JosephH

For the stars Olson gave 'Reasonable Richard' in his guide, on the ramp up, which is about the only place someone can get suckered into a real bad decking situation by a ridiculous star-rating on one of the few 5.9's out there. And yes, it was on Opdycke's recommendation. Your point?

One, not for myself, which I then removed after you said you didn't like it. Your point?

What's your current work schedule / availability these days...?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090805193601.htm

I think he's going to have a pretty tough go of it with those wing-nut assertions...

No haranguing required, pretty much everyone is already in the other camp. Personally, I'm not trying to sway a soul, just pointing out how powerful the self-reinforcing group-think of the vast majority really is. Sort of like trying to convince commercial fishermen we might be overfishing the resource. And again, for me it boils down to that 'climbing' vs. 'adventure climbing' deal.

Again, from my perspective it's like someone objecting to the slaughter of the buffalo in 1850 - clearly a lunatic, what could possibly be the problem; in fact it's good for America. Again, sport is climbing in exactly the way via ferattas are - total dependence on fixed pro. What percentage reduction in those climber demographics would there be if all the cables and bolts disappeared tomorrow and the only way of climbing was self-reliance on gear? And just how many bolts do you think go in every year in the US to feed new sport routes to folks wholly dependent on bolts? Or do you think some day new sport routes will just stop going in, the demand sated? No, we we both know the answer to that is they'll never stop; it's going to be bolting without end, crag after crag - please, do try and convince me that isn't the reality... Again, don't feel obliged to answer those - we've been flogging this dead, stripped buffalo carcass for some time now... P.S. That isn't a halo, it's a bolt...

Ok Bill, now you're really scaring me...

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.