JosephH

I believe that. Seems like Mt. Hood by itself is a good example of a place where the '85% rule' does actually rule - that anyone can get up it so long as nothing bad happens; but if something bad does happen, then only about 15% or less of the total folks would have a remote clue as to what to do or how to behave.

I agree. I'll also comment that the PNW is filled with folks for whom alpine is their real deal and clearly lots of them are ambivalent about the rest of it when they aren't in the mountains. Also, I noted over the decades of being here that more than a few alpine guys are balls out friggin' crazy when they get on rock - they take lots of big risks that don't always seem well-advised, place some pretty scary gear, and style points are pretty much irrelevant from the get go. That in no way is an across-the-board observation or generalization of all alpine folks - just a higher percentage of scary sketch than you run into with crag-only free climbers in venues like an Eldo or Gunks.

Well, on an entirely different topic: the bible doesn't cover a GED.

Yep.

103 in WA, 387 in the NW, and 4,753 in the US (last year's numbers). That's one guess. My guess for 2008 would be more like: 450 OR, 800 NW, 11-13000 US

I haven't, but the sandstone version of them is what I came up on in bumfuck SoIll on navajo-like overhangs and big roofs. We were doing kneebars, full no-hands rests on heel hooks, etc. back in '76 on steep routes some of which were uprated by others over the years to .12s and 13s. We could have bolted them but were were totally LNT and on that type of steep, it's actually harder to get a route on top rope because it's impossible to dog on steep - you fail, you fly - no ifs, ands, or buts, and zero time to 'work the moves'. Really it's more like DWS than leading. And we also had far, far overhung roofs where the TR didn't kick in until mid-crux and they also had lots of trees out in front of them to hit; TRs could be pretty fucking dangerous. Ditto for some of our highball buildering and bouldering hijinx. Both engendered broken wrists and backs of folks attempting to second those lines and problems after we left town. And we also led a bunch of stout overhangs and roofs on gear, one memorable in particular was a big roof to an way overhanging offwidth. We did it clean with two wank CMI IBeams in the offwidth, never talked much about it, and a decade later it was done with six rap bolts on the offwidth, renamed, called 'desperate', and uprated two grades by a strong party who never new we were there. It was obscure and solitary enough that another decade could have passed and someone else could have gotten the same FA exprience we had if the second party simply hadn't bolted it. Even with the bolts to my knowledge it never saw a third ascent.

I've always figured you were an alpine guy to whom getting to the top of things often matters. I can understand all the rest simply feeding that as a means to an end. Cool. My gig was and is completely different in that alpine holds zero interest for me partly because I'm a sandstone and basalt guy, partly because I grew up in Chicago and hate the cold, and last because I'm mainly about gymnastic movement and roofs and don't care much about getting to the top of things. A reasonable concern, it will be interesting to check back in ten years and see how they faired. Not really my deal, I find sport climbing boring and I'm not interested in the hordes it generates and promotes. I'm sure there were more important things to worry about than the buffalo back in the day as well.

Joseph. Would you say that I am dependent on bolts? Not at all. I know if you had to climb and couldn't clip bolts you'd have your gear out and be trad climbing.

Not true JH......I have a ton of ethics....just not your ethics. No doubt, I've seen them nailed on the wall at Ozone.

I have no interest in anyone watching about my climbing, hell, I don't even care about the climbing I've done, only the climbing I hope to do. And I don't want the 'whole world' to give up climbing - I'd be completely happy if just the 85% that are wholly dependent on bolts did. The annual number of bolts needed to keep feeding them new lines is pretty ridiculous. Still haven't heard anyone venture a guess of how many new bolts go in each year in WA, the NW, and in the US as a whole.

Last I recall seeing Heinous Cling it looked to be a matter of safe, completely clean falls. Hell, I've done .12 top ropes that are more dangerous than that with the side benefit of being impossible to dog on.

Had climbing been of interest, the last thing thing Miles would have been is a sport climber and the venue he'd least have been interested in would be a gym - Miles was all about risking. And the mere idea that there is anything avante garde about the riskless entertainment climbing the suburban hordes have glommed onto is just the sort of self-fulfilling delusion that attracts them in the first place.

Only a good point if you're missing the point - read my response to that post of Rob's above. Oh, I'm quite willing to admit ethics have all but evaporated from 'climbing' these days - along with risk beyond stupidity and chance. I have no doubt you'd argue that position. But aside from dangerous aspect of dogging and the issue of the ancient notion of ethics, the other reason it's just flat out a behavioral bad idea is if you actually do develop some skills and balls, you'll sooner or later find yourself runout with no possible option of placing pro to dog, and after conditioning yourself with dogging you're way more likely to meltdown than gut it through. Really! Damn, I clearly don't know what I've been watching because I've seen folks who dog from the moment they can get a first piece in. I'm sure they must have stepped up to those lines thinking they had a good shot at sending them - yeah, that's it, why sure. Lot's of sport crossovers apply the exact same dog-and-work-each-move mentality and tactics when they are climbing on gear.

Gotta dah - another time...

That would be akin to attempting to teach literature to chimps, don't have the time, inclination, or energy.

You can laugh your ass off, but the point you're missing is it's two entirely different things - the first is weighting it or falling on it once; the second is about not rechecking it each and everytime before heading up above it again after doing so. If you can't figure out the difference it's too sad to laugh about.

But then of course, you have no fucking idea how stupid or not that might or might not be so it's a pretty mute point beyond you simply talking out your ass... Pulling on gear is yet another subtopic and another bad idea unless of course you're an alpine guy.

RuMR - it could just be that, appearances to the contrary at times, that you're simply not an idiot and do actually manage to maintain plain common sense when dogging on gear. But your experience isn't everyone else's and you clearly haven't been following along the various forums if you've missed those accidents - he'll we've had a couple of it out at Beacon in recent years. And actually I'm really good at gear, but then I also don't dog on it, good or marginal.

John - I don't bad mouth someone else's style behind a guise of "it's dangerous" - I bad mouth it on both counts independently - it sucks ethically and it's incredibly stupid from a safety perspective. But you're right, people are certainly free to make stupid decisions for themselves.

Kimmo - I don't use chalk for a variety of reasons - first, it's a disgusting feeling on my hands; second I look like the Pillsbury Doughboy about five minutes after being handed one; and third is what it does relative to the creative process of climbing. Back in bumfuck SoIll where we climbed the rock had no cracks and no edges - just isolated pockets, horns, and ribs. Half of the challenge of climbing for us was simply seeing a climb, the rest of the challenge was working out the sequence, and the least of it was climbing it once you did. We were way into the 'puzzle' aspect of it which is instantly destroyed the moment you apply chalk. Beyond that we saw the affect it had on the Eldo locals when we'd go visit there - most wouldn't climb anything that didn't have chalk on it, whereas everything we touched back home was an FA and so we were always straying from dotted line which the locals hated. The 'follow the yellow brick road' and 'move like I move' mentality chalk fosters and perpetuates has always struck me as sad at best. That, and because 98% of the time it's completely unnecessary no matter what your head is screaming at you... Skykilo - Alpine climbing by and large is alpine climbing, mountaineering is mountaineering; the intent, objective, and game is different.

Because it's an incredibly dangerous habit - gear placements aren't bolts. The plain fact is that "plain common sense" seems to be evading tones of crossover folks these days and by that I mean they're way too busy working the moves to be bothered with rechecking the placement after every go at the move. I've been seeing progessively more and more accidents as a result of this over the past ten years.

You're talking about various subtopics which have always generated discussion on their own. And you're right the words have generational context relative decade by decade such as trad climbing existed before clean climbing. But make no mistake about it - in the era of clean climbing, the use of fixed pro (bolts and pins) in free climbing was extremely extremely judicious and the few slab or face climbs that were wholly bolted had bolt spacing that would be deemed X-rated by today's sport climbing standards and proponents. As for the tactics used in climbing - Off can tell you as well as I that dogging was as big an argument as the bolts that made it possible. For many of us dogging was far more the insult than the bolts. So when you see old guys insist on being lowered after a fall and then pull the rope for another try, that's because that was the prevailing ethic of the day. Such 'crossover' use of tactics is still germane today but in the reverse scenario - people sport climbing on gear, or what I call "sprad" climbing - which is folks dogging their way up trad climbs. This is incredibly common these days and is always a drag to see both for ethical concerns, but far more for the fact it is an incredibly dangerous habit to get into along with just being a lousy approach to trad climbing. It's also one generating a lot of decking accidents of late. Trad placements aren't bolts and shouldn't be treated like they are - any time you weight or fall on a piece of gear it's imperative you check and possibly reset it if you intend to climb above it again.

also take a look at Jens' free ascent of dragons of eden...that guy is living his passion... Kimmo, it's not dead, but has been pursued and valued by an progressively smaller and smaller percentage of the total climbing demographic over the past 20 years. During that same period the rock around major metropolitan centers has been bolted in ever an increasing radius. In Oregon that trend has basically been to infill [bolt] crags up the Gorge between Mt. Hood and PDX and of late between Mt. Hood and Smith. Beacon and Trout Creek are the standout exceptions to that infilling trend. The essence of the entire discussion is well-summed up by the very exisitence and use of the term 'adventure climbing'. There was a time not all that long ago (hell, even Off can remember it) when trad climbing was 'climbing' and didn't need to be qualified by a prefix and all climbing was an 'adventure'. But real climbing has now been relegated to the shadows where it can be ignored or referenced as an peculiar exception (that only guys like John Frieh do). Why? So the culture of the majority (sport climbers) could co-op the very term 'climbing' and drop the prefix 'sport'. In the end words and semantics really do tell the real story of decline. But if the real story were present in our vernacular than the climbing done by the overwhelming majority of today's climbers would be called 'entertainment climbing'.

Pretty much a spot on observation. But I'm pretty damn particular on that front as well.

Kimmo, I do, mainly putting up FA's whenever and wherever I can. Locally I climb trad as well and also do get involved. From that perspective Eldo and the Gunks get 'it' right, but there's not much in interest in that sort of thing around here. Josha Tree did adopt a sensible plan but have no enforcement per se - bolts are flying just as fast and furious there as anywhere.