I'm not a climber at all, but I've done a little bit of climbing on an indoor wall, and a crowded day means you need to wait longer, which is a hassle, but I get the feeling there's a much clearer sense of how to wait for your turn, with less interference when it is your turn. No idea if this is the case for outdoor climbing, though, or at more advanced sites. I'd still prefer a less crowded day with shorter lines of course - but crowds on a surf break don't just make it take longer to get the experience of a ride, they can pretty well ruin it. That's a big part of why I only surf uncrowded beach break.
Crowds can be a problem at good beginner-friendly single-pitch crags, but yeah lining up for a popular route is pretty straightforward if annoying.
in the end for me ob is to hit or miss and the season is really only fall. 8ft+ ob when the solid winter swell come in gets crazy. spring and summer just blown wind. pacifica has weird locals and crap waves. hmb barely breaks and traffic sucks. fall surf at ocean beach is about as good as it gets though, ill miss that for sure. post covid ill get my perfect wave fill in hawaii, indo, central america i guess, ive saved so much money the last few months
Yeah? I've lived in SF and Santa Cruz. The quality of surf in Santa Cruz is vastly better, but the crowds are intense and at times pretty angry. I found it was less about localism, more about the anger of a large number of often very talented surfers competing for a scarce resource. I got longer, better rides in SC than I typically did in SF (by a 20-1 margin), but I'd have to maneuver for an hour to get priority for a few rides. They were glorious waves, though. Up here in SF, I tend to spread out on the beach break and find an uncrowded corner. Every thing has to line up just right to get a long, open, peeling wave out of a sand bar at OB or nearby beaches - whereas SC beaches (steamer lane, the point) generate this stuff pretty routinely.
But that's why it gets so edgy in SC. Everyone's in there, you finally get into position, it's your moment, you get maybe two of these every hour, and... someone paddles through the peak. Someone drops in. Even worse, that a someone is you, and you'll get barked at, at best (and while maybe the guy's being a dick about it, you really did fuck up). It's just too edgy, just boils over too much for my tastes. I know people say "well, don't do those things", but you'd be surprised how difficult that is. How do you know if you're deepest on a wave that breaks both directions? Did you drop in, or did someone snake? If you sit too far out, you'll miss the wave, and if you make it, there will be a sea of people you have to dodge. If you sit too far in, you may be staring down the barrel of a dozen surfers all taking off on the peak - and they'll either run you over, buzz you, or kick out of the wave and be really pissed that you ruined the ride that they spent the last 30 minutes getting ready for. Or, if someone does that to you, you kick out (better that than run the guy over), and now you're now caught inside and pissing off the next guy.
I surf regularly, and I'd much rather be in SF or Pacifica than in Santa Cruz. It's a trade off, though. If you want consistently high quality waves, SC does have more to offer.