There's a piece on Mountain 112 (1986) where Jeff Smoot is discussing sport climbing in the US, in particular some of Todd Skinner and Alan Watts' ascents. There's this intriguing section
Skinner has been the dominant force in the current push for higher standards in America. His routes reflect his single- minded determination, such routes as The Gunfighter (5.13b) at Hueco Tanks, Texas, and City Park (5.13c) in Washington State. However, Skinner’s style in establishing such desperates is far from commendable. Both of these routes, for example, were, like The Stigma, sieged for several weeks, with all manner of tricks employed prior to their respective first ascents. And while Skinner insists upon doing his climbs in one day before claiming a free ascent, he does not, like the Europeans whose tactics he has adopted, insist upon redpointing a route before calling it free.
Redpointing is catching on in America, albeit slowly. While it is regularly practised on 5.11 and 5.12, many climbers have put this style aside for routes at the cutting edge. At Smith Rock, for instance, where redpointing has traditionally been the only acceptable style for a valid free ascent, such climbers as Watts have begun to abandon it. Thus, while Watts felt obligated to redpoint many of his early hard routes, such as Double Stain (5.13b), he has felt no such obligation to do so on the East Face of Monkey Face (5.13d).
Many of America’s top free climbers, however, seem to have adopted the European tradition of redpointing as their definition of free-climbing. For instance, on the first continuous free ascent of Utah’s Fallen Arches (5.13b), Dan Goodwin worked for 13 days before connecting the moves, but insisted upon returning to redpoint the route. Bob Horan did the same on Eldorado Canyon’s well-publicised Rainbow Wall (5.13a), as did Christian Griffith on Col orado’s current test piece, Desdichado (5.13b).
I'd always assumed that the eventual ascents on Stigma (aka Renegade) were done in redpoint style (with the modern definition of a redpoint, where you're doing the whole thing bottom to top in one go with no falls. The quote above makes it sound like the ascent was actually in some other style, maybe just doing all the moves free in a day?
🤯
That sounds so far away from the definition of 'doing a climb' that it can't be right. Even in the 50s if Joe Brown rested in a sling he called it out as a point of aid. Could the author be referring to yo-yoing the route as the opposite of a redpoint?
That sounds so far away from the definition of 'doing a climb' that it can't be right.
My thoughts exactly, certainly in the UK it's really hard to imagine anyone in 1986 considering something a free ascent if the climber didn't do all the moves bottom to top without a rest on the rope.
I think Jeff is still fairly active so I'll see if I can get in touch with him somehow and clarify what he was getting at.