Growing up climbing in the 80's was more about getting out on the rock, to learn to move and figure out what climbing path you would take, mountaineering, alpine, traditional, or that new safe sport-climbing? Back then we learned while flailing on the rock ... how to move properly, get some strength and learn ... that was the main way to get better was simply learning and most of the time that learned experience translated directly into climbing harder. Today we have such diverse climbs that this method does not translate to becoming a better climber.
Today's routes require movements skills equal to strength, or vice versa. They are powerful and movement related. I will note that 90% of the harder routes have a continual overhang to them. The 80's style was mostly vertical to slight overhang, with only a small percentage in the continual overhang style. American Fork and the RRG had a few routes back in the 80's. Boone Speed and Porter Jared.
Once the 90's came in, the climbing scene full broke the envelope with power climbing on steep stone, most of this was on shorter sub 20m routes, except the RRG. Gullich fully set the stage on steep stone, hard bouldery routes, with maybe just a few bolts. he as well could climb vertical 8b+ with socks in his Boreal Ninja's. Moon followed suit on that style, others followed them by working on their routes and blending the 80's endurance. Tribout, Rabotou and Moffat were at the helm of that style, they could pull hard boulder problems and then keep that focus over long endurance climbs. The two of them put up the top end of the endurance 8b+ and harder. They had the tech style and the power combined, they trained like power boulderer's and did volumes outside to get the same level of endurance.
During that same time some North American climbers were following the Gullich/Moffat regime and producing short steep power 8b+/8c. Speed had Super Tweak, Dead Souls ... Todd Skinner had Throwing the Houlihan, Rodeo Free Europe, 8b+. In Canada Jim Sandford had Bravado 8b/8b+. Yes there were many other 8b+ in NA, but these were boulder style routes. Today we see the same thing in Margalef, Spain, Mollans sur Ouveze, France, except they are now in the 9th grade of difficulty and in the 20m length.
For years the sport climbing scene focused on long endurance climbs with 8b+ to 9b. massive 40+m routes. During that time only a few managed to send the old school short routes. Alex Megos truly transformed what we can do today, yes even over Adam Ondra. How is this possible? well Ondra is one of the finest rock climbers to date, he has the skill set of a technician with the power of a beast, he can send 9's that are 15m or 50m. So what about Megos? he is the new version of Gullich, he really has yet to hit a route that poses an issue to him, His power level is well beyond the rest, including Ondra. Ondra is a better climber, but Megos will set the new edge of the envelope, like Gullich did. How would I know this, well let's take a look at what I have learned and experienced, and you can decide.
Megos came to the Bow Valley and sent Bhunda de Fora, 9a, Levente Pinter's build and FA. Now the "Punter" is no slouch, he has bouldered V14 and climbed a lot of 8b+ and harder. BdF had denied a lot of climbers, and took one of the best in 2006 20+ tries to send, Dave Graham, and he was the man/machine back then. Megos took 3 ties in like half an hour to send it, while sending all other bouldery cryptic routes up at Acephale. His power level is like watching Connor McDavid skate easily around all NHL players and making it look like a beer league game ... even Sidney Crosby, who is the best player since Wayne Gretzky. Megos then added a new extension to an old abandoned line at the Raven crag and set it at 9b. He then proceeded to Squamish, BC to send Dreamtime, a super tech slab start on a 9a. He fell off that start numerous times, then once sent, he flashed the upper section, which is know as the crux. Most of the ascents had issues with the upper section and those senders are stronger than most top climbers. His power level is just that much more than the current top end climbers and there are a lot of them, Dani Andrada, Chris Sharma, Iker Pou, to name just a few. Just like back in the 90's with Moffat, Tribout, the LeMenestrel brothers, Didier Rabotou, Fred Nicole. and Ben Moon. Moon and Nicole kept to the short bouldery routes and Nicole just kept to blouldering and setting the bar for all boulderer's world wide.
Megos trained as a youngster and he did this in the new "school-room" way then hit the rock and sent the hardest routes with ease. The Cafe Kraft coaches trained Megos to climb and to climb harder than the existing generation. The same goes for Ondra, he trains to climb and does such with full on specific training to send a route. Most of the current generation train to climb and train to keep themselves able to send at their limit. They must climb a lot as well to stay in climbing shape to send. Chris Sharma, Edu Marin, Dani Andrada, Patxi Usobiaga, Seb Bouin ... to name a few of the more prolific 9 climbers and builders on them as well.
So what does training have to do with climbing? Well if you want to push yourself, you need to train and most of us train indoors. So you will need to take on plastic gym climbing in some form. What's the best form? is it bouldering or rope climbing? The past and present teaches us that bouldering is the way to get stronger, as roped climbing inside will not add to your strength, it will add some endurance, but only to the height of the gym, and even one that has 60+ft of vertical, will get you pumped out on the rock, on routes at your higher end. Bouldering specific will get you stronger, but specific means training power on steep terrain. If you can boulder V5 inside with confidence then you will be able to make gains by campus board on good rungs, and specific steep moves. Once in the good power end of V7, the campus board mid rings will help increase the contact strength of the fingers and hands. As you will have built up the pull strength on the good rungs.
Now bouldering is not just about sending an upper problem in a gym, it is about getting the body stronger so you can pull down on smaller holds on less steep walls and when it gets steep, which it will, then you have the power and base to be able to pull and move on that steeper ground and do such efficiently. As well all get pumped out, some just manage the efficiency better, like Ondra, where a Megos has so much power that he can be less efficient and still send. Canadian competition climber Sean McCall is a good blend of power and endurance, where Sonnie Trotter is a rock exemplar of this blend, power from his youth training and competing combined with stellar rock skills and experience to 9a. In my day for Canada we had Scott Milton, 8c/+ climber for 20 years, one of the best in North America. We really had no Megos, as Gullich passed away in 1992. Fred Nicole certainly had the way more power than any other climber, but applied his skills to bouldering and he as stated previously built modern day bouldering. Jim Karn took his Euro sending 8b+ skills to AF and obliterated the Hell area in a week. Some as well got close to the same but wet conditions thwarted on Dead Souls ... I Scream was not yet done, another Speed 8c/+ in the mid 90's. He was maybe the power climber of the 90's for the USA. However, he did build and send lots of the VRG routes and they are techy as can be. Steve Hong, Todd Skinner added greatly to that power style of climbing and Hong still seems to produce in his later years.
Just to provide a bit of background. Some of use got close to sending the Utah steep 8b+ or harder, failing on the second last move of Super Tweak numerous times ... so close to a full send of the wall in a week, 1995. Some of us were very proficient at steep climbing, sending most of the Utah Steep routes, except I Scream and S. Tweak, then moving to Lander and a couple as well escaped ... damn snow at 9,800ft! Same went for Rifle Skull cave, except that whole thing went down! (sometimes a good competitive edge works for me) However this may sound a bit egotistical, or to some lies, but all true, the last Lander trip was 1996. I built my power base in a basement cave, 50 to 60 degrees overhung, 8ft max vert, with 50 ft of varying 10 to 40 overhanging traverse wall. I had managed to send some hard endurance techy lines, but my focus was the steep terrain, Wild Iris, AF, Logan, and at home, Bataan and Acephale. I managed a few of Sandford's upper end steep boulder routes in Squamish as well. Up until 2006 I was able to send 8b+ ... We did not have the gyms to learn power and movement, but once available we used them as much as possible. Many of our home area steeper routes were all before the CCC in 1995.
Then along came Chris Sharma and Tommy Caldwell and as 15 year olds with the new school bouldering power from the gyms, obliterated Utah, all the Logan China cave routes, even adding the start to Blackout into full 8b+/c. Slightly easier than it's neighboring left line Super Tweak 8c. The Hell cave area posed no issues, neither did the techy endurance rig at the VRG Necessary Evil 8c+. So this new generation added that power to endurance and we got, Jumbo Love, 9a+/9b, Flex Luthor, 9a+/9b ... and then Sharma helped place Margalef and Oliana more on the map with numerous 9's. Caldwell created the historic Dawn Wall ascent. They moved the bar. They moved it by building a super strong power base, it seems that Sharma remains on the power end of things, while Caldwell has adapted into that techy out there aspect, while still remaining stronger than most strong upper end climbers.
The Euros are however a very different climber, Dani Andrada has probably climbed more 8b+ and harder than any other climber around, he lives climbing, a true guardian of sport climbing. The euros as strong and have stupid tech skills with endurance, they get to climb on stone likely 10 months a year. Some of us live in a place like Calgary where you may get 2 good months ... bummer!
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