JosephH

Frankly when I'm in the middle of my lead aiding or free climbing, I could care less how "easily" it comes out, I just want it to hold my ass in a fall, and if it's a little reluctant in coming out, I take that as a sign that I used the right nut in the right placement. Well, I guess we just approach it differently. I generally find the best and most solid placements are quite often the ones that come out easiest. Also, I've always been "into" placing pro and pretty much view protecting a line as a game unto itself apart from climbing and every placement as a puzzle to be solved with as much craft/art as possible. How easily pro comes out for my second is also a big part of that craft as far as I'm concerned and one that bears directly on how fast we'll get up a pitch/route. I feel like I've done a lousy job leading if I've made life miserable for my second and we end up taking forever to get up something. As a side note I rope solo a bunch, so I am my own second quite often and have to deal with my own shit and am constantly refining my placements because of it.

Got be getting sketchy up there as of today. I've seen harder freeze years, hopefully you guys will get some more next month. Everyone be extra careful though...

I apply that approach to all placements at any level, aid or free. Will nuts set hard under body weight, sure, but how easily the come out is still very much a function of you placement skills regardless of the level of difficulty...

Ryland, As others have mentioned this really isn't about ethics so much as common sense, courtesy, and logistics/safety. It is also an extension of some of the long conversations that have taken place here about people hopping on routes right behind other folks at Smith. But, rock or ice, the bottom line is any time you place yourself under another another party for any reason you are conciously deciding to shoulder risk and have to accept the responsibility for any consequences. Not freezing near to death while waiting for the other party to get up may have seemed like a good reason for such a decision at the time, but from the result it's pretty clear that maybe it wasn't. Also, in this case both parties in turn made that same decision, to place themselves under the other party. You guys obviously had less choices in the matter as they [dubiously] started up behind you, but once that was a reality the burden of judgment passed on to you guys relative to the rappel. I certainly wouldn't want to be hunkered down up there waiting in that wind, but that was probably the best option in this instance. The other option, on waiting for the other team's leader to top out, was you could have tried to convince them to wait on bringing up the second while you rapped out - either way someone was going to have to chill on ice and freeze their asses off. However a cessation of active climbing occurs, you need to secure one, otherwise you risk operating under an active climber at your own peril. I know that might sound a little harsh and brutal under the circumstances, but it does unfortunately reflect the true risks and realities of climbing. Year in, year out many people around the world simply don't survive similar accidents and so in this case your friend is lucky and I suspect both parties learned some valuable if hard and painful lessons...

I'm just suggesting that some routes may exhibit this phenom - not all, or even many - that maybe that contributed to why he didn't get the climb mentioned...

Actually there are a lot of body-types climbing different hardest shit. The number of body types getting on any given .15 is quite small. If the phenom that certain climbs are easier or more difficult for different shape and size climbers is one you've somehow missed or otherwise can't see the logic of then, oh well...

Yep, but it's easy to suppose they are probably entering territory where some climbs/sequence of moves will simply not permit all different body types/sizes/shapes to succeed.

Dreamer, SnailEye is right in saying if you need a hammer to get out most of your clean placements then you need to work on your placement skills. Placing passive pro is a craft bordering on an art and you do have to develop an eye for it. The perfect placement would be one you could dive or hang on all day and still have it lift out with no effort. That doesn't necessarily happen all that often, but really mating the pro to the geometry of the placement is key and paying close attention to fine details can make all the difference between one sticking and coming out easy. Aid is a great way to develop your craft and if you get down to where you can clean an aid pitch fairly painlessly your free climbing will get that much easier...

Depends on whether you carry them and the hammer on your harness, a shoulder sling, or are freeing the route with a tagline (recommended)...

I suspect once you are into .15 territory that we can't expect every route to map cleanly to every body. At that point body differences, style proprensities, rock preferences, and body "language" all start to affect the outcomes to the point where simply being a couple of inches taller or shorter could make all the difference in the world and could result in someone not getting up a particular route or problem...

I second Marcus' suggestion to figure out clean aid first, by the time you get c3 down consistently you'll probably be able figure out any pin work fairly intuitively...

While on another subject entirely I gave Ron the heads up we're bantering back and forth with his Dad, who knows, maybe he'll take a moment and lower his big hammer on the lot of us for taking his name in vain...

Thirty two years of climbing in a couple of weeks and not extinct yet. You'd definitely be hating my routes...

RuMR, Again, it's obviously been a bit much for you to follow so we'll reduce it. When first installed (properly): Bolts - by design provide predictable bomber loading pretty much every time; one size fits all... Pins - by design provide total variability in loading strengths based on pin selection and placement skill/quality; basically the same spectrum of loading strengths as cam and stoppers. Fifteen years later: Bolts - you basically haven't a clue without bringing a ton of shit, pulling, and replacing it. Pin - pretty easy to visually inspect or test with an etrier or hammer; typically simple to reset with a couple of hammer blows. And inspite of owning a Hilti TE-6a, my personal protection protocol always has been and always will be: gear > pins > bolts and so far have never placed a bolt for protection. I have no problem with being a dinosaur in that respect...

Exactly, and just to repeat what I've said several times now, that is exactly what I like about them - their lack of absoluteness. They can be placed as appropriate to the situation; it's not one size, one result solution for every problem. People stealing them can be an issue, but less so than ten years ago as few folks appear to know what to do with one these days. People steal hangers as well leaving studs, happens...

If you've replaced and chopped a ton of bolts then you know looking at bolts tells you nothing about their reliability. That unless you personally placed it, know the quality of the bolt/rock, and know the date it went in then you really don't know squat about one simply by it's looks. You'd also know that a lot of bolts are placed lousy. And the point isn't necessarily the longegvity of bolts, but of the inability to know when they've gone bad; how easy is it to verify that they are good and quickly fix it. My assumptions come from what you keep saying which indicate you know nothing about pins and for you're claims to boltmanship you appear to have learned precious little about them as well...

ROTFLMAO with a pin, no less... Until you've replaced a bunch of bolts of varying ages I'd say you don't really know what you're talking whether the discussion is bolts or pins. And to the degree that the line of bolts in the photo doesn't bother folks is exactly the degree the climbing has become simply another risk-free entertainment alternative on par with Six Flags. But then a bunch of you do sound like risk-free is first and foremost what it's all about for you...

Actually the real point should be that he's playing music from the 16-1700's on an instrument probably made in the same period that it is still as good any produced today...

I suppose you carry an x-ray macine when you climb? The use of a hammer was in the a comment was about checking the reliability of fixed pro when surveying it for replacement. Again, as years go by it's a lot easier to judge the quality of pin placement then a bolt.

Well, at twenty years you didn't start climbing before sport climbing by any means which was well underway by '85. You did beat gyms by eight years but the influence is the same regardless. People have been basically clipping bolts so long that they now simply require that absolute, that the variability of pins that I happen to love simply makes the majority of today's climbers uneasy. It's about black and white versus grey. About industry vs. art. I have no problem at all if I end up the last person stillholding that perspective...

No just solidly under the influence of gyms and bolting for at least as long as you've been climbing...

Pins can be absolutely as secure as bolts, but are designed to provide differing levels of security based on size and placement exactly like clean pro. And as I just posted, their reliability is far easier judged over time and can be checked with one blow of a hammer whereas you have to remove a bolt to have a remote clue whether it is bad or not regardless of what it looks like. Again, as far as I'm concerned bolts are rush to mindless absolutes by the clueless and insecure when cracks are available.

Actually, and again, there is nothing whatsoever "antiquated" or otherwise functionly a deficit with pins of any kind; that is truly a perception borne ignorance and the need for absolutes. Bolts in no way represent a superior form of fixed pro simply because hangers are what you are used to clipping. And having just replaced 34 anchor sets I can assure you judging the soundness of bolts after just a few years (or even immediately depending on how well they were placed them) is not easy compared to pins over time and that most of those bolts couldn't be reused or removed and were as much a damaging blight as any pin that might have to be replaced... RuMR, trust me, I have no doubt whatsoever that you have no idea what I'm talking about or why...

RuMR, Again, we're talking fixed, not removable pro and as for "functionality" - I like the fact that all pins and placements are not created equal and that not all pin placements are as bomber as a bolt. Bolts are just a form of predicatble, skilless absolute that I personally despise in climbing - they instantly resolve to a harsh black and white in an infinitely shaded world I love. There is nothing "antiquated" about pins as fixed protection but only a new generation of climbers who require absolutes and guarantees when they climb. Then again, there was never any shortage of those types of climbers in the 70's, they just had the good graces to skulk and whine in silence...