Thanks - I never would have guessed. And that also works for me as a "technique" video, because there's good light to see what's happening inside the crack. (Never tried the two-fist method.)

If they had an indoor off-width around NY-NJ-eastPA, I'd practice it.

outdoors: I specifically got on Baby P1 to practice off-width, but was disappointed that the relevant section was so short.
What should I try instead?

Ken

yup-only one move of OW on Baby - a single arm bar.


Go where there's granite. Cathedral Ledge in NH is a good start if you can't get to Yosemite.

Have you been on it, RG? I have not, but looks like about halfway up it narrows to solid leg/knee size, so it should be fairly trivial levittation from there up. But the beginning looks wide - too wide for a knee to be secure. Really surprised it's 5.9 - that's a terrible size for me. Maybe I need to work out my footwork better on that size.

GO

It looks about the same as the OW at the top of Sacherer Cracker, though maybe longer. That section is only valley 5.9 (the 10a rating is because of the short fingers section lower). I once watched a guy whip repeatedly, maybe 5 or 6 times, from close to the top of that. Once he even had the rail in both hands and was too gassed to pull over. It was pretty entertaining.

Sacherer

Gabe, I've never been to a rock gym in California. The start looks like classic armbar heel-toe offwidth (no knee locks and too wide for leavittation).

The climber seems to be very good at flexing the inside-foot ankle and getting rubber on the rock with the inside foot. But some of the time he appears to be kind of reaching up with his armbars, which in my experience just creates next-day shoulder pain (you can't pull up on an armbar, the outer foot heel-toe has to propel you upward, so the armbar should stay at shoulder level).

If such things are pure (as the gym crack is intentionally), the difficulty is at least somewhat related to how long they are. If people are using a route as sandbagged as the Sacher Cracker as the standard for 5.9, well then...it is really 5.10 IMHO.