sexual_chocolate

Yeah whatever. I'm glad you've figgered out the "best" solution. Congrats. Any reasonable voices ou there? How 'bout designating certain areas bolt-free? Any ideas?

What are you talking about?

ok, point taken. Next comes the hard part: deciding which places remain bolt-free! Any suggestions?

This is what bugs me about the whole bolting debate, labeled under the guise of "environmental impact". The thing about rocks is that they're already dead. So "defacing" them by placing bolts is the equivalent of stirring around a bunch of gravel. It is an aesthetic impact, which may be a potentially worthwile issue, but to call it an environmental impact, on the scale of destroying habitat, killing trees/birds/soil microorganisms etc., or pouring your engine oil into Lake Washington is overstating the case big time. Yes, there are many environmental impacts associated with rock climbing that are well-documented. Gardening cracks around here (whether done on the FA or over the years by subsequent climbers - it doesn't make a difference) ranks pretty high on the list, as does trampling ledges (nesting habitat), scrubbing faces (lichen, moss, often takes hundreds of years for them to establish, more in desert areas), and building approach trails. Simply increasing the number of people in an area, with their noise, piss, and smells, will keep a whole bunch of "wilderness-requiring" organisms well at bay (grizzlies, most weasels, etc.). So as for bolts, they are the symptom not the cause. If bolting a route brings crowds (which it certainly can), then obviously it will have a true environmental (ecological) impact. But if the area is already popular without said bolts, there will be no change whatsoever other than aesthetics (like DDD). You can argue the case on aesthetics alone, but that is only a the smallest part of what environmental impact is all about. A good example of what I'm getting at - Burgers and Fries (Squamish, trad cragging/toproping mecca) and the Substation/Write-off rock (Exit 38, sport cragging/toproping mecca) are basically equivalent in terms of environmental impact from climbers (although there are more trees alive at X38). The fact that there are tons of bolts at X38 and not at B&F doesn't change a thing other than from the point of view of aesthetics. Well said, although there are a couple of points I'd have to comment on: 1. Your comment on rocks being "dead" is highly speculative, since we as humanoids have hardly come to understand what constitutes "death", much less "life"; remember that just a few years ago, the earth was flat, humanoids couldn't fly, computers weighed...2....t..o...n...s......... 2. And Secondly!, considerations regarding bolting do not axiate simply on aesthetics; there are great differences in one's (my) approach to a climb that one (I) will be leading with minimal gear. If all of rock climbing was reduced to clipping bolts every four feet, my enjoyment of the climbing experience would be altered drastically (difficulty isn't the only thing I personally strive for). I wonder what some of you think of the gritstone ethic; don't you think it's pretty cool that there are places preserved for an approach such as this?

Isn't it like gettin' way brrrrrrr over there this time of year? Like snow and ice and things of that nature? Snowed on me in June once....

Why, the Lakeview Cafe, silly! Very mom-n-pop, with a decidedly multi-cultural feel. Awesome buttermilk pancakes, good bacon and coffee, with a waitress who looks like she just got out of a sauna (she drips sweat on your food; hey not too appealing maybe, but she sure works hard!). Located in beautiful down-town Rainier Beach, just a coupla minute walk from Beer Sheva park. (Ew, does she really drip sweat on my breakfast?)

Shit no, she went off and married Mark Lyon in 4th grade, leaving me crying for days and nights on end. Cold; I'd stay away from her.

Good lord you people are uptight! Yammering endlessly about "good style" and "bad" and "wrong and right"! It's like you guys are trying out for the 4th grade play, worrying about impressing Krista Smith and mommy and daddy and if you'll remember your lines and if people will like you tomorrow in class. Sheeit, go out and climb and have fun and quit worrying about sheit like "style", "proper etiquette" and such. I mean really, ask yourselves, why the hell are you climbing in the first place? Go out and rip! Fuck what anyone else thinks about "style".

Yes Merv, sounds like he was as traumatized as you! By the way, have you thought of my offer for filming rights? You went strangely and unusually silent.... Oh, and how's City Park going? You've been spotted aiding your way up the thing again....

Cool shots! I was in Haida Gwaii kayaking a few weeks ago; wanna go back in winter to the west-side....

Great; now I feel like an ass meddling again. Go at it, playas.

I guess I did jump into something I didn't know anything about.... Lambone, you're an ass, plain and simple. I don't remember you being this bad last time about a year ago when I was around....

You crack me up! You think you can be condescending, sanctimonious, pompous, haughty and derisive, yet when some troglodyte shows his evolutionary past with a few swear-words and invectives, suddenly you have the audacity to define the parameters of fair-play? Damn dog, deluded mofo....(I say that with love in my heart!)

East Asian Studies....What specifically?

Without knowing the history of this little "Lord of the Flies" episode, I can't claim perfect objectivity, but with the present observations up for view, it gives me enough info to smile a little at the collective manipulations being directed at Lambone: "I'm disappointed" "You're too sensitive" "That's so low" etc etc.... I personally find that everyone criticizing Lambone seems bitchier and more base than anything I'm seeing from Lambone himself....

So DRU, anything new on this?

I take it you googled that image; I'm curious as to the search parameters you used. Humor me with this information.

I can understand MervGriffin's rancor regarding qd's in wilderness settings. I can also see how many would not consider leaving draws (in a location such as the one in question) a big deal, considering its setting; after all, it is close to human development, barely qualifying as "wilderness", no? Roads, ski areas, parking lots, all within shouting distance? Hmmmm, the multi-faceted nature of human beings' views and positions.... such a quandary! Such a potpourri! So very many things to consider! We know Don's position: No quick-draws! It seems as though the perceived REPRESENTATIONAL VALUE, ie. the function of said qd AS SIGNIFIER of malfeasance and, shall we say LAZINESS and DISRESPECT FOR OTHERS, is really the driving force behind his discomfort regarding these qd's (and perhaps bolts in general). Don came of age in an era when climbing represented the very antithesis of what it has come to represent today; Don came of age in an era when climbing was EXCLUSIVE, functioning outside the radar of mainstream commodification (and all its attendant usurpations of individuality); Don came of age in an era when climbing still represented an ESCAPE from the common plebian mind-set of consumerism and trivialization, functioning as a mystery in the same way that the "fort" of our child-hoods functioned- a place you could go and leave behind the banality of our collective desire for safety and predictability above all. The bolt has commodified climbing, making it accessible to more mind-sets than one might have ever dreamed possible; the bolt has also killed vision, killed the exploration of uncertainty and fear (after all, isn't it uncertainty and fear that we collectively despise, surrendering so much of ourselves simply for the security of relationships, jobs, material accretions, and anti-greying creams?). The bolt allowed one to say "mine", while risking very little in the process; a loss, to be sure....(I would love to say some things about the Indian Vision Quests, for I see a correlation, but will forego the opportunity due to impatience.) The Bolt is predictable in its hardness; the Bolt is predictable in its inflexibility; the Bolt is steel, machined and unforgiving, entirely supportive of a (climbing) culture that we have become: conditioned reflexivity, choreographed predictability: robotic engram accumulators informed only by our sheep-stock brain-stem Functional Conformity drives and impulses (I threw up all over the produce-aisle at Whole Foods yesterday: never ingest LSD in such a setting unless you're at the top of your game and can engage heart-chakra energy to neutralize The Lizard). The Bolt is of the same material as our war machinery, hardened to pierce that which threatens us, disagrees with us; as such, it is not only representational, but actual- a movement beyond mere symbol, an actual physical and physiological causality existing a priori to any concept web we might introduce to explain it; hence, the visceral reaction we see in subjects such as MervGriffin. He may be quite right that the Bolt is the harbinger of death, raining symbolic and visceral certitude in the form of cessation of creativity with as much force and horror as the weaponry currently used by the others who fear opposition and uncertainty around the world. Perhaps the death knell has already sounded; perhaps the organic life-cycle of Climbing Creative has already come to an end. Perhaps it is time to leave the corpse to the fetid masses, allowing them their obsessive necrophilia whilst we watch with compassion and understanding, knowing that new horizons are waiting for those with the insight to see.

hh

That's why a representational form of government, as practiced in most(?) European countries, seems a bit more democratic.... Greens have seats, commies have seats, etc, thereby lending a voice to the many views that make up any country....

Sir, with a modicum of intelligence, one might glean from my post a rather succinct and direct reply to your original topic (one that you seem to have swayed wide and far from); namely: "I will NOT go and remove the draws from the 'eye-sore'". In fact, I WILL PAY YOU if I may film you removing them; as a matter of fact, I will pay you $50 for the filming rights. If you remove the bolts, I will add another $50. Just think: This is your chance to make some money while ridding the world of evil. Now why don't you sit down and think about this offer, huh? Sit down, please....

Have we all forgotten Donald's original post? Donald Donald Donald; you sure know how to work a crowd. If you are trolling around for a response, you've done good, and proven yourself to be a masochist of the highest order; if you are serious with your "I really DO change people's minds", and "People DO take me seriously" remarks, then seemingly you are a deluded individual. It's self-righteous people like you who do more to damage relations between disparate view-points than just about anything I can think of (George Bush, anyone?). The tone of your opening salvo above pretty much guaranteed the reaction you received, and would make it worth the loss of a few quick-draws just to see you sweating away up there in your quasi-religious huff-n-puff clipping from bolt to bolt, removing satan's spawn from the poor defiled virgin stone that you have taken such a fervently protective interest in (do you speak in tongues, by the way?). So, I invite you please to go on and remove the most offensive blasphemy ever known to man from the wilderness setting in which it so offends you; but please do me this favor: please please allow me enough notice so that I may attend the event and capture your heroics on film, so that we may have (strictly for our progeny, mind you!) a testament of one man's driven passion to eradicate a terrible scourge and evil from our midst! Waiting for filming rights, Mel Gibson

Since when did the term "faggot" become so accepted at cascadeclimbers? (Scott Harpell autosig) I thought there was a ban on hateful speech here.