JayB

If I were to attempt to pinpoint the blame for the majority of the problems with public education today I would lay the majority of it on parents who send ill-prepared, undisciplined, and ill-mannered children in the classroom then expect teachers to work miracles in the limited time that they have with them. The incorporation of some of the more voguish nonsense into school curricula and disciplinary standards hasn't helped the situation, but when a child fails in school it is the parent's fault. Period.

Yeah - a route with a bolt every 3 feet isn't bold. No news there. I am not arguing on behalf of this sort of route, but the mere fact that a few of them exist doesn't bother me either. There's a wide spectrum of bolted routes out there, some of which are death routes, some of which are essentially riskless clipfests, most are somewhere in the middle. Yeah - a route with lots of bolts will dissapoint the person looking for long runouts, but by the same token a death route will take something away from the person who's primary interest is in the physical challenge. I think there's room for both, and easily enough routes out there to keep each camp happy. The solution for each camp is to restrict their climbing to routes that are consistent with their personal objectives. Easy enough. Just for the record - let me clarify what I consider reasonable guidelines for bolting. 1. No additional bolts on established routes without the FA's consent. 2. No bolts next to gear placements. 3. The best compromise when establishing new routes is to bolt them in such a manner that a leader who is competent at the grade can do so without a catastrophic outcome in the event of a fall on ground that is near the upper level of the difficulty they will encounter on the route. In practice this means that if you are putting up a 5.6 route there should be enough protection available for a 5.6 leader to do so without a catastrophic outcome in the event of a fall. If you are putting up a 5.10 route then an entire 5.6 pitch with no pro whatsoever is fine, as a competent 5.10 leader will not have any problem with that pitch. 4. Areas with a longstanding bolt-free ethic should stay that way and be spared the drill. Bolts in sport areas should be spared the chop unless rules guidelines 1 or 2 are violated. In short - local ethics should prevail. Static is Static, Exit 38 is Exit 38, etc, etc, etc. And to revisit a now familiar theme - what is up with this 'You don't understand what you are taking away" business? I've lead enough runout trad routes, slabs, alpine routes and frozen waterfalls to know a thing or two about risk and commitment - thanks - and hardly think I need a lesson in this matter from you. Sometimes I am looking for that kind of climbing you are paying rhetorical homage to, sometimes I am not - and I choose my lines accordingly. Not sure why anyone would do otherwise. As far as bolts being added to the route on Shuksan is concerned, I don't really have strong feelings about the matter either way, but would gladly defer to Paco if he did. I think that the odds of that happening are quite low given it's remoteness and the fact that taking the time to drill would eat up quite a bit of valuable daylight that would be much better spent getting up and off of the route.

Set a strawman up, knock a strawman down, set a strawman up, knock a strawman dow...hey wait you actually just set them up in this post! I think some people on this board have reasonable gripes versus some bolts. This thread was a pretty fun way to talk about them. Making up over-the-top bogus examples to mischaracterize others doesn't help much though. Did anybody talk about escalators up El Cap yet? Once again I see you here as the one that doesn't want to discuss things in a reasonable manner, much more than new and improved JKassidy/Pope/Dwayner. Yeah Chuck, those are caricatures of arguments against bolting that I find both disingenuous and rediculous. Reductio ad Absurdem. It's what happends when you take positions like "bolts are wrong because they modify the rock" to their logical conclusion. You can articulate counterarguments, or you can call them strawmen and walk away. The fact of the matter is that people have argued that bolts are unacceptable because they permanently modify the rock, without making the qualifying statements necessary to render this a sensible basis upon which to discuss when using bolts is reasonable. If permanently modifying the rock in order to render an ascent possible is out of bounds, then there's a whole slew of other practices that will have to be abandoned as well - as well the idea that bolting on lead is okay but bolting on rappel isn't. Not a logically sound proposition if rock modification is the litmus test. Similarly, people have suggested that the addition of bolts to a line automatically diminishes the risk in such a way that the said line no longer presents any significant risk, and no longer retains the adventurous character it would have had otherwise - again without qualification. If we are talking about bolts next to gear placements, or bolts that are unnecessarily close, then I would agree with such statements, but a blanket condemnation of bolting on these grounds isn't persuasive because it just isn't accurate. Yeah - bolts a few feet apart reduce a climb to a purely physical challenge, but so does sewing up an easily protectable trad line with gear every few feet. And as far as bolted sport routes are concerned, with very few exceptions these are lines that no one had ever climbed before the bolts were installed, so I honestly can't understand the "bolts tarnished the experience" argument as without the bolts, the experience in question would not have existed in the first place. Some bolted routes are bolted thoroughly enough to remove all but eliminate the likelihood of injury should the leader fall, some are death routes, most fall somewhere inbetween, with groundfall likely on a significant number of routes if the leader falls before the second or third clip. On those routes where the bolts are close enough together to eliminate the likelikhood of a long fall, any leader who wishes to can simply decline to clip what they deem to be superfluous bolts, or stick to routes that are bolted more to their liking, or decline to climb bolted routes altogether. Why people choose to do otherwise is beyond me. Perhaps you can explain. If you find Pope's position on these matters more to your liking, then I suspect that has quite a bit to do with the fact that it is consistent with some of your long held beliefs, and very little to do with anything that I have said or the validity of the objections that I have raised to his assertions. And finally, spare me the "Some of us don't want to entirely eliminate risk from climbing," business. I'm not sure how one could take that from my comments, but if that's what you think I have been arguing for, you are mistaken. If this is some sort of passive/aggressive variation on the trusty "climbing bolted routes makes you a coward and I am a tough guy" theme, then muster some of the boldness you purport to admire and say so in concrete terms. Last weekend's line will be my first counterargument, but you are welcome to try going down that road if you feel like it will get you somewhere.

True enough. I would have to interject a bunch of qualifiers to make the assertion non-bogus, but I would have to agree with you on the merit of the essential point. And to digress for a moment, one thing that has always confused me are the folks that go to an area that is known to have a sport ethic, rack up their draws at the base of a line that obviously features bolts that are X feet apart, may even look at the guidebook and notice that there are Z bolts in Y feet - then proceed to climb the thing and complain that it wasn't adventurous enough for them because the bolts were too close together for their tastes. Sorta like intentionally going to a gay bar, looking around, then complaining loudly about the lack of women IMO. If the place doesn't offer what you are looking for, why go there in the first place?

Then you are talking about the extent of bolting that's appropriate, which something very different than the: -Bolts are anethema because they modify the rock. -Bolts on uprotectable lines mar the experience that largely nonexistent climbers would have on sections of unprotectable rock featuring nonexistent routes. -Bolts neutralize or render trivial all risk in all cases on all routes no matter how infrequently they are placed. ...arguments that seem to constitute the gist of people's objections to bolting. These are the sorts of bogus assertions that come up time and time again on this board, and I am both delighted and relieved to learn that you don't personally ascribe to them.

I was addressing Pope rather than you, and haven't ever argued against your point as I don't happen to disagree with it. As far as camps are concerned, though, which camp do you consider yourself part of Chuck? I personally climb alpine routes, trad routes, ice routes, the occaisional section of mixed junk and bolted routes as well as combinations of all of the above - and I'm quite familiar the whole package that you speak of (thanks for the heads up though) - and I take the protection that the climb offers. If it's blank rock - that means bolts. You know as well as I do that it's not the simple presence of bolts on a climb that determines the level of risk that climbing a given route entails, its the frequency with which they are placed relative to one another and the hazards lurking below a falling climber that do so. I can't think of a single bolted line that I have ever climbed that would have been anything but a freesolo without bolts, and the number of ethical purists that are clamoring to freesolo most of the bolted face lines that I bother climbing is pretty small. Moreover, there's litterally hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine, bolt -free, unprotectable face lines out there that they can free solo to their heart's content without ever having the experience tarnished by the presence of a bolt within a 10 mile radius. Moreover, the very experience that you are talking about tarnishing would not even exist with without the bolts, as it hadn't occurred to anyone to attempt those lines before they were bolted. Some may claim otherwise but I'd love to see an example. So if things work out so that the one or two people in the state that can only be satisfied by free-soloing face routes in popular cragging areas have their respective experiences tarnished by the presence of sport bolted lines a few feet away then I think I can live with that.

Yet you constantly rail against bolts and not pitons. Both damage the rock, so its either rail against both or none at all if rock modification is going to be the litmus test for what's acceptable and what's not. If this is the best argument that you can make against bolting otherwise unprotectable lines it's time to go back to the lab. Other favorites: -Top roping a sport route and leading involve equal amounts of risk. Love that one. -Bolting is okay if it's done on lead but not if they are placed on rappell - because one creates a permanent 3/8" hole in the rock and the other creates a 3/8' hole in the rock - and rock modification determines what is an acceptable practice and what isn't. -Bolts are okay on slabs because no other protection is possible but they are not okay on face climbs because.... Good stuff. Keep it coming.

Matt: I was only thinking of free climbing in my previous post, namely those situations where someone can't physically make the moves necessary to climb a route and chops a hold in to make it possible for them to do so. As far as aid climbing is concerned, I don't think that there is quite the distinction between modifying the rock with pins and modifying the rock with bolts that those pushing rock modification as the ethical litmus test to end all others would like to believe.

This business about permanently modifying the rock being the ethical yardstick by which all climber's actions must be measured is an out and out crock. Ever climb sandstone? I've modified the hell out of a couple of routes just by climbing them. Ever clean a crack? Ever place a pin? The first pin I drove off of the belay this weekend made the flake I was placing it behind expand a bit with every blow, and I suspect that when and if someone comes along and wants to use it for pro it will be gone after a couple of taps. Installing a bolt in decent rock would have had far less impact than the pin I placed, but even if we had bolts along I wouldn't have bothered because it would have just taken too damned long to install and the pin was good enough to do the job. That, and the fact that it was the only pro available, cemented the deal. But driving pins is okay and placing bolts is wrong because one modifies the rock permanently, and the other - also modifies the rock permanently. Makes sense. That's a logically sound argument you've made there. IMO modification of the rock is less relevant than the purpose for which it was modified. Modifying the rock to make it physically easier to ascend has never been acceptable and never will be. Modifying the rock with a piton or a bolt in order to reduce the risk of being injured or killed in the event of a fall is. Attempting to conflate these two fundamentally unlike things in an effort to discredit bolts and bolted routes is both false and utterly unconvincing.

Nice. Always get their violent delinquents, those mounties.

Getting used to the fact that you have to embalm your scalp with sunscreen if you are going hatless in the mountains or out on the water, but otherwise the low maintenance aspects are a definite bonus.

Thanks for posting the link Dustin. I am going to make it a point to write in support of the preferred alternative ASAP.

That is pretty sweet.

I'm largely in agreement with Dru, but also think that anyone ripping on TR's should keep their own talents in mind before criticizing those produced by others. This is especially true for folks that can't seem to produce a coherent sentence, average little better than a fifty percent success rate when attempting to spell "the" correctly, and still can't seem to get the hang of that tricky subject--->verb---->noun convention.

Back when I was young people who made such statements about the cowardice of others were not afraid to use their real names while doing so. Golden Age indeed. If it weren't for the juvenile language and obscene images of perverted toads one encounters on this site, I could probably post from my workplace using my real name and not feel embarassed about it. Whatever. You can post from libraries, kiosks, friend's computers, etc, etc, etc and even then it's not like you'd have to re-register to disclose your true identity. All it takes is typing "my name is________." Strange posture coming from the apostle of boldness.

Back when I was young people who made such statements about the cowardice of others were not afraid to use their real names while doing so. Golden Age indeed.

Source?

Yes, tell me about class.

GK/CPB's Comments "Alpine climbing starts with good sport climbing background. Hey champ, if you can’t hang on to a 5.10 or a 5.11 clip up at the crag, how can you hang-on on vertical mixed pitch? How fast can you send 5.11 or 12, have you ever done 5.13, how about 14? Sport climbing builds strength, strength gives confidence, confidence gives speed and speed IS safety. I don’t say you’ll be able to start cranking hard alpine routes right away, but it is the necessary step every climber has to take. "

Sport climbing provides a means of developing strength and technique that top climbers use to send trad/alpine lines that would have been beyond them otherwise, for one thing - I think that Polish Bob had a good rant about this a while back - besides being a legitimate pursuit in its own right.

If you really are all about wild adventure lines, bold-leads with sketchy pro, etc, etc, etc - crowds will not deter you from such pursuits no matter how many people there are out there calling themselves climbers. If this is what you were actually up to these days, then I doubt you'd be so upset by the line-ups at the popular roadside crags.

I was not serious - just hoping to aggravate you by pretending to misunderstand/misrepresent what you have been saying. I have understood your point all along. But as long as I am messing with you... MATTP WANTS TO KILL NEWBIE CLIMBERS BY ENCOURAGING THEM TO BUILD SKETCHY ANCHORS WHILE WEARING ALL COTTON UNITARDS IN SNOWSTORMS AND HEAD UP RANIER WITH DIME-STORE TARPS AS THEIR PRIMARY SHELTER WHILE DOWN-SOLOING LIBERTY RIDGE WITH ONE BAMBOO SHAFT TOOL AND 10-POINT CRAMPONS. MATTP IS A FALSE PROPHET OF THE OLD SCHOOL WHO MUST BE SILENCED BEFORE HE COMMITS FURTHER HERESY AND ENDANDGERS UNTOLD NUMBERS OF NEWBIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, in summary, what you are saying Matt is that it is not important for beginning trad leaders to learn how to construct solid anchors.

I personally think that it's high time that we extended the parameters of this debate to include the relative merits of and technique relating to the proper use of frozen moss as protection for the leader and in anchor construction. The root structure of some species of moss is known to be more diffuse and fibrous than others, and hence more resistant to fracture under dynamic loading when frozen, while others have a more mat-like root structure which provides greater density for pick placements on lead. One cannot overstimate the importance of knowing one's moss IMO, and it should be noted that both F.O.T.H. and the Mountaineers Advanced course stress the importance of girth hitching at least two distinct species at the belay anchor when possible for maximum safety.

Sweet. From Shuksan it looked like every drainage point beneath a glacier or snowfield on Baker was frozen solid. Post some pics if you have any.