White Rastafarian v3

From February 8th, 2023 This climb demands zero ego. As climbing has progressed in the past decade all I see is ego surrounding this problem. There’s a lot of lessons that White Rastafarian teaches us; possibly more lessons than any other climb in existence. Calling it v3 or harder is often a disguise for: Fear of the height, discomfort with the landing, ego insecurity about committing, etc. Modern climbers think “if it scares me, it must be a harder grade because I have climbed X Y and Z.” But the FA grade from John Bachar and John Long was not about fear, it was about movement difficulty & bold psychological control, and always was since the 1970s a V2. If you are closer to 5’ then I can understand why you might think it’s hard, just as I can think it’s hard at the bunchy mantle for my long leg which was the crux for me. But I encourage you to shed the ego. A climb doesn’t change, only climbers do. The rock in Joshua Tree hasn’t shifted. The smears haven’t grown smaller. The arete hasn’t moved. What has changed is the culture and expectations. For decades it sat peacefully at V2. No drama. No debates. It was just a bold test piece like so many JTree classics. Then modern grading culture came along, and people started saying this feels hard, this is tall, this is scary. All of these thoughts are the same thoughts that the first ascensionists had, but to a greater scale because at the time they didn’t even know how hard it was going to be. None of these things that modern climbers think about the boulder are wrong, but they’re also not the climb’s problem. The original grade carries the philosophy of the 70s era. Back then, Joshua Tree V2 meant exactly what we climb today; the same beautiful rock. That was the standard. Climbers today often want grades to reflect comfort and their ego, not truth. And White Rastafarian isn’t comfortable, it’s honest. When I hear someone of average height and ability say “nah this is harder than v2” what I am hearing is something deeper, which is, “This climb exposed a part of me I don’t want to acknowledge because of my ego.” When we stand below this boulder we all see the same thing just like the FA-ists, purity.