Al_Pine

Because you won't be on the edge. There will be bolts there. Your argument only makes sense if it was a free solo (zero gear) before the bolts went in.

Speaking of which...where is Pub Club tomorrow night? info

Why do people feel the need to try to end internet discussions? Does it harm you in any practical way? Is it just too tempting to try to read this stuff? You just can't put it down? Are you like a quitting smoker begging your friends to not smoke around you? Or is it just the Dru, "muuuuussssst pooooooost, can't leave thisssss alonnnnnnnnne" disease? Hey Dru! And back to one of the real topics here (besides Molly)...a quick pithy statement. I think that the bolt chopper is more arrogant than the bolter. It's close, but the tie is broken by the bolter may not really know for sure that somebody may not like his actions, whereas the bolt chopper definitely knows such folks exist. I would put a bolt-chopper closer to a retro-bolter.

Well hot damn! Perhaps this was not just a fruitless exercise after all. Perhaps we are now safer with respect to TERROR!! What do you think about that PP? Do you think that our invasion of Iraq has made the us safer from terror?

The routes I value the most are the ones that follow natural lines that only use what was there to begin with. If it takes a bit more risk to pass a runout spot, then that adds to the value. It makes it more of a challenge. Often a challenge not to be taken lightly. When someone places a whole bunch of bolts and rips out a bunch of trees I think it takes something away from the climb. However, it usually adds to it in terms of fun and frolic. It's a complicated not well-defined equation. I have climbed quite few lines lately that I thought were marred by excessive bolting. They were definitely fun and frolicy, but they also left me feeling strangely unsatisfied . If I were to side with any camp it would be less alteration camp. No-alteration can be undone.

JayB, I don't know if any of your invective is aimed at my post, but here is my point. It has nothing to do with the relative "damage" caused by bolts vs pitons vs ripping off a big old flake. It has to do with modifying the rock to make it easier to climb. For some people "easier to climb" means the whole package: physical ability, mental preparedness, protecting themselves from danger. From your posts it appears you don't mind getting a little help in the protection from danger/mental preparedness part, only the physical difficulty is sacred. Bolts don't bother you, because, as long as you follow the contrivance of not pulling or stepping on them, you have met the rock on its own terms. The point of my post is, that for those who value the whole package, a bolt may diminish their experience. In your posts it appears that you either don't get this, or that you flat out reject this notion in favor of your own. If the latter is true, you are in danger of being as close-minded and pedantic as the Dwayner/Pope characters you love to spar with.

Well put point! A page or more were spent on this thread arguing whether bolts are an evironmental blight, but to me, a climber, that is not the main point. Sometimes a bolt removes some of the challenge, some of the enjoyment. It doesn't hurt the "environment" in any practical sense, but it can damage the climbing. Climbing is a game, pure and simple. One ascends the rock by whatever means the rules you adhere to allow. The commonly-accepted rules are changing. JKassidy's desires lay more with a mostly bygone system of rules, and he is agitating for the return of those beliefs. I see nothing wrong with that. But there really is unassailable moral high ground in terms of whose rules came first. When you start getting into morality, is when your practices impinge upon others. When you bolt something you are removing an obstacle to ascending a piece of rock. For some people, you are interfering with their ability to enjoy climbing that piece of rock. That is why this argument is mostly fought among climbers. Because, duh, the people that bolts hurt the most are certain climbers.

I think if your desire is to avoid confrontation then the first option works quite well. Most of the rude ones here are just looking to entertain themselves with some insult trading. If you just clam up, they will get bored, and pick on someone else. Sometimes they will follow you around to different threads like a stalker. That is when to get worried. In that case, choose confrontation or return to lurkerdom. I was going to continue with what to do if you are looking for confrontation, but I guess that's sort of silly 'cause if they were, they wouldn't be lurking now would they?

I climbed a multipitch sprot route a couple of weeks back and just used the regular ol' ATC-type belay device. What I was sort of wishing for was to have something more like a Gri-gri. By this I mean some sort of locking device that I could attach to the bolts and then could just reel in the slack to the second hand over hand. This might not be much of a concern on harder climbs, but on this one we were just running up it. It was a royal pain in the ass trying to keep up with the climber while bringing in the slack. Also it was a pain when seconding to have to keep stopping and waiting for a reasonable amount of slack to get pulled up.

Lummox made the first post, but JKassidy gave it the legs to go 10 pages.

Random thoughts after reading all 10 pages at once (sorry I was not here to participate as I went hiking yesterday). Painted bolts are more aesthetic visually, but get rusty and create fear in some climbers. I personally know one previously non-anonymous cascadeclimber who had his job threatened because of interactions on CC.com . If you don't think that your status on CC.com can ever interact with your "real" life, then you are being naive, especially if you use your real name. It's not just the boss busting you at work. You must remember until CC.com dies, this is all "on your permanent record". Bolting and chipping are analogous in that both make ascending a piece of rock easier. Some arguments can benefit from this analogy, others are spurious.

Sorry for the tangent here, but I think maybe this thread has probably run it's useful lifespan. I think many interesting ideas have been expressed in these 10 or so pages. These have been for the most part catalyzed by JKassidy's dogged persistence, AND his relative politeness. He didn't hijack some worthwhile thread that would have otherwise created good discussion, he created one. All you who have posted on these pages know this is true. You wouldn't have posted if you weren't interested. You would have gotten bored long ago and tuned out if all this thread contained was insults. All the people on this thread who put him down because of their perceptions of who he is rather than reading and responding to his posts, are the losers creating anymosity. But thankfully, those of you who this pertains to have left the thread, probably because you got bored. If you are also a person who bashed Dwayner in the past for ruining discussions you are also a hypocrite. Nice job everybody in this thread who stuck to arguing points instead of personalities! Thanks. It was an enjoyable read.

Right on. That piece is a step in the right direction (no pun intended), but there's still no Iraqi body count there. Just a bunch of general "attacks were responded to" stuff. No shit we responded to the attacks. I still want them to let us know how many pounds of flesh we are extracting.

Whoa nelly! It's now conspiracy theory to allege that the Bush administration is responsible for us invading Iraq!

Oops and to pick a nit or two, wouldn't Harry Truman be pretty much all time body-count prez in terms of all human beings, and probably Abraham Lincoln for most American lives? But this is all moot since these facts are tangential to the topic of justifying the Bush administration evils via comparison to Slick Willy. Unless of course tangential was the goal, which it perhaps appears to be with the ref to Johnson.

so far

Not in terms of body count.

I was thinking OG when I first replied, but then realized the poster specified 5.4-6. OG is more like 5.8-9 crack heaven isn't it?

Lummox, That is a much smaller percent of the total # of people in the US Armed Services than 87 billion dollars is of the total US Budget for 2003.

Would you travel to Indonesia at this point in time?

I think after reading all this stuff about the non-importance of knowing how to make an anchor, we should all follow the important maxim: The second shall not fall!

UW Rock (don't need a rope, but you can use one) Smoke Bluffs, Squamish

From those liberal bastards at the AP: "As of Monday, Nov. 10, 394 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq, according to the Department of Defense. The British military has reported 52 deaths; Denmark, Spain, Ukraine and Poland reported one each." Every day, every-frickin' day they assault us with the number of Americans dead in Iraq. At least twice a week we get to learn how many British have been killed. Last week when a polish soldier was killed it was front page news. But never....NEVER, or at least hardly ever, they report how many Iraqi's we have killed!!! We need some fucking balance in the reporting. If they're always gonna report how many of our boys n girls have lost their lives in Iraq they should at least balance that out with how many we've taken down with us! Damn straight.

wordy word werd werdophone Bumper stickers should be issued