JosephH

Currently I'm too busy with the Texas Schutzstaffel to be bothered with the Gestapo. And given how racist bastards such as yourself bag on blacks and hispanics I don't really see how it's your business anyway - except possibly as a sourse of Nazi-like glee at the conflicting misfortunes of others. But, good to know all you victimal, white males are still predictably manipulable - and gosh darn it, there's nothing like a dose of Rovinal every two years for keeping a real man regular and stiff all over.

I'd like to second Bill's comments about BRSP head ranger Erik Plunkett - Erik went way out of his way tackling the railroad on this issue this year. He really got after them when they kind of changed the rules of the game this year and kept after them on his own off-hours time. Many thanks are also due WDFW Raptor biologist David Anderson who is the final authority on any early opens - he put in a lot of time at Beacon this year despite being pressed hard in getting EIS work done on a bunch of high profile wind power projects out East. He could easily have let the July 15th closure date stand given those high priority responsibilities. And let's not forget Bill and Ivan who did a great trundling job on the block that's been looming over the first pitch anchor of the SE Corner (from just right of Jill's) and then went on and swapped out all the signage for the BRSP which is why it could open yesterday as getting the signs changed can take the park a couple of days. And last to Hanmi Hubbard-Meyer who escorted one of the railroad guys (Gene) down to the tracks and did the spotting with him. He got to see some eye-opening trundling and Hamni really worked hard to get across the point it's a real win-win situation for the the climbers and the railroad to do these coordinated drops. She then went up and did a bunch of terracing and was a big help throughout the day. To repeat Bill's heads up - there still is loose rock to be wary of out at Beacon (there always is) and if you run across any on a ledge trail or route please stash/stack it somewhere off to the side rather than tossing it and it will likely get cleaned off during next year's cleanup when we'll do another thorough ledge and trail purge. And do stop by and meet and say hi to the BRSP rangers - they're always up for meeting climbers - the rangers out there are Erik, John (an ex-climber and our biggest supporter), and the newest ranger, Vivian.

Might as well stop by the Black and do something while you're both there being bad ass and all. Also sounds like you've got a good woman worth hanging on to as well.

I suspect many of the rigs from the original sliding-x thread would perform as well. We explored any number of similar equalizing alpine rig variants such as the ACR. Here is one of many that was looked at: This one linked in the ACR post is on the simpler side of the various ones explored. It's pretty much a standard alpine equalization rig with different ways of tying an extension-limiting knot on one leg which can be put to other uses. In general I don't find there to be anything particularly compelling about this design over a lot of the other apline equalization variants. In the end I still prefer the Equalette, Quad, and Michabich's modded equalette (below) over this 'ACR' design which still suffers badly on the extension front.

You should now be able to find both small and medium Supercams if you look around as I know they've recently made and shipped some mediums and there are still smalls around from the last batch of those they made. I'm hoping Larges will be in production in some capacity however limited by the end of the year...

Not nearly as big a fraud as either the Iraq War or our healthcare system...

You beat me to it - alpine aside, I'd pick Katoomba every time...

Got a source on this statistic? Suspecting from whence you may have pulled it, I hesitate to smell it. None whatsoever, there are no numbers for that. They would be fascinating to know. Like following the lifecycle of all climbers who enter a gym in 2007 - how long does their climbing career last in months? How many eventually make it outside? And what would the attrition rate be by month over the next twenty years look like. Pretty damn steep right out of the gate, leveling off a bit but still with big losses through folks twenties and early thirties would be my guess. Those numbers are my guess at the ratio of wholly bolt-enabled climbers for everyone who has 'rock climbed' indoors or outdoors in say 2006 or 2007. What's your best guess given that's all we have to go on...? You go to trad areas, see trad climbers, and base your view on that? If you go to trad areas you'll see trad climbers, but as a percentage of the whole nationwide? I think my numbers are probably pretty damn sound.

Because the drills are out in the PNW and already hammering a steady beat so it's a good time to remind folks to use a least a shred of critical thinking, respect, and moderation in the process. No, in fact, it is not totally bullshit. What's 'bullshit' is typical revisionist tripe like this. In a time when 80-85% of climbers only clip bolts and just climbing trad at all is labelled 'adventure climbing', it's no surprise 'boldness' has been shovelled into the shadows as kind of an embarassment. The difference between then and now is back in the day only 10-20% were putting up bold [trad] FA's; today only that percentage of people who actually climb trad will even climb those kind of routes, let alone put them up. As far as why things may be a little different in the PNW, I noticed when I was through in 80's that the high percentage of alpine climbers who did rock made for some interesting goings on. I saw that a lot of mainly alpine climbers were either very laidback or outright reckless on rock. Kind of an interesting phenom. Sure, there are lots of PNW climbers like Wayne who are good or great on both, but throwing a ton of alpine guys into the mix makes for a very different 'feel' and result than a pure rock mecca.

Raindawg, sorry, somehow missed this one. I think you would be fine with that so long as you didn't use too much, the epoxy is already pretty stiff. I'd say give it a try on some random piece of rock from the trail and see how it mixes, adheres, and works with the brush.

Again, it isn't about either party, to me it would have been the grade. I would have been much happier if sport climbing had stayed to its genesis and remained a .12 and up practice and used judiciously at that. Then it would served pushing limits, as opposed to simply providing access. As far as I recall, no lead bolts were used to put El Corazon together only anchor bolts, that is exactly what I mean by appropriate and measured application.

where did i say bolt cracks??? My bad, missed your last line after your hyperbole thinking it was just more of the same - now I can see you turned the corner on it. One note - you can't 'remove a route' on a line with a crack system - you can remove the bolts, but the route never went anywhere.

And a world class sandbagger to boot...

no...my point was hyperbolic...ie, if we take everyone's argument that we are trying to reduce impacts, then its probably best to just not go climbing...understand?? That's your justification for bolting cracks?

Hard to imagine from this interpretation that you read what I wrote at all. I was very explicit my comments and viewpoint have nothing whatsoever to do with anyone climbing at a particular level or that any one climbing at a particular level has carte blanche to do anything and everything. My point and belief is I feel no method, technique or means should escape unexamined from the bleeding edge where evolution is happening AND that it should be two seperate decisions whether a means is acceptable at the bleeding edge and also is viable to be propogated all the way down to every 5.6 in the land. That, as opposed to normal situation where the minute Frank Hardbody does it everybody with is doing it on every grade. In that scenario it is in no way a double standard - it's appropriate and measured means. Your approach is one where anything goes everywhere on everything the minute it is revealed - it's more communist than anything else with no merit test of any kind. That's exactly why we have circumstances which are the subject of this thread. Oh, and I bow down to no one - I just am not quick to judge at the bleeding edge nor do I leap to criticize difficult calls occuring at that edge simply because I wouldn't have made the same one. I give no one a pass regardless of who they are.

...The Gunks (albeit managed by Mohonk Preserve, but thats not the reason there are no bolts) After the bolt wars in the Gunks the Mohonk Preserve is very much the reason there is no bolting. The Daks protect themselves from sport climbing by simply being the Daks. I'd say more like the Mid and SE Atlantic region guards it's own and well, because you'll get your ass whipped if you show up drilling a Seneca and Looking Glass and other areas. In general those areas which are protected by locals in the East and elsewhere it's because of very longstanding traditions that don't exist in most places in the Midwest and even most places in the West outside of the classic meccas. Eldo is a good example of bolt wars even in one of those meccas and tight regulated control is what now keeps bolts in check.

A lot of that perception was because he was simultaneously dogging on them and a big proponent of dogging which flew in the face of most folks ethics in the Valley.

I explicitly don't want to see it be regulated, BUT, over the past 25 years the only places I've seen bolting moderated or constrained in any successful way is on private land and under the tight control of land managers. If sport climbers can't control themselves then, yes, I'm going to hope it gets more regulated to protect pristine rock. As an aside, I see some fools shot the last two White Rhinos in Zambia killing one. I'm sure if you asked a hunter or Zambian 40 years ago if there was a problem with the indiscriminant killing of Rhinos I would bet a lot would have said "we'll never kill them all." At least you can chop a route and have half a chance of restoring it. However, I personally find the mentality of consumption precisely the same in both cases.

I think the truth on the transition from sport to trad is somewhere in the middle. I do see some incredibly bad attempts every now and then and I see cross-overs dogging on gear placements like they were bolts which can be dangerous if not checked and possibly reset after each and everytime you weight them. But for someone with reasonable logic and spatial skills it shouldn't be rocket science. You can definitely learn it on your own even if having a mentor is by far the preferrable way to go. I do mentor folks wanting to learn trad and enjoy it. It's part of giving what was given to me. Talking down to people as individuals and giving them no assistance or alternatives when they ask for them is entirely counter-productive.

- Break nut by over-torquing with a breaker bar. - Lightly clean hole and immediate surrounds by blowing and the corner of a dense brass wire brush. - Break off a chunk of plumber's stick epoxy or colored stick epoxy, mix really well, and then smear from the center of the hole to the outside pressing hard. Pressing hard while smearing is important so the epoxy adheres to the rock, both in the hole and immediately at the entrance. - Overfill a tad and let the epoxy extend beyond the hole, sometimes a ways depending on the state of the outside of the hole and the contours of the immediate surrounds. - Use the brass wire brush to embed the epoxy. Do this by putting the brush on the epoxy and pressing hard steadily - by hard I mean like full body weight. Usually I do this several times over the whole patch and if I'm working with an area a bit larger than the hole I'll also use a corner to again work from the middle of the hole to the edges. You're normally just pressing straight in but at the edges you'll also want to be smearing hard, hard, hard towards those edges in a final slide to separate epoxy that's adhering from waste epoxy thereby defining the edge of the patch. - Finish with a couple of straight-in presses of all the wire spines to texture (perfect for andacite and basalt) - then use the heel of you palm to take the wire-dot texture down a notch or two if it's too much. - The objective relative to the amount of epoxy is to have enough epoxy to work with to sculpt to match surrounding countours. If a slight ridge, ripple, or depression goes through the hole or immediately next to it you should replicate the missing piece of it. Really pay attention to details on the millimeter level. You can remove excess epoxy quite easily with the brass wire brush in the course of finishing the patch. Done right you can make basically invisible repairs.

The problem is that if one takes this attitude then these practices essentially never end and by slow creep, sooner or later, you're into the whole retro-bolting nightmare. To those of you that say there should be no limit, no boundaries, and that any bolt that creeps into a rock is then sacrosanct - I personally just can't imagine a more radical, activist, and in many ways clearly self-serving and self-fulfilling viewpoint. At just exactly what point is a bolt war and / or closure preferrable in every way to unrestrained bolting? Never, you say? Then we whole-heartedly disagree - I very much do have limits beyond which I feel any responsible 'Access Fund' should actually support closure before unrestrained bolting every single time. Practices such as described in this thread sound very much like they are approaching that limit.

These cases sound pretty simple - they aren't sport crags are they? If not, and there is a bolt next to a finger / hand / whatever crack that takes pro, then it's bogus. If that straightforward, common sense test for determining where a bolt is legitimate or not then all of you who think I'm an extremist need to stop and look hard the next time you walk by a mirror. It doesn't matter a rip if who did it or if they got there first - it's flat out inappropriate and fair game for pulling.

Quite unfortunately, yes. He was rapping after having just freed Wet Denim Daydream with Jim Hewitt and naming the variation Dry Lycra Nightmare.

Not from everything said here. [sport] 'development' maybe, but clearly not trad FA's.

This is a good question. It was at the heart of the quite vocal free vs. aid controversy surrounding Todd Skinner's recent free climbing spate on the Leaning Tower. Many Valley aid climbers were incensed at the addition of free climbing bolts to aid classics. There is, and for some time has been, a real push in the Valley towards free climbing aid routes - witness Tommy and Beth's free climbing two lines just this past week. The folks advocating this push such as Jardine, Shultz, Sandahl, Hill, Skinner, Smith, Potter, Hubers, Ninov, Caldwells, et al have always taken the stance that free climbing has priority and can exercise the same license as aid climbers did before them to accomplish their goals - even on the same lines. In the end, it is another... gasp ...value judgment to be made by everyone, individually and collectively. The bolts placed on the Nose and Prusik represent deliberate tradeoffs and are very much a direct result of this thinking that freeing routes is or should be the main priority of climbing. It's not exactly my sentiment and I likely would not personally make those same tradeoffs myself, but I do have some sympathy for their view on the priority of free climbing. More on that battle at these ST threads: Free climbing on established aid Drilling on the Hot Rod? Vote - Should Skinner's bolts be removed? Todd Skinner's Response to the Wet Denim Controversy [ Note: Please don't feel like you have any right to an opinion on Skinner adding bolts to established aid lines on the Leaning Tower until you have climbed his line... ]