mattp

Allright, well here I'll insert myself. You (Rumr) would call for the route to be removed because (presumably) bolts were placed near a crack - but you wouldn't accept cleaning the crack to take gear? I don't clearly remember the climb but I thought it was fun and I don't remember thinking those cracks off to the left were part of the route. The photo looks like you might do as Fender is suggesting and clean the crack out for pro only, but that is certainly a novel approach to a climb! Now we WOULD be approaching the rules of a gym climb where you say "only use the holds marked with the blue tape!" We tie ourselves in some funny knots some times.

I'm not really looking to insert myself into this "argument" such as it is so much as I'd just like to get out for some easy climbing. What do you say Mr. Four? Got plans?

If somebody wants to head over there for the day tomorrow I might be game. Send a P.M.

With my sunday school class I visited services at about a dozen different churches, temples, Quaker meeting, etc. at age 12. The fact that there were so vastly different approaches to worship made a big impression on me.

I'd have to say that I don't get this "if you have not climbed it you are not qualified to judge it" comment. Given Joseph's consistent views on these topics, can any of us doubt what his conclusion would be if he actually climbed the route? I suppose you may dismiss his opinion about whether it was well done or not as compared to other climbs within its genre, based on the idea that his judgment on this question is not finely tuned since this is not his kind of climbing anyway, but I don't think you can say "you have no right to an opinion unless you climb it." Reasonable minds can differ as to the quality of the route, whether it is the most important issue in Washington climbing or even important at all, and what would be the merits of removing or maintaining it, or any number of other things. In my opinon you don't have to climb every route in Wasington to have an opinion about a style of climbing.

There certainly is a difference between climbs that are entirely or mostly bolt-protected, and those which have the occasional bolt; and as to heavily bolted climbs there is a difference between climbs that are "sport-bolted" and those which may be more sparsely bolted. Part of Joseph's initial point, which perhaps has been minimized through this discussion, was that he felt these great climbers were showing more restraint in this respect than their less gifted breathren. I am not sure that, as a rule, that assumption holds up. Certainly, though, there is a lot of crack protected climbing on The Nose and on Prussik Peak.

We may or may not be seeing the magnificant culmination of hundreds of years of climbing development in the attainment of 5.15 or whatever but even if such remarkable physical performance is a thing of glory that may never be surpassed, I'm surprised you wouldn't hold such athletes to a HIGHER standard, not a lower one. In most other areas of sport, the top echelon are expected to be pure - though of course we've seen drug scandals in baseball and cycling - and in many areas of sport the equipment is regulated down to the minutae to assure they are competing on "equal footing." In golf, for example, it is not the pro's who get to take the handicap. Can anybody say it was really NECESSARY to rap bolt on El Capitan so that magnificant deeds can be accomplished? What really was the value of this, and what was the statement they were making? Isn't El Cap, the greatest icon of American rock climbing, and the first ascent route in particular, the shrine of American rock if there ever was one? I'm not really attacking the accomplishments of these very gifted and dedicated climbers, but I'm curious about this idea that they deserve to employ practices that should be forbidden to lesser climbers.

I'm surprised that you would call it "rhetoric" to conclude this is a power-seeking administration in view of Bush's record of the use of signing statements, his sacking generals who told him his war plan was ill advised, his frequent assetion that presidential perogative dictates he abandon decades of practices regarding torture, law enforcement, etc., and his dismissal of our traditinal allies as "old europe," or his record of appointing Department of Justice employees and judges based on their likely loyalty rather than qualifications. Do you simply think this is "politics as usual" or do you hate freedom? I'm not convinced that the administration abides by all court rulings that don't go in their favor, but you have a point when you note that it is unlikely Bush will declare marshall law and try to stay in office.

I'm not sure that statement couldn't apply to virtually every "generation" of climbers since about the time of the first ascent of Mont Blanc.

If what you are saying is that the question is whether they thought they were doing the right thing or not, I guess I'd say that they probably thought they had reasons for what they were doing. As far as your formulation, "the subset of searches in question didn't require a warrant" I call B.S.: the law CLEARLY applied. And that "the ends justified the means?" perhaps. But "to impose a corporato-fascism on the public under the guise of promoting national security in order to enrich the sinister cabal that put them in power?" That is pure rhetorical hyperbole JayB style, and it clearly obscures the point it refers to. The fact is, at virtually every juncture of this "War on Terror," the Bush folks have figured out a way to conclude that the President and his men have all power, and Congress, the Courts, Allies, even five star generals, are only in the way and must be put out of the way if they disagree. I'm not sure this is "coporato fascism..." blah blah blah. But it is just plain power. And it has been applied so as to serve private profit. As a nation, our international prestige has beem severely damaged by the obvious demonstration that we are no more interested in human rights or respectful of foreign national sovereignity than the worst of those we criticize; we are less prepared for war than we were before all this began, and we are no more secured from terrorist attack than we were six years ago. Is THIS the fault of those Birkenstock wearing metrosexuals for whom you have such great disdain?

I'm not sure I get your point about the time it takes to get a warrant, Jay. Were not FISA warrants specifically designed for this, and don't they apply retroactively? The Bush team didn't want to be bothered to have to go back to get a warrant after the fact! CNN Yes, they had a bit of trouble with the FISA court, and about 3% of their warrants were "modified" (a couple rejected). UPI I'm not sure what happens when a FISA warrant it "modified," but my guess is that it doesn't mean that record of an important al queda communication is shredded and the perpetrator left unwatched. Is this 3% rate of court restriction a sign that maybe the Bush team was overreaching, is this all the fault of the evil Democrat pansy judges who hate freedom, or is it merely a sign that the court was doing its job and perhaps some small percentage of the warrants sought were somehow overbraod or had other flaws? Either way, I think there WAS a system that DID not slow down the evesdropping, but the Bush team didn't want to adhere to it.

Right, Chuck. It is the damn Dem's fault we didn't catch the bad guy, too. F'n pansies.

Joseph, I find it truly astounding that you would argue that certain techniques or equipment should only be available to climbers who can climb 5.12+ and I truly wonder just what the "moral" basis for this position really is. It certainly sounds rather elitist to me. I wonder, too: has there been a free ascent of The Nose that didn't follow the (chipped) Jardine Traverse? As I have said: I have great respect for what you have done at Beacon, and for your dedication to a ground up ethic. But shouldn't such high standards apply, if anything, MORE tightly to those who are highly trained and at least in some cases professional athletes? I tend to agree that one should have a few years of experience, and hopefully experience with different climbing styles as well, before they start drilling holes in a public crag. But it seems to me that we should expect more of the stronger and more talented climbers, not less (assuming you think bolting on lead is "more" better).

This, to me, is as close as it comes to being "the answer." It is far from a perfect rule, however, because like the first ascent principle it tends to mean that whoever got there first is forever "right" even if what they did may have been poor. The "established ethic" may not always be the best end-all of discussion but it is probably as good as any other line we could draw. I did not intend to suggest that nobody should ever establish a route from the ground up or that the style of the first ascent has no value. I DO think the FA team who is installing bolts at a crag* has an obligation to think about those who will follow and that ground up ethics more often than not interfere with the kind of careful consideration I would like to see. As I noted, good or bad routes can result either way. * in my view we have an obligation to think about others when establishing a new route in the mountains, too, but in many mountain settings or in mountain weather safety concerns may well prevent the same kind of careful thought that one has the opportunity to apply at the crag.

Yup. Another victory for the "hate America first" revolution.

I don't think the closures on the Omak Resevation resulted from sport climbing, Joseph. As I understand it, there was a sense that climbers were trespassing that infuriated many tribal members more than any specific concern over bolts. Also, as I recall, the use of chalk was in fact more of a sore point on Omak Lake Wall (or whatever it was called) than was the use of bolts. Read the linked article: the closure followed a climber's soliciting tribal involvement in a bolt war, but there has not been any suggestion that trad climbing is OK while sport is not. Certainly, one could argue that a heavily bolted area is more likely to draw offending crowds - another Skaha may be feared by some - but "traditional ethics" is generally not the issue in and of itself. Access restrictions on reservations around the country have frequently focussed on trespassing issues or the spiritual values of the rocks in question, and bolts have generally or at least frequently NOT been cited as an issue. In one famous incident in California, the presence of female climbers was said to be a desecration. Don't get me wrong: I know that the use of bolts has proven a sore spot in some areas, but my point is that tribal members, like other non-climbers interested in the lands where we seek to pursue our sport, often have other concerns besides bolting ethics.

Joseph, I respect your style but I suggest a sidetrack in this discussion and that is this: in my opinion, leading from the ground and putting in bolts while hanging from hooks - on a crag climb that you expect or intend to ultimately be a "free" route - is generally both silly and misguided. There are are dozens of routes in Washington where there are bolt placements that were installed this way, and the result is that the bolt is next to a good hook placement but usually not in the best place for the subsequent free leader. Not only may bolts end up in "inconvenient" locations this way, but they may also end up next to cracks that were invisible during the first ascent, or end up leading off in a direction subsequently abandoned by our first ascent hardman. If committed to ground up climbing, one may find it easier or think it necessary to hang from a hook and drill a bolt hole, but ground up ethics are focussed on the first ascent experience rather than the subsequent climbers and some of the silliest routes I have seen were established in "ground up" fashion, including some with bolt ladders leading nowhere and etc. Even on "so called" mixed routes where bolts are to be used sparsely to link features naturally protected, I think the result will generally be better if the route is more carefully engineered than is possible in a ground-up effort -- especially a ground up effort undertaken without pre-inspection. Climbing in this style, you cannot see the ledges and features above and are forced to put pro where you need it that day as opposed to where it will ultimately belong. I know you will say that this is a BS argument, or that it doesn't matter if the result is good when the route was "installed" in such a disgusting fashion, or whatever. But I am firmly convinced this is true at least for most of us. Good and bad routes can go up either way, but bolt protected crag climbing routes are a different animal from alpine rock climbs and they should in my opinion be approached differently. We could well argue whether Mount Garfield constitutes "alpine rock," so this is really only a sidetrack in the overall thread but I always think about this when I see folks presenting "ground up" as the only responsible or right way to put up a new route. It certainly is not.

Are not you, D.Ryan, making all kinds of assmputions about the intents and motivations of those involved in this discussion, or those who according to you want "risk free" climbing and care nothing for the environment becaues they apparently value their own need for immediate gratification over learnign to climb the "right way," or whatever it is that you've written?

It looks like a little break is headed our way but the firehose remains aimed straight at us. There's a seathing stream coming from SE Asia. It hasn't much changed sinced yesterday. check it out

Kaboom didn't work for me. Maybe try This one? It does look pretty much like this thing is aimed straight at us.

I don't know, Stefan. If I was hoping to climb something big I think I'd consider the forecast this weekend.

Yes, but his little laugh at the start is all Dave.

Ah, Peter. Just what, really, is the strategic difference as we applied it four years ago? We argued that Saddam was maybe a couple of months away from having a nuclear weapon and that he had a stockpile of chemical weapons and etc. We said he posed a threat. We said we could not wait for further inspections or we might see a nuclear cloud over Manhattan. It is really pretty hard to misunderstand the clear implication of this statement - as much as you would like to suggest it says something different. As far as our allies were concerned, we couldn't credibly argue that Saddam planned to attack the US or that he posed a grave threat to the US or European homeland, and everybody in the world knew or believed he did not. But he kept supporting paranoia in Peoria by puffing his chest, and rational analysis doesn't matter in American politics anyway so the Administration used fear mongering to convince the American public to support the war. Most of our allies said invasion could wait, but invasion had the support of something over half the nation and we stomped him. Just how, again, does it matter whether you use the word imminent or pre-emptive or preventative? Did it change our war plan or the timetable? Did it affect how many times they invoked the mushroom cloud?

I can't really make much sense of your post there, Peter, except to refer to the "imminent vs gathering" discussions from three years ago - but what really is the difference? Either are a offered as a reason for attacking a nation that is not attacking us, though in the one case we might actually think they are about to. And, in the case of Iraq, we didn't even pretend to believe Saddam was about to. But all of it fits a pattern that is hard to deny. Speech after speech have referred to the US as the lone superpower and suggested we should maintain this position. Bush has clearly said "you're either with us or against us," and when our European allies questionned whether it was a good idea to invade Iraq they were dismissed as "old Europe." There's a lot of smoke and mirrors, but your pal Podhoretz and our good friend Wolfowitz have set it all out there in detail for anybody to read and the actions of this Administration have been almost entirely in sinc with the whole package: pull out of internatinal agreements, pursue unilatteral foreign policy, seek to prevent any rival power from being established, etc. etc. Tell me again how it matters whether the thread posed by Saddam was actually imminent or simply "gathering," when either way we were told to fear that if we didn't invade we would see a mushroom cloud over Manhattan?

Don't let facts get in the way of a good discussion. Good scotch?