pope

For what, the bullshit? Just kidding. Have fun.

Hemlock: This is Henri Baq. I had a bullet in me once. He carried me for 3 days. I owe him. He was a friend. Jemima Brown: Who's that man? Hemlock: That's Miles Mellough. He tipped off the people who put the bullet in me, an enemy. Jemima Brown: And him? Hemlock: That's Ben Bowman. He and I climbed a lot together. I'm going out to his climbing school and get in shape. Jemima Brown: Friends, enemies. Where do I fit in? Hemlock: I'm sorry, but you don't. Here's to the selfish killer and the patriotic whore. Jemima Brown: Do you have anything else to say to me? Hemlock: I usually keep a twenty in the bowl by the kitchen door. You might pick it up on your way out.

Oh my gosh! Is that true? You must be the first person ever to notice!

It's been climbed solo by a girl. Quit making excuses. Cowboy up.

"Oh, I think it's important that you lead."

Eiger Sanction transcript--mostly accurate

Beers to you. What's right is right, regardless of anybody's nationality or local traditions. Anybody here in Washington who can't afford a rack of gear (but mysteriously you can afford an impact drill)...you should borrow my rack before you drill bolts next to a crack. I'll even teach you how to place the gear.

Bravo! Way to export American values to the Olde World. Can't say I'm an expert but according to a few saints who routinely perform this service, the best solution is often to saw off the bolt, then use a large punch to knock it deeper into the hole, followed by cosmetic amendments.

Me and some buddies were getting tanked one night and came up with this peronal add for the Stranger: "Make my enormity your priority."

Superfluous Bolt (just kidding), Candy Land, EBGB's, ZZZ, Run for Your Life, Equinox (I toproped it), Coarse and Buggy, Streetcar Named Desire. Don't forget to go hiking! Running wild through the Wonderland of Rocks or the drainages down Queen Mountain with nothing but a water bottle and a loin cloth. Late nights with Wild Turkey under the Milky Way while coyotes yap and cold winds compel you to move closer to the hypnotic leaping flames of a burning pallet. There’s nothing quite like a week (or three) in Joshua Tree. Go wild in Joshua Tree.

That's interesting. When I was obsessed with climbing, back when I was around 20 years old, I used to train twice a day, with bouldering, pullups, grippy things, hangs, etc. After a year or so, my left elbow started to hurt. I kept climbing and training, it hurt even more. I quit climbing for a bit, and it hurt even more. And that's when my right elbow started to hurt. I quit climbing much of anything for a year but still no relief. It hurt to drive my car and turn the pages of a book. I tried ice, heat, bracing, stretching. Nothing worked. Then I got an outdoor job doing low-skill landscaping. By the end of the summer, my elbows felt better. After two summers of that, I was 100%. I couldn't do as many pullups, but I was climbing four letter grades harder (and rarely got pumped). I joined a gym in Seattle and the pain began to return. This time I tried deep muscle massage and that helped, but the thing that seemed MOST effective was weight training for muscle groups not as likely to get used on steep rock. I did lots of military press and bench press work at a variety of angles, and lots of shrugs. I worked with dumbells which allowed me to keep my wrists and forearms in their most natural rotations. What makes me think this was effective is that when I neglected to do it, pain and numbness returned, but when I kept up with it, I could train almost as hard as I wanted. I thank Erik Winkelman for suggesting this strategy. The other thing I did was that I trained only a couple of days a week (sometimes three). I felt so much healthier that way. Everybody is different, and I'm no doctor. Don't take this as advice, just some anecdotes about how I solved my problem.

Not true. Change in equipment and attitudes throughout the history of climbing is well documented. Free climbing old aid lines, hard free soloing, dynamic ropes, sticky rubber, the clean climbing revolution with nuts, Friends and a variety of similar devices for parallel-sided cracks. There's been plenty of change. Even 12-point crampons. You'll notice that everything in my list has one thing in common: they don't impact the experience of subsequent climbing parties by leaving a mess on the rock. Mister E, you're back to your premise: change is good and you have to accept it. I see the same mentality in my profession where countless dollars are thrown at efforts to "reform" education when often the proposed changes aren't proven to be better than the current practices. Change can be good, it can be terrible. When a change is made and the consequences are arguably negative, we should consider another change, perhaps a change back to what we were doing previously.

Are you qualified to make such summaries?

Yes and no. Sport climbing and the mess it leaves has NEVER been demonstrated to be necessary for advancing standards. I don't want to hold anybody back, and I'm certainly inspired by skilled climbers who move rapidly over difficult terrain in good style. I just don't think sport climbing is the ONLY way to improve climbing skill and fitness. Nobody can make the case that without sport climbing, standards wouldn't have advanced. Prior to sport climbing, more and more difficult climbs were getting done and many of the "ultimate" climbs in Yosemite were getting climbed in record time. The trend toward competence had been going on for decades prior to sport climbing. Climbers devoted to the sport were training on finger boards, lifting weights, bouldering, doing circuits in the Camp IV "gym". These guys found a way to get incredibly strong without making a mess. Suddenly in the 1980s, gratuitous bolting was promoted as a necessary evil for increasing standards. Who is to say that without sport climbing, this push toward difficulty and mastery would have ceased? I'm not buying that argument. The only attempt at making this argument amounted to dropping a couple of names of accomplished climbers who happened to endorse sport climbing. I have no doubt that sport climbing helped them gain climbing skill and fitness, but to say they couldn't have done it any other way is pure speculation.

Hey Hawkeye, with your utilitarian approach to rock climbing ("I don't really like the thought, but the movement is fun"), and considering his environmental record, I'm amazed you're not already in GWB's corner!

Is that at Smith? I thought I was on Ring of Fire but I can't remember much except that after doing the crux, I looked down and the first thing I noticed was my girlfriend's cleavage. Now that can be a dangerous distraction, but next I noticed about eight feet of slack sitting on the ground between me and the belay device. Then I remember some guys in lycra who had been "working" the route all day. They shouted up some encouragement about how I was "home free" and could probably find a rest about 10 feet higher at some "bomber jugs". I arrived at the rest to find hand jams....a REAL rest... but no jugs. The only jugs I remember seeing were back at the belay. Wink wink.

does strokin yourself make that rope stiff? Maybe your rope. Anyway, this ain't spray, so save your Ronald McDonald comments for the pirate forum.

And that's one of my major objections to sport climbing. I've clipped up a couple of routes that I know were rap bolted and was left with a favorable opinion of the climbing. Maybe one or two routes like this would improve the nature of a crag, or maybe if sport climbing were confined only to steep cliffs devoid of any crack climbs...maybe then it would be tolerable. The BIG problem is (and this was predicted by what used to be a majoritiy of climbers who objected to sport climbing back in the 1980s), there seems to be NO restraint. I've seen sport routes go in at Castle Rock within six feet of long-standing classic gear routes, I've seen bolted cracks and chipping. We have witnessed alpine sport routes go up in wilderness areas for crying out loud, and many of the creators of this mess are old and experienced enough to know better! The bottom line is that rap bolting is too friggin' easy and that too many climbers don't think twice about limiting their impulses. We've got a mess. We should be embarassed with the choices we've made.

Here's some commentary from a handful of folks who aren't allowed to comment on this site: read me.

First of all, please quote me the study, since you work in the field, in which it has been determined beyond a shadow of a doubt that "thousands of fish" were killed as a direct result of snowmobile exhaust per se. I'll bet you're speculating and/or inventing data, but you're invited to demonstrate otherwise. Second, as you mentioned, snow mobiles will eventually abandon the oily two-stroke engines. Interesting that the snow-mobile crowd can learn to improve their environmental practices while, in the last 20 years, the "tread lightly" idea has nearly disappeared from rock climbing. Thirdly, even with the current status of snowmobile use, those guys are pretty spread out, their numbers are not large. Allow me then to invent some speculative data which is probably correct: the environmental impact of automobile traffic in and out of Smith Rock since the arrival of sport climbing is probably greater than that of all snowmobile recreation in the state of Oregon. It's interesting how opponents of sport climbing are criticized for hanging on to their "traditions" for no other reasons than nostalgia and being inflexible in their thinking. Yet, sport climbing has been around for two decades in the U.S. and I submit that its impacts are ready for review. In saying that "the ship's course will never be corrected" it sounds like you are comfortable with your traditions and inflexible in YOUR thinking, incapable of recognizing that there might be another way. This is the old "there's something worse next door, so this is OK" argument. It's kind of embarassing to hide behind a bigger problem when we should be solving our own. Well then, in that case maybe you'd be in favor of getting snowmobiles in there so that we can really take advantage of the place? We're just putting the word out for younger climbers who will one day reject the direction that your generation decided to go.

No doubt that climbing difficult sport routes will make you a stronger climber and possibly improve your skills. But several questions need to be asked. (1) Would the standards found throughout the various activities related to mountaineering have increased without sport climbing? Probably. Isn't climbing more and more difficult routes just the natural evolution of the sport? (2) Were standards increasing before bolts and sport climbing became so pervasive? (The answer is YES). Again, isn't climbing more and more difficult routes just the natural evolution of the sport? (3) Are there other forms of training that are less destructive but equally effective for increasing skills and fitness? Bouldering, gym climbing, toproping (let's face it, that's pretty much what sport climbing amounts to anyway), not to mention a bunch of dirty 5.12 climbs at Index that could probably handle some traffic. (4) Even if you believe that only sport climbing could have brought us today's difficulty standards, is this worth the cost of the negative impacts sport climbing has produced? I suppose "super alpinists" are pretty inspiring, but I could live without the latest copy of the Alpine Journal if we could see Vantage and Smith Rock return to pre-1986 status. (5) Suppose the next generation of climbers believes that only through chipping holds and injecting steroids can the sport truly advance to the next level. Will we endorse such activities in the name of a couple of extra letter grades?

Impossible is a strong word. I don't have the details in front of me, but it's documented that, for example, the Huber brothers have put up long routes on steep rock at a 5.13 and even 5.14 standard...all on the lead and with respectable distance between bolts. I'm impressed and amazed by such climbing. Yes, they are using bolts but in a real and demanding situation and with great restraint.

I agree. This is a problem. Right, it's not environmentally damaging in the way an oil spill is. It has more to do with aesthetics and recreation in the outdoors. Every time a line of bolts is placed on rappel, it presents a blemish on the landscape, the environmental impacts of the crowd attracted thereto notwithstanding. The result is that every subsequent climbing party in the area near the route is impacted. Also, the new bolts erase a potential new route for any future party that would like to climb it boldly from the ground up, to actually ASCEND (that idea used to be important) the rock while fighting to get an occasional bolt for protection while their lives actually depend on it. If you don't leave the rock the way you found it, you are no longer talking about the "style" of the climb, you're talking about ethics, and I would like to see rock climbing move closer to a "leave no trace" ethic. Let's pratice restraint in bolting. Let's save bolting for those who are bold enough to do it while ascending. First of all, you're assuming I'm looking down my nose. That may be the case, or it could just be that I'm sharing a space with folks who leave what I consider to be garbage all over the rock. These days I have very little interest in developing my ego through rock climbing. I'm too friggin' busy with life and its obligations to worry about whether climbing gives me some kind of special status or worth. I think you're right about that....if you'll be so kind as to read my post, you'll learn that while I tried sport climbing a couple of times many years ago, these days you won't see me carrying a rack of quick draws if we ever meet at Index.

It's interesting that as soon as I submitted my previous post, I noticed a new response from Geek the Geek, and sure enough, he/she brought up the 12-point crampon history. Predictable.