It pains me to see so much Mountaineer bashing even though most of it is in jest.
Anyway, I was at Spire Rock on Sunday as a Basic student. I finished the requirements for the field trip in roughly half the time and spent the rest of the time being a belay slave and taking an occasional route up the rock. Here is what I remember from early afternoon:
There were a ton of little kids around the friction slabs. There was a little kid who ran under the Prusik tower as we were taking it apart; luckily wewere able to haul him away before metal pipescame crashing down. There was a father-son duodoing a roof route on the SW corner. Later onthey moved onto the southern stem/chimney route.We had a rope on the crack route on the north face,but we weren't using it much -- the easier routeswere on the south. Boulderers were tearing traverses all over the rock -- there were a fair amount of downtime between pitches -- beginners are slow at tying in.
Anyway, I've been warned by several Mountaineers to beware for some instructors who are anal and obnoxiously power-trippy. I have yet to find any, and I have yet to meet a Mountaineerwho has pissed me off. Mayabe I'm just lucky or I'm laid back enough. I know in the past on here I've read about other climbers who have encountered Mounties who were asses. One thing you can certainly do is call the Mountaineers and complain about their behavior. A member of the Mountaineers should not be acting like an ass, and he may need a little reminder of his behavior.
