Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Climbing, But Were Afraid To Ask

[rydra_wong]

This is a post where you can ask all the questions you're always wanted to ask about climbing, whether you've already started or are just beginning to think about maybe possibly kind of giving this a try.

Or maybe you've been climbing for decades, and have always wondered about that one thing, and by now it would be OMG TOO EMBARASSING to admit you don't know.

No topics are off-limit, no questions too clueless, so let rip and get answers from demi-n00bs experienced climbers.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

I've never seen anything harder than V10 at the gym, but I'm sure they exist outside.

I think I've seen a V11 at the place where I climb, but it was only after they'd had someone very high-powered guest-setting.

Outside, the current hardest problems in existence are V14s and V15s, with a very few possible V16s. But only a tiny handful of people in the world climb at that level.

ETA: thank you for pitching in!

[jumpuphigh]

I was watching a vid today of Sharma working a bouldering problem that apparently had never been sent and when he finally did it, he said something along the lines of "if I was to rate that, I would give it a V15 but I am not going to rate it." I both laughed in amusement at his "it really doesn't matter what it's rated cause it was H-A-R-D! attitude" and boggled at the idea of V15.