Off_White

This was a pretty interesting post, thanks Pope. I'll address a couple of your questions. Why would someone bother putting in bolts after they've top roped something? Well, even if you've top roped a route, it feels different to lead it, that's one thing. The other is that when done right, what's left behind is a route that can offer a challenging onsite or redpoint to others, by which I mean other people can walk up and have that experience you love, just minus the "find the gear bit" if it's an otherwise unprotectable face. Finding the rests, working out sequences, moving up, backing down to a rest to recover, heading back out, it's still an engaging chess game even without a gear placement on the route. You're right, you can't have that if you've top roped a route beforehand, but others can. I don't know why others put up routes this way, because its a hell of a lot of hard work. I can tell you about why I do it sometimes. I have a private climbing area that is just full of examples. The routes often exist as top ropes for awhile, a bunch of us discuss whether its worth setting up as a lead route, bolt location often happens by group conversation, taking into account things like where are the reasonable stances, what will you hit, and how to maintain an engaging route that merits repeat ascents yet someone can come up and onsight. Frankly, I think the first ascent process on this sort of thing is really fuzzy: who's the FA? The person who conceived of the line? The person who cleaned off anything loose? The person who first top roped it? The person who put in the bolts (often involves several people), the first person to redpoint it? It's all kind of silly and unimportant to me, because you're right, compared to walking up to a blank slate with no knowledge of what's there and climbing that unknown line successfully, the process I described is just playing around, no big deal. Out in Tenino anyway, I think the first climb of a route that has any significance is the first time (well, every time actually) someone walks up cold and onsights a route, and that always impresses the hell out of me. The sort of climb you describe is analogous to a flash of artistic genius, a peak moment when skill, imagination, doubt, and experience combine for a truly memorable event. Its damned awesome to experience, no argument about that. A sport route done well is something different, is an exercise in craftsmanship. Craft usually gets dissed by artists, but mastery and creation are present as well. The making of something durable and solid that others can appreciate for their own use is a different sort of reward. You've tried to explain it away as about ego and getting your name in the book, because you're viewing it from an artist's bias, which is a more selfish thing (note, it's okay to be selfish sometimes, I'm being descriptive not dismissive). Therefore, you think the FA on a sport route must be engaged in some pursuit of selfish pleasure, fame and glory, or whatever. You should consider that perhaps many are merely in pursuit of an interesting thing done well, they're craftsmen. Yeah, I know we can cherry pick some obvious contradictions to my hypothesis, but if I'm wrong, why are so many sport first ascensionists so damn shy? Where are they boasting about their glorious achievements? Guidebooks of yore were much more upfront about who did the FA, the brilliant artist wants full credit for their work of genius. Nowadays you're lucky to find a list in the back of the book, a move I believe was done to "diminish" ego as a motivation. It's kind of a pity too, because as in any craft, not all craftspeople are equal and some build inferior work. That is true of sport routes too, and with a little experience with workmanship, knowing who put up a route can tell you a bit about what to expect or watch out for. Oh, and you had another question for the old farts about red, pink, and brown points. I'm sure you are fully cognizant of those distinctions, but I'll perform as invoked. Red we know is the climbing of a route without weighting the protection. Pink has been discarded by the elite as a designation these days, but it meant that all the draws were pre-installed on the bolts or the gear pre-placed, so all you had to do was clip your rope through the biner. I think it was a good bit of honesty about one's ascent, because if you're climbing at your limit, and a route is really hard for you, its definitely easier to just clip the draw or piece rather than place it yourself. People assert that the hardest routes today are much too hard today to clip the draw to the bolt and now call it a red point as well, but I think it just dumbs down the definition. Brown point is a derogatory term for just getting up a route by any means necessary, pulling gear, hanging, and generally pitching a fit. Used in a sentence, you would say, "I saw Ivan out at Beacon today and he made an ugly ugly brown point on Blownout."

You should give a little more info on what sort of thing you're looking to climb.

Why didn't you just say that at the start of the thread Feck? Everyone could have agreed and we'd have saved maybe 43 pages of yackity yack.

Be warned than Acopa is sized weird though, you gotta try them on rather than just mail order. I've been interested in a pair of JBs (which few stores seem to carry) but I tried on a different model and it seemed like it was the size 13 that fit, while I tend to wear an 11.5 street shoe and around a euro 45 in a rock shoe. I thought someone else was making an old style high top these days too?

Water up at Ingalls Lake, your next opportunity is likely to be either over the shoulder on the false summit or somewhere down the Cascadian. Maybe maybe maybe you'll still have a snow patch dripping just below the summit, but consider that a bonus. I haven't been there this year, this is just extrapolated from past experience.

Just keep the goddamn government out of my medicare!

This is just a copy of the thread Blake started in Spray, put here for more exposure to the subject. Write your congress rep now! There's a bill in committee in congress, proposed by Rep. Doc Hastings, that would repair the Stehekin Road washout and restore a lot of great climber/hiker access. The Yakima Herald just ran an editorial in favor of the bill . Please let your congressional rep, and senators know your view on the issue! The bill goes before the House Committee on Natural Resources on Sept. 10. Washington members on the committee include Democrat Jay Inslee and Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, so it's especially important to contact these two folks. Doc steps up to the plate on Stehekin August 4, 2009 by Scott Sandsberry (Full Article Link) The history in a nutshell: The pioneers built the old Stehekin Valley Road that follows the valley, overlooking the Stehekin River, well above the floodplain. In the 1930s, the feds came along with their infinite wisdom and transformed a critical 2 1/2-mile stretch of what the locals still call “the old wagon road” or “the detour road” into part of the then-new Pacific Crest Trail. Civilian Conservation Corps crews replaced that section of the road by running it down below, along the river … where it was bound to be washed out in time. In 2003, that time came. After the flood washed out a chunk of the road, the Park Service promptly abandoned the road above that washout. This bill would have the PCT, not the road, down along river’s edge. The road should never have been moved in the first place, and Hastings’ bill would allow the National Park Service to rectify a long-ago wrong — because the way the law is now, that road can’t be put back where it should have been all along. The road cannot be moved, because of the wording in the 1988 Wilderness act. (This despite the fact that the 1988 act’s author, former senator and governor Dan Evans, has written in support of Doc’s bill to say the intent of the act was never to prevent this kind of problem-solving solution.) Doc’s bill would allow the road to be moved to its proper place — as originally built above the flood plain — and allow access to areas that, until then, will remain unseen by most of the Wilderness lovers who might otherwise enjoy them.

I think the point in posting it here is for the sake of more exposure. Many more people read Spray than the Access Forum.

Technically, that would be self gratification. Hey, don't worry, even a bitter has been can have a good weekend.

Um. I don't get it. No? I just thought Bug's response was really civil, and I was struck that while indeed none of us is perfect, its a worthwhile thing to try and be better, and its hardly limited to climbing style.

We can all try to do better, whether its how we climb or how we talk to each other. Have a good weekend Bug.

Your friend is just sending you right wing christian bulk spam, he didn't write it. I suggest you send him a Care Bear.

Sorry Jibby, but actual experience with the route in question and the ability climb it hinders pontification.

Beck! Nice to see you remember your password, this is your ninth post in the last five years. You going to Ropeup this year?

Unless you're feeble like me. Negative self talk will hold you back from reaching your full potential. Read Performance Rock Climbing or spend time with John Frieh. I've eaten John Frieh's dust and never left the parking lot. My point is that off the couch does not lend itself to 5000' round trip days. I know how to be less feeble, I just have to want it more.

I thought you were a tool user! Cordless sawzall is the obvious solution.

Unless you're feeble like me.

Hey Joe, I like you just fine, so no offense, but since your stated goal with regards to climbing is to chase off 85% of the people currently engaged in "your" sport, your advice tends towards selfish self-serving bullshit. Your gear skills are admirable, as is your personal approach and acceptance of risk. It seems to work well for you. Note that the key word is YOU.

Nice, I've been anticipating this TR since you'd intimated where you had been the other week.

Glad to hear you're over that. I doubt you got flack from anyone who's opinion matters to you. I'm glad to hear Jimmy's okay, he's my buddy.

I'd suggest E Ridge, N Ridge, or NW Face on Forbidden. S Ridge on Torment, either on it's own or as access to the excellent Torment Forbidden Traverse (note that the north side snow traverses may offer significant late season challenges). Sharkfin always seemed like a long ways for not much, but that's just me. A high alpine traverse over to the Eldorado area after you're done in Boston Basin could offer some scenic and challenging travel with something like Early Morning Spire or Dorado Needle waiting for you.

It's been a long time, but I sort of share the assessment of that route: a few good pitches and a long not so great upper part. I've done four routes on Dragontail and that one was my least favorite, for all that the couple pitches on the pillar were wonderful. I recall it as a walk off the backside too, though my last trip up there left us on top of the NE Towers which do require a couple single rope raps to hit the walking terrain.

My wife was psyched to get us tickets to the Curling event, until she found out how much they were. [video:youtube]