JosephH

Again, anyone with information about this incident or about who may have Scott's gear from his accident on Free For Some - please PM me or Bill Coe...

Geek, I would completely agree with that assertion and it is the exact result of gyms churning out large numbers of risk-averse, "safe" climbers. What you are suggesting is a tyranny of democracy that represents yet another step on a not so long road to the death of assumption and [self] management of risk as an base competency in climbing. You're talking about a democracy that abdicates the soul of climbing to a combination of fear, a lack of skills, and to entertainment. Unrestrained, that path will lead to the grid bolting of every [unprotected] crag over the course of coming years. P.S. Moderator, I saw no cause here at all to split the thread...

If anyone knows who is responsible for these markings, or if you made these markings because you felt there was a need, please contact myself or Bill Coe. Again, route finding is a feature of climbing out at Beacon Rock, the community has no interest in eliminating it as part of the character and long history at Beacon.

This follows an incident two weekends ago where the couple ahead of us on the route put a big chalk arrow [pointing the wrong way] on the slab above the crux. We'll see what we can do to repair whatever damange has been done now. Please people - no markings of any kind!!! The chalk is actually bad enough...

Bill, what mystery bolt are we talking about now? I am getting too damn old...

As I said early on in the conversation, Erik is doing absolutely the right thing calling Peter and asking everyone here and out at the crag. But again, asking shouldn't be automatically receiving, it should begin a quest for the history and facts to determine if the a change is warranted. The default starting position should always be no change until facts (did Peter do it with a long sling, etc.) and or circumstances (such as broken key hold, etc.) dictate otherwise. Again, Erik is definitely to be commended for not retrobolting unilaterally...

Dru - well, I may be a simple whore, but I'm an old, discriminating simple whore and I avoid such predicaments by being careful of who and what I get on. I'm also a traditional sort of guy and just don't sport around that way...

Well, that might be the difference between you an me. I personally thanked the FA party for leaving the route the way they found it and we had a great old time over too many beers comparing notes on each other's experience. We didn't feel the least bit sad about not being the "true" FA team given pretty much everything we all touched was an FA it just wasn't all that big a deal. Had those guys not been around we would never have known. The experience on the climb was exactly the same regardless of what we may later have decided to do with the fact that we weren't the first to touch it. For me it's more like the excitement of being with a new lover. You have a fabulous time (or not), but find out that lover wasn't wasn't a virgin - that may be a complete bummer to some folks, but not me as I'm a simple whore for the moment [something is happening]. If it was good, it was good; and if while I'm climbing it it feels like, and has all the appearances of, an FA then that is as good as it gets regardless of whether it really was one or not. But again, that's me and I have pretty damn simple needs - the actual FA "fact" thing is more icing on the cake of the unknown. Unknown stretches of rock are what I tend to end up being drawn too not because I care about ticking FA's, but because I just like being surprised and [hoopefully] surprising myself in return...

I would have to disagree. Knowledge of an [clean, LNT] FA is an after-the-fact shared reality that, if you weren't party to would allow you to have exactly the same experience as the FA party. Now you may find out afterwards that someone else had climbed it at some point in the past, but you didn't know it at the time you did it and the experience of climbing it was a totally authentic FA experience whether someone had passed that way before or not. Now was it "the" FA? I think we can agree that obviously it was not. Was the experience of climbing the route essentially identical for both parties, in terms of a voyage into the unknown? My experiences on both sides of such occurancess tells me it is.

My partner and I actually LOVE the fact that the mid-80's crew got to have an FA experience on the route, that was exactly what we hoped the next folks to find it would have. But we were disappointed by the fact that they bolted it in the process, essentially robbing anyone in the future from having the same unmarred experience. At the time it left us feeling like LNT and clean ethics had come under seige and that we needed to start doing more to keep it going. Little did we know what was coming down the pike at the time. I really view bolting (and the use of chalk in some areas) as a marring consumptive act where what is being "consumed" is the possibility of anyone in the future having that same FA experience. I know there are a lot of rather[peculiar] semantics involved with that statement for both East and West coast audiences, but things were a bit different in the isolated sandstone hollows where I climbed in the 70's; being able to see each other's routes was half our game, we didn't use fixed pro or chalk, and pretty much the only evidence that route after route was going up was an oral history passed from climber to climber in a small circle of locals. We didn't realize how different and unique it was compared to the the rock, games, and experience in all the bigger, more established, and populous areas around the country at that time until we started getting out and taking road trips. [edit] Oh, and I don't like guidebooks either except for the page that tells you how to get to a crag. When I go to a new climbing area I explicitly don't want to know anything about the routes or even that things are routes at all if possible. I particularly don't want to know ratings. The ability to walk up to a rock and eyeball lines and be able to map probable lines against your competencies, abilities, and how you feel about things at that moment is half of what I like about climbing and have always hated chalk for the reason that it destroys much of that fostering a climb-by-the-numbers and follow-the-dots mentality in new climbers as well. Ditching and avoiding guides like the plague and risk the occasional desperate or farsical epic would definitely be near the top of my advice list for new leaders - right next to getting in a lot of downclimbing and some downleading (quite eye opening...).

Slaphappy, As I said, I do [trad] FA's for no other reason than some line gets under my skin, period. I don't do them for the community, the crag, my partner, or even for myself with respect to caring much about the "finished product" - I only really care about the actual [creative] experience of interacting with some completely unknown terrain while I'm doing it. Everything that occurs relative to a climb post FA is pretty much a result of the context of the place, time, people, and politics involved, if any. And why and how I interact with rock is an entirely different topic from why and how I interact with others on this or any other forum. If you have some issue with my using examples from past experiences to illustrate some point or another during the course of this conversation please just spit it out. DCramer and others have been kind enough to share similar experiences and I for one am glad to hear them, especially ones from areas I never managed to get to. In the past year I've stepped up to some plates to help out in a more public fashion at Beacon Rock after a couple of decades of just entertaining myself and not contributing much to help insure we'll all get to keep climbing there. Along with that has come using these forums more to learn, share, and communicate other folks at Beacon and elsewhere. After three decades of climbing I do have some strong opinions about the sport in general and its evolution over that time that I am unapologetic about. Again, if you don't like or agree with what I have to say just spit it out - you won't be the first or no doubt the last either... [edit]P.S. I'm also working nights and recovering from a construction accident for a couple of weeks so you folks have to suffer my more idle pursuits...

Scott, Thanks, it was John (and Erik Plunkett) that I wanted to be sure was alerted to the accident. Again, we are very glad to hear you'll be making a full recovery and taking this episode and the lessons it offers in stride with such a healthy and forthright attitude... Joseph

Scott, do you know which ranger? Glad to here you are more or less alright and unbowed by the experience. If you get back on it you'll have to really pay attention to your feet and rope path as that does get pretty critical on routes like FFS. Joseph

Kendra, Sorry to hear the news. Following up on Bill's request for more info - what route were you on and could you describe events and protection in a bit more detail. Thanks. Also, did the park staff get notified? We'll get the word out and we will try to track down your gear for you. Sorry to hear Scott and you had a rough day out there... Joseph [see you answered the questions while I was typing this one, thanks...]

I'll ask Bob about it sometime in the next day or two...

Also Geek, "clean climbing" and LNT were never about preserving the environment, but rather about preserving the FA experience and leaving rocks/routes in as close the condition you found them in as humanly possible. All the ancillary, extended discussion around environmental impact, habitat destruction, trails, etc. are "access" issues and strictly a matter of raw numbers that these days can be pretty well summed up as "Bolt it and they will come". Do trad climbers have an impact? You bet. But, by shear numbers alone, it utterly pales compared to the impact of the crowds drawn by bolted routes.

Geek, I've never "reported" and FA for any purpose in thirty one years. I put up [trad] FA's solely for my own amusement and not for anyone elses'. But I did once learn one reason to "report" one or tell lots of other folks is to prevent a new route from being bolted. In the mid-70's my partner and I put up a stellar, big-roof-to-long-overhanging-offwidth route on a Mississippi river bluff with passive pro and no chalk. I believe we rated it a 10+ and ran out the long offwidth above the roof with one piece at the lip and one in the middle of it as it was way off the deck and you wouldn't hit anything even on a long whipper. We didn't tell much of anyone about it and given our LNT ethics we hoped someone else in the future would be able to have the same FA experience. Fast forward to the late-80s and it turned out someone did have one as when a guidebook to the area was released it attributed the FA, under a new route name, to a mid-80's crew that uprated it to an 11+, and that was after they added six bolts to the offwidth on rappel. This is kind of a damn-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation. Had we publicized the route more that mid-80's crew wouldn't have had the FA experience they did, but on the otherhand the route also likely wouldn't have ended up bolted. And, had the mid-80's crew not butchered the route, it is in just an obscure enough place that some mid-90's crew could have had the same FA experience we and they had. You seem to be a relentless advocate for risk-free climbing - why...? To again be brutally honest, about 70% of today's climbers are only climbers because they are supported by gyms and bolts. I feel no compunction or obligation to make the world safe for them. In fact, I'd be completely happy to see the popularity of sport utterly collapse and have the majority of these folks go away (as happened in windsurfing), but that isn't likely to happen anytime soon. I'm not elitist, just unapologetically misanthropic and selfish when it comes seeing rock overrun and bolted down to the lowest common denominator. This is a fundamental and root difference between our belief systems: there are no "dangerous" leads or climbs, only "dangerous" climbers. Climbers are "dangerous" when they make bad decisions such as getting on a route they aren't up to, or don't belong on. An overbolted 5.7 is "dangerous" by definition if the wrong person gets on it; ditto, for a runout 5.12 with groundfall potential. "Dangerous" is an attribute of climbers, not the climbs. Again, where did you, or a generation of you, get the twisted idea and expectation that climbing should be "safe" and that you have a "right" to "safe" climbing - Six Flags? It's climbing for god's sake, not an alternative entertainment medium for bored suburbanites. 'Times they are a-changing...' no doubt. Maybe "extreme sports" play a role here as a learning activity where an imperceptably small percentage of folks take real risks for the consumption of a mass audience / market that then [(pop) culturally] adopts a weak emulation characterized by the appearance, versus the substance, of the risks associated with the real thing. Not entirely unlike middle class, white suburbia sprouting a [weakly] emulated "gangsta" appearance rather than an authentic and possibly brutal "gangsta" life. This seems to be another root of the issue and a necessary, lingering residue of gym and sport climbing where one person is making a lot of decisions for everyone else relative to fixed pro on a route. I personally don't "design" [trad] route FA's, I just climb them - and as I said earlier the concepts of "designing", "course/route setting", "development", and "community service" are all utterly repugnant to me in an [trad] FA context. However, sport FA's by definition require a degree of pre-meditation, intelligent route evaluation, and an ability to protect them that is neither posing nor pandering - but those (in a perfect world) would hopefully be baseline, "business as usual" competencies if someone had arrived at the point in their skills and energies led them to be completely obsessed with some new [sport] line. Your questions above simply lead me to conclude you fundamentally and fairly profoundly misunderstand what trad climbing, FA's, personal responsibility, and my admittedly old perspective of what climbing is all about while at the same time exposing the "safe climbing" expectations at the root of your beliefs and comments here. I've said it before here and elsewhere that surfers, inspite of the crowds they suffer these days, are lucky in that you can't bolt waves. Otherwise every rough break in America would have been bolted long ago. As it is, you have to come up with exactly the same level of commitment, skill, and courage your parents and grandparents came up with if you want to ride a big day at Pipeline. And that's why surfers respect and acknowledge their traditions, their past, and the accomplishments of those that came before them. [note: That said, and now that it's been unleashed from Jaws, look for tow-in surfing into ten footers to take off at a break near you soon - "sport surfing" for folks unable or unwilling to risk making it out through even moderate breaks to earn a ride...]

So does anyone actually know, or can piece together, the history of fixed pro on this route? Does anyone know who put the bolts in? Does anyone know if Peter did it with the bolts in place or with a long sling in place? Any facts would certainly be helpful if not illuminating. Could we coax whomever said they've climbed it 20 times to contribute here...? DCramer, the point isn't about making anyone small, or about people at all - it's about preserving rock and routes in as close to the natural and FA state as possible unless there is some pretty damn compelling reason not to; that it's hard and scary hardly qualifies. Again, with that rationale Smith could use a ton of retrobolting. This isn't anything personal about Erik at all. I suspect he is probably a great guy and is certainly trying to do the right thing. But, it would be better not to start with an end solution in mind and then set out to ask for folks to support it versus trying to gather the history and facts first and then figuring out what might best be done if anything.

My apologies. Yes - it is not the correct use of the term, isolating it down to a single route - but you obviously get the point so what is your opinion of the issue at hand...

Bill, I don't think so at all, check my last post. Retrobolting is the issue here and again a "key flake" coming off was pure supposition in Erik's first post about why this route felt so hard and dangerous - both flashclimber and you have grabbed on to this one piece of supposition as if it's fact when it isn't at all, even when Erik first mentioned this. It could be that Peter was just more skilled and confident at the time. If it were simply about compensating for a mising hold then the title of this post wouldn't be "Adding a bolt at Midnight Rock", it would be "Is a key hold missing from the start of Stevens Pass Motel?". Again, I sympathize and empathize with Erik's experience and have had the same more than a few times myself, but that doesn't legitimize retrobolting it unless someone can clearly show a "key" hold came off. But again, can anyone - especially whoever "climbed it 20 times" - verify whether something is missing or whether it is simply a scary start. Otherwise you're basically justifying going down to Smith and bolting every stick clip start.

If you can't do the first moves confidently without the bolt or stick clip after top roping the climb then just stick clip it. Boosting confidence with a bolt instead of bettering your climbing abilities is pretty much the heart of many of the retro bolting discussions here and on other forums. Do you assume any two people agree on which is which? What if this is "just a great climb" that happens to be "bold and terrifying" and have a "dangerous start" which is what it sounds like? This is the same discussion as ever - when did "safe climbing" suddenly become an expectation and right and why should it be? Again, who is to decide whether a "dangerous start" is an "important part" - you can bank on the answer to that question everytime if the person answering is flashclimber or his ilk. As far as the person that's climbed it 20 times, how about have them post here and tell us if a "key flake" has come off or if it's always been that way and in what way would a bolt "improve" the climb. As it stands now, it sounds like "improve" means "make safer", make it less risky, and make it require less commitment, and less emotional skills no matter how you slice and dice it. And that's admirable and proper - but the question of the motivation simply amounting to "bringing the route down to your own level" is more than a legitimate question to be asked in any retrobolt discussion. Again, if a key hold really came off then sure, action is justified, otherwise all the talking and careful use of words still amounts to the same thing - the retrobolted downgrading of an existing route.

That something, key or otherwise, must have come off is sheer speculation on Erik's part and that would have to be verified by someone that has climbed the route. Peter clearly has not "given his permission" at this point, and again I would very much guess the climb is exactly as he left it and is just intimidating. Again, I can empathize, but unless someone can verify that a key hold has come off the climb should stay as he found it. [and P.S. I have several .12 and .13 FA's , several of which we graded 11+ in the mid-70's and were subsequently uprated over the intervening years...] "If it looks safe!" being the operative words here. Climbs by and large aren't "safe" - it's your responsibility by skill and capability that makes them safe. Given you appear to have never seen a bolt you didn't like I suspect the only time things "look safe" is when a route has been grid bolted.

I haven't done it, but from the description you post it sounds quite likely Peter did it exactly as you find it today as none of the exposure you describe (16-18ft. between points of protection sound like anything he would have been intimidated by. He's the author of more than a few scary starts [, middles, and ends] and hopefully they won't all get bolted just because someone fell on one of them. I sympathize and empathize with taking a dive and getting hurt, but that doesn't in anyway mean it should be bolted.

Beacon Rock Update 8/28/05 [Edited]

Beacon Rock Update 8/28/05