, the Tofana de Rozes is a sodding massive cliff but I wouldn't see it as a big wall because it's pretty broken.

In reply to chrismcd:


A kilometre plus sounds about right to me. Half a mile is probably not quite big enough.

In reply to Rick Graham:

Doesn't East Buttress go from the bottom to the top? Albeit on a shorter part of the wall than the other routes.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

1000m elevation?

In reply to 1poundSOCKS:


Yes. But the point I was trying to make, is that it is too easy and relatively quick to climb and so is not thought of as a " Big Wall "

In reply to Rick Graham:


I wouldn't see it as a big wall either, just a long multi-pitch. I've heard people say before it's not a proper El Cap route, and I never understood why.

In reply to humptydumpty:

Slightly bigger than a Medium Wall and much bigger than a Small Wall

In reply to zimpara:


Yes. There's obviously no need for it to be quite as wide.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:



Well that discounts the nose which is 880m... (according to Wikipedia, which is never wrong of course).

In reply to snoop6060:

OK, so maybe we should go back to saying 'upwards of about half a mile'. It all goes to show how daft it is to try and use an exact number (a bit like Munros ... imho)

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Perhaps we should say that if people think it's generally ok to have a shit mid-route then it's a big wall.

This defo includes the nose

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Munros' whole raison d'être is that they exceed an arbitrary, albeit round, number. Big walls, on the other hand, have come to be known as such by virtue of the different tactics usually required to get up them, compared to multi-pitch or Alpine climbing. The main distinction for me is that they involve en-route bivis because they're too long to ordinarily do in a day, and that they require hauling, as they're usually too steep and hard to be climbed with sacks.

It's probably easier to think of big walling as being a style of ascent rather than a description of any particular face, since in many cases the same route could conceivably be climbed in big wall, Alpine, multi-pitch or solo style. I've done 400m big walls, 1100m Alpine-style rock routes and 900m rock solos. The height of the face itself is only loosely relevant.

In reply to humptydumpty:

Bigger than medium and smaller than extra large

In reply to humptydumpty:

Not as big as the Great Wall. ...

In reply to humptydumpty:


A bit longer than a piece of string......

In reply to john arran:



I was musing about this over dinner. I was going to suggest the Regular NW Face Half Dome or the Nose as a benchmark route, particularly as they were the first Grade VI in the USA.
Anything more involved classed as a " Big Wall " route.

Then I looked up Big Wall definition.

According to Wiki.

"Big wall climbing is a type of rock climbing where a climber ascends a long multi-pitch route, normally requiring more than a single day to complete the climb. Big wall routes require the climbing team to live on the route often using portaledges and hauling equipment."

Seems spot on to me.

In reply to Rick Graham:


This is not entirely true. You can't truly claim to have 'free'd' El Cap via either of these routes, mainly because of their location on the cliff. East buttress is a trade route and barely on El Cap proper and can take only a few hours. The West Face on the other hand is definitely a proper El Cap big wall route in the same vain as routes like Astroman and the Rostrum, although by all accounts the West Face is a massive sandbag and a fair bit harder than these. Either way, you'll get laughed at if you claim to have 'free'd El Cap' having done the West Face. It's all a bit pompous really because is all subjective and doesn't really matter anyway.

Duncan

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

So Blåmannen in Kvaloya is not a big wall... Quite a lot of people might disagree on that... And Blåmann is only 400m at its highest point.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

and a bit smaller than a giant wall

In reply to MikeTS:

According to wiki

'The highest cliff (rock wall, mountain face) in the world, is Nanga Parbat's Rupal Face, which rises approximately 4,600 metres, or 15,000 feet, above its base. According to other sources, the highest cliff in the world, about 1,340 m high, is the east face of Great Trango in the Karakoram mountains of northern Pakistan. This uses a fairly stringent notion of cliff, as the 1,340 m figure refers to a nearly vertical headwall of two stacked pillars; adding in a very steep approach brings the total drop from the East Face precipice to the nearby Dunge Glacier to nearly 2,000 m.

The location of the world's highest sea cliffs depends also on the definition of 'cliff' that is used. Guinness World Records states it is Kalaupapa, Hawaii,[4] at 1,010 m high. Another contender is the north face of Mitre Peak, which drops 1683 metres to Milford Sound, New Zealand.[5] These are subject to a less stringent definition, as the average slope of these cliffs at Kaulapapa is about 1.7, corresponding to an angle of 60 degrees, and Mitre Peak is similar. A more vertical drop into the sea can be found at Maujit Qaqarssuasia (also known as the 'Thumbnail') which is situated in the Torssukátak fjord area at the very tip of South Greenland and drops 1,560 m near-vertically.[6]

Considering a truly vertical drop, Mount Thor on Baffin Island in Arctic Canada is often considered the highest at 1370 m (4500 ft) high in total (the top 480 m (1600 ft) is overhanging), and is said to give it the longest vertical drop on Earth at 1,250 m (4,100 ft). However, other cliffs on Baffin Island, such as Polar Sun Spire in the Sam Ford Fjord, or others in remote areas of Greenland may be higher.'