I avoided having an 8a scorecard until a few months ago, preferring instead to log my ascents and notes about my ascents in a small climbing journal. Actually, over the years, I’ve accumulated 5 climbing journals. But if I’m going to be honest, I’ve been using 8a as a source of information for probably ever since I learned about it. I would confirm grades on problems I’d climbed, or see what my friends and elite were up to, or even just read articles or find videos to watch. I would use 8a to find out what problems other girls were doing in bouldering areas I was visiting. All of this in secrecy. I would close the door to my office and delete the history from any computer I thought some other climber might use after me. 8a was a site I tried to act like I didn’t find much interest in. The thing is, like many others, I DID find 8a interesting and useful!!
I first heard about 8a in Hueco Tanks in 2003. It was definitely cast in a negative light in the circle I climbed with. At that time, the guides and Hueco diehards were “kind-of” against grades, although everyone that spent season after season in Hueco was trying to send harder and harder-graded projects. Hueco is indeed where I learned how to full-on siege a project that was one grade harder than I had done before. I projected Mopboys for over a month before I finally sent my first V6. And again Mushroom Roof for my first V8. Over and over again, trying to jump up the grades. Yet, this was okay as long as you never mentioned the grade of your project.
Me on Mushroom Roof in Hueco Tanks before the Mushroom Boulder was closed.
As guides, we walked groups of boulderers into East Spur Maze for their first time and the first problem they’d see they’d ask, “What is that?”
“Jig Saw Puzzle”, you’d say and you knew what was coming next.
“What’s the grade on that?” they’d ask, and you, as a guide would wince a little, and put yourself on a self-proclaimed pedestal because you were enlightened and they were not.
“V4” you’d reply apparently disgusted.
Then they’d see “Better Eat your Wheaties” and they’d ask the same question, and you’d say, “V4.”
And slowly they would learn not to ask about grades. That’s how I learned about grades. While I see the point of trying to take the emphasis off grades, because there certainly are many good reasons to de-emphasize grades, this is SPORT after all and athletes in all sport seek improvement and like to gauge their own improvement.
Let’s face it, gauging self-improvement is a very difficult thing to do in climbing as opposed to say something like running events where skill can be absolutely quantified by a distance or a time. In climbing, every accomplishment we have is different than any other we previously had in climbing and we have to gauge ourselves somehow by a very subjective measure. I posture it is a very fun measure, and I give props to John Sherman for coming up with it. If I’m going to be honest, I LOVE our grades. Honestly.
That being said, it does not entirely drive me in the sport as there are certainly other measures of progress. Take the past few weeks for instance. It’s finally cold enough to boulder at Horse Pens 40, where the boulderfield is infamous for being sandbagged, perhaps to keep certain “grade-chasing sprayers” away. I have finally been sending problems which for years I could not do; Waterloo, Suspicion, Lawdog. So progress right, but not in grades.
Waterloo V8 from Patti Wohner on Vimeo.
Me on Waterloo in Horse Pens 40 during Boulderween 2013, hence the red wig!Anyway, I never had an 8a scorecard until a few months ago. Then I decided I would create a logbook on 8a to enter in my boulders from V7 and above because I wanted to see my progress over the years. Once I entered everything, I found out that in order to get a score across years, you had to make your scorecard public. This is what I took issue with and had to think about for a while. Did I really want my score to be public? What was this saying about me? I thought about what my friends from Hueco and Flagstaff would say who still don’t have scorecards to my knowledge and I know would judge me for climbing for the “wrong reasons”.
I looked at the women who made their cards public. Not many of the strongest female climbers that I know about have their scores public. However, seemingly most of the top male athletes are reporting their top ten climbs publicly on 8a. I wondered about this discrepancy. Why are so many strong women missing from 8a? Are women just not very good at dealing with competition? Is it still culturally frowned upon for women to report their accomplishments and take pride in them? Or do the top female athletes honestly not care about 8a? Still not sure of the answer, maybe I’ll find out, but until that time, I’ve decided I’m going to be loud and I’m going to talk about my accomplishments. I’m going to make my scorecard public, and I’m going to keep it that way regardless of whether I am winning or losing, and despite lovers and haters.
Power of Silence V10 from Patti Wohner on Vimeo.
Short video of me doing Power of Silence a few weeks ago in Hueco.