JosephH

Read it again. You keep insinuating that my position on IB can somehow be characterized as me telling you what you can climb. I'm saying to you that is no different than claiming I'm depriving you of the right to smoke when my position is you shouldn't smoke in public places. I'm simply saying if "smoking" to you means smoking in a daycare center than, yep - I'm guilty of saying you shouldn't smoke - that's because there are places where smoking is simply inappropriate - just as there are places where bolted routes are inappropriate. That in no way is a matter of infringing on your right to climb.

This statement is untrue and you know it. If someone was smoking a cigar (which I love) and I did not like it I would leave the area. BUT I WOULD NEVER TAKE THE JH OR RAINDAWG APPROACH AND MAKE SURE NO ONE EVER SMOKES A CIGAR AGAIN. That statement is an exact and entirely appropriate analogy. No one is suggesting you don't climb bolted routes. I and others are suggesting the bolted route in question shouldn't exist where it is in the same way cigar smoke and dog shit don't belong everywhere. The analogous claim you are making would be saying that the fact you can't smoke your cigar in a busy restaurant or a daycare center is depriving you of the right to smoke cigars. Or to suggest another analogy, recommending you piss in a restroom urinal as opposed to the gutter in front of the Heathman Hotel is in no way infringing on your right to take a piss.

Look if you don't like climbing via ferratas, don't climb them. Exactly what damage would a via ferrata cause? There is absolutely no distinction between your statements and these. If you're assertion is that bolts and bolting have no impact physically, qualitatively, or on access then you are operating from either from willful or unfortunate blindness or a position so ethically bankrupt it isn't worth discussing further. That position would also imply you simply want to emulate risk-free gym climbing outside wherever you please. Your position is no different than a cigar smoker who can't imagine everyone doesn't love the smell of his cigar or a dog owner who can't fathom why anyone would have a problem with his dog shitting in their yard. Hint: Even when cigar smokers and dog owners are a majority their cigars and dogshit still stinks even if they all don't mind breathing and stepping in it. They still degrade the experience of others who do not share the new majority's particular form of self-gratification.

Your vision is non-existent if you can't recognize the damage done. The world isn't bigger than it was 30 years ago - it's just now overrun by bolt-only, risk-averse climbers with an insatiable consumer appetite and a commodity approach to climbing. They have no respect for the rock or wilderness and are self-interested in the extreme in that regard.

Bill, sounds like the hangers were pulled which I would consider a bit unfortunate. I'd say either remove the bolt and hanger or leave both. I very much dislike the whole idea of simply leaving studs almost as much as I do putting the route up in the first place. As raindawg suggests, they should finish the job. If I were to climb there I'd ignore all the existing stuff and just follow my own instinct and line. If that lapped either the original route or IB so be it, otherwise I'd either do it on gear alone or back off if I couldn't. Now the descent is something Kevin could claim is something you need to go look at to make a call one way or the other. Don't know from sitting here.

Nothing about my position on IB has anything to do with you. The folks who put IB up are the one's who did all the imposing. The best way to find that out is to go up and do it or not, but only on gear. The huge hit on the climbing community happened when IB got put up. If someone has put the effort into removing it I would call that community service. This statement and the reasoning behind it is exactly what should be said to the guys who put IB up. Again, that is exactly what happened in the wake of IB being put up - we all lost. It was and is a very public fiasco and complete embarrassment for the climbing community. Hope you're happy. The fact that you don't seem to want to be bothered to understand what makes this 'route' so controversial is half of the problem. You clearly see personal opportunity in it, where others of us see collective embarrassment.

The difference is some of us think that, despite the good intentions and hard work of many involved, that the ultimate resolution was unsatisfactory and represented an inability of our community to self-police and that the outcome was representative of paralysis in the wake of the bolt wars back East. The fact some want to simply put this behind us or relegate it to spray only serves to emphasize the lingering unease associated with this whole unfortunate incident. Hey, there's a good idea on Bill's part Kevin, how about you and I go do it on just gear sometime?

There is nothing whatsoever unique enough about any aspect of Ignorant Bliss which would require I or any other experienced climber to do it to understand it and what it represents. Kevin, that's some pretty tortured logic you have going in the attempt to string together IB's existence and my telling you what you can and cannot climb. Using that logic people can claim I'm personally responsible for their inability to take a via ferrata up the Nose because I'm both against one and would advocate it's immediate removal should one appear. No way should they be letting me tell them they shouldn't be climbing the Nose. You'd have a half a case to make if I went up and chopped it before you could get on it. I consider it far worse than a bolted crack which would have been dealt with swiftly without the all-to-public handwringing and paralysis that insued with IB.

Kevin, I simply replaced belay/rap anchors while adding and removing a single protection bolt from an existing route (and not for my use). To-date, not a single route I've put up in thirty three years has a protection bolt on it and only one has fixed anchors I've installed.

50 is what you make it. My 50 was so pathetic and I got my ass handed to me so thoroughly by someone even older to the point where I had to remake my reality or quit altogether. Aging gracefully is simply a matter choosing wisely which humiliations you are prepared to suffer at any given point in time.

I climb hard vicariously each week simply by saying, "where is Jim Anglin today?"

I'm guessing you do a lot more alpine than me...

Climbs are art, though personally I find bolted routes to be more pop than fine art. A lot of graffiti is also art, the question it raises isn't so much the quality of the art, however debatable that is, but it's location and the canvas it was painted on. As far as I'm concerned Ignorant Bliss is just that - bad graffiti which we as a community had a responsibility to remove as soon as it appeared. Instead it turned in to a case study in collective handwringing, paralysis and an embarrassing inability of our community to assert and police itself responsibly. All routes and bolts are not equally righteous, aesthetically valid, or even legitimate. Those who think bolting is a one-way event - they go in and should never come out - should then think that much harder about where and why they are placed if they want to prevent wars. They should also think long and hard about what is lost each time a bolt is placed rather than just what is gained.

Ah, the judgmentless society argument. No values, where anything and everything is simply fodder for derision, scorn, and shock. I argue instead that even using no other moral compass or standard than common sense you'd have to be blind or complicit to not judge certain behaviors and actions as inappropriate to the common good. For example, the Bush adminstration's motives, methods, and actions relative to not only the war in Iraq, but also broad swaths of governmental policy, at nearly every turn, have been dishonest, disenginous, and at times treasonous almost from day one due to their ends-justifies-any-means approach to a 'conservative revolution in government'. In the case of Imus' on-air speech, as a professional journalist his speech was by any cogent standard a textbook example of hate speech pure and simple. He's free to spew his personal biases and bigotry as a private citizen - he has a different responsibility when he's on the air. A whole genre of media talking heads have spawned over the past 20 years which at their core are based on hateful content designed to skirt the edges of legal speech to shock, enrage, and incite divisions among peoples. Hopefully Howard Stern and others of their ilk were awake at some point during this whole pitiful episode. But in the end people get what they accept. Blind judgment rooted in dogma is lamentable, a blind eye to injustice, criminal, and treasonous behavior is stupidity. I just don't mind calling them as I see them when speech and action leave the realm of opinion and private concern to negatively impact public welfare. At one time that's what journalism used to be about - public accountability rather than hate-filled 'entertainment'.

And the beat goes on - even your questions are entertainingly bigoted. The kneejerk defense of Imus seems entirely understandable after the stream of unconsciousness you've inadvertantly displayed here.

I'm somewhere between 5'10"-11" and am currently at 184 after coming off an injury and coding relentlessly for four months. I won't be able to touch what I have in mind for later this year if I'm not at 172 max - preferrably 168. Anything less and I'll just be climbing and not putting up the routes I have my eye on. That wouldn't be a tragedy, but like I said, I still have things in mind. Aside from the requisiste shutting of the cake hole, I absolutely have to make aerobic activities the priority for the next two months. For me that mainly means running despite the fact I find it incredibly unpleasant for the first 3-4 weeks. Any focus on climbing is a secondary consideration given I have no concerns about that coming back if I keep my eye on my overall fitness. I'm about a week into it right now and working on starting the process of ramping my running up from 12 miles / week to 24-36 miles / week. Somewhere around 18 miles / week I'll throw in swimming. Whatever climbing I do always follows a run and I only do what I can with the surplus from the run; sometimes that's nothing at all, sometimes a little bouldering, and once or twice I've even gotten on a rope.

Kas, I'm beginning to really enjoy your posts. One after the other they keep marching along like little soldiers headed over a cliff. So predictable in terms of where they're coming from and where they're headed. The devotion to cause is almost palpable...

No 'detachment' of any kind is involved or required in distinguishing between Jews, Judaism, and Zionism. Quite the contrary. Niether Israel nor rabid Zionism are problems in and of themselves either - except when U.S. Citizens put the interests of Israel ahead of those of the United States. Wolfowitz has clearly demonstrated his allegiances lie elsewhere. He, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are all guilty of treason as far as I'm concerned; the difference between them is Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were enticed by the [chauvinist, white male] Neocon fantasy whereas Wolfowitz and others knew exactly where and why they were pushing the Neocon agenda. Those reasons had nothing to do with U.S. interests in the region. In fact, the whole Iraq fiasco and indeed the entire modus operendi of systemic corruption in all Bush administration agendas is simply an extension of the same mentality and methods permeating the Reagan administration and exposed by the Iran-Contra affair. Reagan, Haig, Weinberger, Poindexter, and North - the last crew of bigoted traitors to inhabit the White House and lionized by the like of Imus and other talking heads of the right.

You gotta know how that sounds..... Pssst. Let me tell you a secret, Joseph. I even have a couple of friends that are b-l-a-c-k. Both this post and your previous one equating a problem with rabid Zionists with a prejudice or problem with Jews would appear to demonstrate your biases, not mine. That you can't seem to distinquish between Jews as a people, Judaism as a religion, and the politics of Zionism is pretty typical for those who do have a problem with Jews and all things Jewish. Again, lot's of people keep their bigotry well under wraps these days - your b-l-a-c-k 'friends' aside, is that what we're talking here?

As I said upthread I have a teen daughter. And my wife is a member of the Colville Tribe and only a very few men I've ever met are even half as tough or nearly as resilent as her. Making it in the world as a Native female coming off a reservation alone with no support system of any kind is an amazing accomplishment let alone doing it and being remarkably successful. Our daughter is also smart as hell and equally tough so someone who's man enough to live by her side and keep up with her will be rare enough we won't care whether he is white, green, yellow, or purple.

I have no problems with Jews whatsoever; dated the daughter of a prominent NYC Rabbi. I have many Jewish friends. I do, however, have a real problem with rabid Zionists and particularly those Zionist U.S. citizens who put Israeli interests before those of the U.S. every time.

My experience has been that somewhere on one side of each decade or the other my body has changed, and like Bug says, it can be difficult during that change. But, if you do the work to get used to the new you then you're good for about 8-9 years before you have to go through that wringer again. You basically have two choices for dealing with it - easiest: never stop climbing like my partner Tangen-Foster or, more difficult: deal with it each decade like I have. I've been in and out of shape a lot of times over the years when work or family have taken priority. That has it's downsides, but the upside is I don't worry about my ability to come back from the abyss because I've done it a few times before. It would interesting to know how high the attrition rate is at each decade; I suspect it's very high at 30 and 40. In raw numbers, I'd say those of us who are in our 50's or older have shown some significant depth of resiliency, addiction, and/or appreciation for climbing to still be at it.

Wolfowitz, just another corrupt, womanizing chickenhawk upholding family values while remaining true and faithful only to the Zionist agenda as opposed to U.S. interests. After meeting him at a Pentagon briefing, even Tom Clancy, not exactly a flaming liberal, commented "he's on our side?"

Nah, I'm getting too old. I can still carry the breaker bar but hauling 300 epoxy sticks for that many pitches of low angle stuff would get to be a drag and I'd just slow you down...

Thanks for that validation. Every now and then it is good to get a little feedback that one is doing something right...