JosephH

Today, Saturday, is the last climbing day out at Beacon for the season. It will be closed to climbing starting tomorrow, Sunday Feb. 1st, on through until July 15th (or until it can be verified the Peregrine chicks have been flying for about a week or so, or until we can prove our year-round pair are nesting somewhere other than on the South Face.)

Today, Saturday, is the last climbing day out at Beacon for the season. It will be closed to climbing starting tomorrow, Sunday Feb. 1st, on through until July 15th (or until it can be verified the Peregrine chicks have been flying for about a week or so, or until we can prove our year-round pair are nesting somewhere other than on the South Face.)

Just to be clear. What was the consensus reason for putting them in?

I'd say pull them and leave a note in a bag on a stick in the first bolt hole explaining the reasons why they were pulled and directing them here. At this point I can patch them well enough so you'd have to really be up close looking for them with a pretty good idea where they were.

Again, what's with the agonizing and equivocating? If there's ever been a no-brainer it's this one. Pull & patch. But it's for you folks who love the place to work that out for yourselves. My offer on the patching once things warm up stands.

Who thinks like this? People who think all forms of ascending are climbing and equally legitimate reasons for installing bolts.

This is the essential philosophical divide. You may consider this use, or any use at all, as a valid reason for setting a drill to rock and littering it with steel, I do not. Quite the contrary, that "god put it all here for us to consume" attitude, along with the associated, "I'm too busy, tired, or indifferent to give a fuck" one, simply opens other vertical surfaces to unrestrained bolting going forward. I'm just me, what happens at Broughtons, in lieu of it's history, happens - I'm personally not going to exert much more energy over the place than commenting here - but let this stand and you folks with an affinity for the place will likely regret it, and I'd expect to not hear a peep if and when similar activities appear at Ozone. Bring this sort of thing to Beacon and it won't last long enough to even have a conversation about it.

Very inclusive of you, then it's simply a matter of context and taste whether you appreciate it or not - well, there you have it. Drilling a 13 bolt ladder up a wall and clipping up it in isolation from any other free or aid climbing before, during, or after it - be it on concrete, wood, or rock - maybe climbing to you, it most assuredly is not to me. I'd say take it to the nearest telephone pole and spare some poor rock the embarassment.

Climbing means to ascend. So by the actual definition, this was climbing. Or do you mean…..YOU do not see it as climbing? Music means making noise. So by the actual definition, pretty much anything is music...

b/c you don't like aid - holes are essentially invisible and not going to ruin anyone's free-climbing experience - that salvages something good from the bad Not at all, I actually do like aid. The issue for me is one of both principle and asthetics - principle as in they may have been climbers, but this wasn't climbing, so simply reset it; asthetics in that with the right hook it's trivial hooking and a line of holes, in this context and origin, has no asthetics. When I want to practice aid with any asthetics at all I go do one of the lines at the Butte, if I don't have time, or Beacon if I do...

I'd say the odds of the hangers being where you'd want them on lead is slim, but who knows. I'd say erase it and if someone wants to put up a variation go ahead and do that as a seperate deal. Sounds like it's been a TR project until now - maybe keep it that way until you know it goes...

i agree - hooking in holes iz kewl! I'd disagree, patch'em.

Hopefully we can presume those 'other bolts' were put there for the purpose of climbing rocks as opposed to climbing bolts. But, I'll agree that, once bolts are flying at any density, it gets hard to discrimminate between one line of bolts and another on any but a fairly tenuous ethical basis.

I wouldn't go that far. They clearly hold some odd notions about what constitutes climbing, but I think the issue is not so much whether they 'are climbers' or even the fact that the ladder is in close proximity to existing aid or free lines - for me the issue is 'what' they were doing. It's the fact it didn't really require a rock at all to do it; a slab of concrete or a telephone pole would have worked equally well for their purposes.

It's easier to get, or make, a long eyebolt with the same thread as the 5pc, hook the sleeve out, and then funk the wedge out with the eyebolt. That's if you want to salvage the bolts - always a good idea with new ones and you have the time and tools - otherwise just unscrew them and call it good given these holes will be patched as opposed to bolt replacement. Moof, with studs I'd have to say don't 'whack them deep' (the hole usually isn't deep enough) or 'whack them back and forth' (it breaks up the surrounding rock too badly) - just over-tighten the nut on them until they break off, then tap them back in the hole. Edit: Oh, and you'll need a deep/long socket to over-tighten with a socket wrench. If they are studs, then I've got the sockets and Bill's breaker bar to contribute to the effort if needed.

Was working at Digital Equipment Corp. in Nashua, NH and living up in Francestown about 40 minutes SW of Mcauliffe's home in Concord. It was pretty much a bummer for an extended period across all of Southern NH in general as I recall. I do remember later wandering out to Joe English Hill, soloing up to a favorite perch, and just staring up at the sky along with the giant Air Force satellite dish nearby which was doing the same.

Some 'police tape' on a bolt higher than the first one with a "to be chopped by the community" notice and a link to this thread marked on it with a Sharpie wouldn't be a bad idea. That or some form of marker that states the intention and has a link to here anyway.

After several years I've [finally] gotten pretty good at patches that match all the micro-contours and local texture in the rock and now have access to blendable colored epoxy sticks. I would be happy to assist with the patching. The only caveat being that part of the operation would have to wait until it is a bit warmer for the patches to really take well. Depending on the type of bolt, unscrewing them (5-pc), pulling them with tuning forks (studs), or breaking them by over-tightening and tapping them back in the hole (either) wouldn't need to wait.

John chopped it, I think three years ago...

I believe the rabbit hole currently surfaces in the Tel Hawwa neighborhood in Gaza City after a recent departure from Souj Bulak, a Kurdish neighborhood outside of Tabriz, Iran. Damn rabbits...

That's o.k., I only know because I was a photog in Vietnam and recalled that Life Magazine spread from my high school days and realized at the time how perfectly it had portrayed our enduring predicament.

Just for accuracy's sake, the quote was: 'it became necessary to destroy the town to save it...' and was attributed to an unnamed Air Force Major by AP stringer Peter Arnett on 2/7/68 in regard to the destruction of Ben Tre which is the capital of Ben Tre Provence in the heart of the Mekong Delta. If I recall correctly the quote was made in the context of the fact B-52 strikes pretty much returned everything back to level ground. Life Magazine used it across a two-page aerial view of Ben Tre after the fact. Now the basic concept is codified in the euphemism "Ben Tre logic"...

I have say that anyone even remotely considering this a route is being overly kind. That this ladder qualifies as a route at all, let alone one worthy of preservation, represents a pretty basic philosophical divide, let alone an ethical one. These guys clearly had volition, gear, a rope, and went up. Beyond that I'm still having a hard time figuring out where - on the basis of a [natural] line, vision, creativity, skill, or prowess - the leap to a "route" would come into play.

Most industrial nations are ahead of us because families in those nations recognize the [free market] value of education. Parents in those cultures are just far more actively engaged in insuring their children leverage educational opportunities than are comparable parents in the U.S. Further, much more is demanded from their children both at school and home with regard to academics. Lester Thurow was in PDX about 15 years ago and, with regard to the lack of comparable and rigorous national academic standards in the U.S., noted "the U.S. has over 5,000 local school boards all cranking out a lousy product...". He makes a worthy point, but the other shoe as the biggest obstacle to better academic achievement in the U.S. is the behavior of families.

Maybe we're setting our sights too low. How about k-8 is to teach you to learn, high school to think, and university to allow you to contribute something beyond manual, rote, or craft labor.