mattp

There is another phrase for situational ethics: common sense. To reject common sense in favor of some black and white rules is the practice of someone who doesn't want to live in a thinking, conscous world. Go find yourself a nice totalitarian state where you and the other bolt bigots can make yourself at home. Free the bolts. Free the bolts. Free the bolts and we're all free to have fun at last!

Like Kurt said - what is wrong with you, Scott? Nobody here has ever advocated grid-bolting Index. Yes, those evil doers have added some sport climbs there over the years -- face climbs that are well away from the cracks -- but even though they haven't been chopped, there is no gang of rappel bolters getting ready to rush in and destroy the place.

You may think Pope's statement is kind of silly in how he dismisses an entire genre, but he has made a statement that I at least in part agree with: too many sport climbs DO end up lacking in adventure and aesthetics (of course thre are plenty of trad climbs that lack these attributes as well, and there are plenty of sport climbs that in my estimation have both adventure and aesthetic appeal). But if one complains that any climb is too low-challenge, they simply don't know how to read a guidebook rating or they aren't pushing themself. Pope may say sport climbing doesn't offer (him) the challenge that he wants, but he can't claim it doesn't offer a challenge.

Good times!! It's a god damned clearcut! [pollstart] [polltitle=good times?] [polloption=recreational opportunity] [polloption=moral outrage ] [pollstop]

That would seem like a reasonable possibility, Oly, but the thing is that these guys are aruging that Exit 38 is a tragedy. If they aren't willing to consent to sport climbing there, I don't think there is any place in the State where they'd be willing to agree to it.

Oh...OK. I have a problem with logging at the base of a cliff. I should have put an equal effort into protesting this commong practice, since we see so much of this. So climbing destroys....what kind of plant life? Lichen? Moss? Do we have any problem getting moss to grow back on an Index climb that hasn't been climbed in a season? My biggest gripe is certainly with bolts. How many times have I said that they don't kill salmon, that my protest is motivated by aesthetic concerns, rather than environmental concerns? Bolts are visual pollution. They look really alien, far more alien than a little rock scar that results from a flake popping off under a climber's foot, and they are quite permanent. Outside of aesthetics, there is the issue of challenge reduction, of the tendency of sport climbers to avoid pioneering thought-provoking, adventurous lines (witness the Exit 38 photos). You put all of this together, you weigh up the pros and cons, you ask whether we could have any fun without bolts, and then you just figure it out: bolts is evil. Let's put the brakes on this runaway train. There you go, Pope. You've answered the question - sort of - but you seem to say that it boils down to aesthetics and style - personal matters the "answer" to which is going to vary from one individual to the next. It is perfectly fine to preach about the excitement of long runouts and the beauty of bolt-free expanses of stone, but instead you are constantly asserting that there is something that makes you "absolutely" or "objectively" right while 90 % of today's climbers are wrong. Worse, you to try to back up your assertions with hyperbole like about hos there are all these climbers hiding in the woods with their power drills, waiting to pounce on Castle Rock the minute you turn your back. Yes, most of us agree that there are some over-bolted crags and climbs out there and yes, I for one have actually gone out and pulled litter bolts out of a crag, but if you want to spread the faith you've gotta start talking at least a little bit of sense.

Pope, you might be right about the fact that few climbs would go up if everybody had to lead them, but in fact just about all of what I think are the true atrocities in Darrington were all done on the lead. There are probably a dozen climbs that feature virtual bolt ladders right off the ground on terrain that is no more than 5.10, several of which don't really go anywhere. I offered to take you and Dwayner to climb at Three O'Clock Rock, so you could sample a rap-bolted route and compare it wo one of these old "classics," but you declined.

Some places might be top-roped, but of course we've already talked about how you and Pope don't think sport climbing is any different from top-roping in terms of challenge although just about everybody else in the world disagrees with you. And then you also have to consider more practical rather than emotional issues: at Little Si the state asked climbers NOT to utilize the top of the cliffs, and at Vantage it is actually deadly to top out on many of the climbs -- especially the crack climbs. Yes, there are entire climbing areas where routes are excluslively top-roped, but that is not going to answer any debate here.

Yo Pope: wanna take a stab at "the question?"

Weren't they made as AT skis in the first place? I have a pair, mounted with telemark bindings, and I have no problem with the float or the turning. I guess I'm one of those old skool hardmen who grouse about not understanding why everybody needs to buy new skis every year.

Allright, you got me there. I look back at that picture and it does kind of look like that. There is one climb that has three bolts in six feet and maybe there is another one at Newhalem. It must be that, with my affection for the shiny little guys, I just don't see what the world is coming to. Bolts are taking over our roadcuts and I can't even see it. I need help.

Scott - Can you name any climbs that have three bolts in six feet - apart from a belay station? You are worse than Pope when it comes to rediculous rhetoric.

Uh, climbing?

Little Si is a great example of a sport crag, RuMr. It had been poked at by "trad" climbers for years, but nobody thought it worthy (well, maybe a couple of guys did). Because it was not even remotely popular, a friend of mine used it for his private playground where he used to take kids groups for rappelling and rope-challenge events -- on the weekends -- and he never had any conflicts with other users. Then it was developed as a sport crag and the developers honored the request from the State wildlife people not to set the routes so they would reach the top of the crag (apparently there are some rare plants up there). Climbers groups have built the trail and because of the popularity with climbers, there is a nice new parking lot that serves climbers and families who want to take their children for a walk. The climbers staging areas are all off the hiking trail. The irresponsible younger generation so despised by Pope is out there getting fit, having fun, and harming nobody. The whole thing takes place in an area that is a recovering clearcut.

Though this particular "gem" was pruned from the thread, we could scroll back and find other equally insulting rhetoric that was not. Like I said: quit your name calling and quit your whining.

There's nothing wrong with the annual bitchfest, RuMR. In being repetitive, it is no different than the 107th "I hate Fee Demo" thread.

Scott- you have nothing to complain about when it comes to name calling. Quit your name calling and quit your whining, too.

Mr. Pope- Once again (eleven times now?) you sidestep the question. Why do you single out bolts out as the object of your obsessive disdain? You spray a lot of B.S. about how climbers in the old days were so much more environmentally conscious, about how everyone who climbed back in "your day" was so brave, or about how if you don't pry the bolts out of a short and peripheral sport climb that existed on Castle Rock for four or five years the entire crag is going to be perceived as "open season" and somebody is going to go up there and make Midway into a sport climb. But when asked to explain how the placement of bolts is so much more of an environmental disaster than so many other climbing practices that actually displace plants and animals, you can't or won't tell us.

Pope - This will be something like the tenth time in this thread that I, Alpine K and others have asked: what is this "thing" you have about bolts? How is the placement of a pair of bolts and a ring worse than setting a route so that it ends at a tree that will surely die if subjected to repeated beating by climbers or forcing them to walk down a gully, ripping out ferns and flowers? How is a bolted face route any more environmentally damaging than crack that has to be gardened out, and stripped of the natural vegetation? Now that you've gotten to know the wonders of the "love bar," how can you say that bolts are not removeable more easily than the vegetation in a crack is replaceable? Just what is wrong with taking an old railroad cut next to I-90 and making it into a recreation area? Did a bolt mistreat you when you were still a tender child?

Pope- You are showing your "golden age" blinders here. The Direct East Buttress route does not follow any line of natural weaknesses, and the bolt ladders are not in the middle of the route. The route starts up a system of corners and cracks, then it veers rightward to access what is one of the coolest looking pieces of rock up there - a high exposed face that appears to lead directly to the summit when you view the peak from the east. But after two pitches that are mostly bolt ladder (and again, I'll note, subsequently free climbed), the climbing is then pretty much over. The attraction of route lies in the fact that it ascends such a cool piece of rock architecture and that the climbing is fun -- it has little to do with the fact that it follows natural weaknesses that would have led anywhere but that cool, high, exposed face. It seems to me that your blinders are preventing you from evaluating environmental practices, too. In the '70's is when most of the vegetation was stripped from Lower Town Wall and the alder forest at the base of the cliff was clearcut by climbers, the new trail and hut was built in the Bugaboos, most of the "classic" big wall routes (with lots of pitons and bolts) and (bolted) rappel routes were established in Yosemite, the junk pile of oxygen bottles and other trash started appearing at the south col on Everest, and the Enchantments Lakes first started to see mass numbers of invaders stomping trails all around the meadows and building campfires from the wood of thousand year old snags. Yes, we build "landing zones" and "staging areas" at the base of crags like Vantage and Exit 38 these days, and yes we use a lot of bolts. But we're not washing our pots and pans in the stream, throwing our shit off El Capitan in brown lunch bags, or building campfires in the Alpine Lakes. Instead of setting up routes so that everybody will leave heaps of sling on some gnarly old tree that is barely clinging to the cliff and is going to die from the abuse suffered at the hands of climbers, we set a chain anchor and rings and stay the hell away from the fragile vegetation. Instead of clearing and eroding the cliff-top and building a descent trail through the ferns and flowers along the edge of the crag, we rappel off. Our numbers are increasing and therfore our over-use impact is increasing as well, but our environmental practices are not entirely worse - and in many respects quite a bit better.

Pope - For any given pitch that is to be bolted with a given number of bolts, I'd much rather see it carefully and thoughtfully bolted after toproping and discussion than while "winging it" on the lead. Much rather. There might be fewer routes put up if they all had to be done on lead, but not necessarily better ones.

What? You don't like mine? Actually, you bring up a good point and one that has perhaps been underrepresented in this discussion: times HAVE changed. That is the nature of "times." Cassidy's "golden ages" were 1975 but I'd be willing to bet yours weren't. It's kind of like saying nothing in Rock matters after Jimi Hendrix. It's all music, and it is nothing of any greater import than music, really. Jimi kicked ass, and many fans still appreciate what he did, but the world didn't stop there. I think it is good to have somebody like Kassidy stand up and say "hey you guys: think about THIS." But he's pretty much lost it when he says "climbers these days lack morals because they think nothing of altering the environment." Yes, as a climbing community we've come to view bolts differently, but in actual reality there is little if anything inherently more destructive about today's bolting/aiding/protection practices than there was about those of the great golden ages when entire Japanese gardens were stripped from Index Town Wall, bolts were used to engineer a way up teh "blank" portions (later freed) of some climbs like E. Buttress of S. Early Winter Spire, and pins were still used on The Prow in Yosemite.

No, I would not argue with your statement that most so-called "traditional" crags are not bolted as closely as a typical climb at Exit 38 or some other sport-crag -- it is the closeness of the bolts that pretty much "defines" sport climbing; I'm saying only that your "simple" rules break down when you actually apply them to the borderline cases - even some climbs at Darrington - and it is these borderline cases that we are arguing about. Nobody here has much question about the pure crack-climbing classics or the grid-bolted wall at a sport crag where, in some cases, you need a topo to figure out which bolts are intended to be linked with which others. (In actual fact, I think even the grid bolts are acceptable though not commendable at some place like Exit 38 - but that is not what we are talking about here because even most ardent sport climbers will probably admit that the truly grid-bolted walls are overbolted - the only real argument might be whether or not we want some self-appointed rock police to head up there with a crowbar.) But when it comes to the variety of climbs available in our region, I like some sport climbs and not others; I like some crack climbs and not others; I like some crag settings and not others. As you note - in the end, it boils down to taste and judgment, and I think climbers have been accusing each other of lacking taste and judgment since the beginning of time. What is your point if it is not an attempt to draw a simple line - your own line - so that you can say everything over this line sucks?

Scott, I think that in attempting to reduce rock climbing to a simple definition (following the natural weaknesses) and applying simple rules (bolts are only OK to link other protectable features), you miss the mark. (1) Rock climbing is not about taking the easy way or following natural weaknesses. When our forefathers left the gullies behind and started out onto the faces, they abandoned that path in favor of seeking the hard way and embracing greater and great challenges. Though crack climbs and some face routes follow obvious features, there is nothing "natural" or "following the weakensses" about such classic routes as Diretissima or the South Face of Jello Tower or DDD at Castle Rock. (2) Perhaps you think mixed routes are OK but purely bolted routes are not, but here too I think you are missing the point. Go climb Silent Running in Darrington, and you will probably only use gear on the first and last pitches of a seven pitch route. It is actually rather contrived for it NOT to be bolted on those pitches as well. And thanks for the vote of confidence, but given your description of "Scott's Rules" I am a rock butcher to be sure and think just about any route established in Darrington since about 1978 is a bolted abomination: they all weave in and out, deliberately avoiding natural protection (readily available in bushy seams) in favor of bolted face climbing.

These already fit within my brilliant organizational scheme, but they are fair questions. I'd say that I have not seen a single route that, had it not been chopped, would have signalled to all the waiting rap-bolters that a traditional crag was "open season," and I don't think that these evil rap bolters plan to or could bolt everything they could find, though I'd agree with you that sometimes us evildoers seem to lack some discretion.....