JosephH

I thought it did a fair job visually depicting folks putting lives at risk commercializing the hauling of incompetent people up and down fixed lines. What it failed miserably at was explaining pretty much anything about what was shown and especially the fact no one should be in that business and that it's no place for people without the requisite alpine experience.

Part of an original - maybe I should call it "Ode to Young Warriors" given I posted the second line while waiting twenty minutes at the YW p4 crux for another party to clear the belay above. But just now looking up what the fuck an 'ode' is, it appears to be a very formal thing that's way, way over my head given I wouldn't know a strophe from an epode if one fell on me. That's definitely more your bailiwick for sure... My basic point is the routes out at Beacon are an amazing and precious commodity just as they are and I'll always feel that way even though I've climbed at a lot of other wonderful places over the years. They should be given all due respect and protected from being made 'safer' or any other pedestrian changes meant solely to comfort more delicate (or middle age and aging) psyches. I'd personally quit climbing before I'd change a single one of them just so I could keep climbing them as I fade. And in the end it all comes down to this: are we "keeping it real" out there for ourselves and the next Cartiers to come along, or is that all now just a faded and cliched bumper sticker from the 80's?

Not Whitman.

Kev, dude, you don't really have to do any convincing for me to believe that...

True enough, but that as a rationale for pulling a pin from a crack and bolting nearby seems again a big step away from what Beacon and all the FAs there are about and particularly the spirit and tradition embodied in those lines - are you saying we should chuck that for the sake of more convenient stances? If so, I can't agree. I don't think we should retrobolt existing trad routes simply for the sake of better stances. Exactly. Absolutely. And having checked all the South face pins except a couple over the AoT that's exactly what happened. Again, the only really dubious pin placements are the first p1 pin and the p4 angle on Young Warriors - the first should be bolted given the character of the rest of the pitch; the big angle on p4 is completely unnecessary and should really be pulled but I reset it as well as possible because there'd have been no end of the bitching if I hadn't. Well, I'm sure glad you ended by qualified all that with this otherwise someone could easily get the mistaken impression you are in fact advocating retrobolting the pins out. He sure does. He's also not saying anything I haven't said repeatedly, if not endlessly, up thread other than possibly being open to the idea of retrobolting for better stances (and I have to say it sure is hard to argue that routes like BS&S couldn't be made 'better' if that's your criteria). Yes, it's a great article written in the midst of the clean climbing revolution that lots of climbers claim never really happened. I read it in late '74 two years after it was written and it, along with Chouinard's writings and others, shaped my climbing in fundamental ways and embodies exactly the ideas and principles I've climbed with for forty-one years and that I have been advocating here all along. The whole thrust of the article was about the need to get folks moving away from hammering and removing pins on each ascent and get them to start using nuts and leaving fixed pins if necessary, skipping fixed pins and bolts whenever possible - exactly the case out at Beacon. And I'd personally go even farther and pull about sixty percent of the fixed anchors out there if it were up to me. I addressed this question up thread with specific details and even pictures. The two pins you speak of were angles - one a baby angle, one a medium. Both funked out with a breath and were basically worthless; both placements took pro completely fine (one nuts or cams, the other cams). They were not replaced. Yeah, but 'safety' is tricky business. Planet Granite has obviously decided five, six or - god forbid - seven foot bolt spacing isn't 'safe' enough these days (the whole of Ozone is clearly unsafe now). Or go climb BS&S and tell me if it's 'safe'. If any of you are really worried about 'safety' then I'd say the solution is simple: just do the work as I outlined previously - maintain the fixed pro, pins and bolts, on a sustaining basis. All the pins have been checked - none of the ones on existing routes other than the ones I've mentioned need to be replaced by bolts unless your rationale is enhancing stances which I personally would consider lamentable in the extreme. It's no different than bitching about dirty routes [of course due to the closure] - everyone adopt a route or two and on the open just do the work. Already addressed above and I'm not now and never have advocated for a single solution. However, I am advocating NOT destroying the essential character of existing Beacon FAs by retrobolting pins out for the sake of convenience, 'better' stances, or (the most dubious of all) 'safety'.

The problem is that routes eventually lose old pins, when the pins are replaced they damage the rock further and then on some next cycle those old pin holes become hand holds and/or gear placements. Ivan is right, it's about fixed pins and I didn't widen or damage the pin placements in the process of checking / resetting them and, in the case of most of the Beacon pins, they didn't cause any damage when originally placed and by and large shouldn't if you know what you're doing (and there were way, way more incompetently placed bolts than pins out there). In general, bringing up a Valley route example where pins were placed and removed hundreds, if not thousands of times has little relevance to the use of fixed pins anywhere and at Beacon in particular. I suppose you could make an argument that folks no longer know how to place or check pins and / or aren't interested in learning, but that's another deal altogether and again about on par with a strong bias for cams because the requisite learning with passive gear never happened.

Is it numbered (just behind the bottom of the hammer face next to the A5 logo)?

You want Been Moon or Boone Speed.

Kim just updated his contact info here: contact info

Good to hear some real [local] SS observations. The SS five pieces might be more amenable to removing and reinstalling, the plated ones sure aren't. I'd still probably go for glue-ins to skip all the moving parts and be done with it, but to each his own. Gotta make your own call there, but I personally wouldn't want to see that Blownout's p1 pin swapped for a bolt. I suspect if pins like that go to bolts then over time basically every pin that loosens will end up a bolt and, once the pins are gone, retrobolting to make climbs 'safe' or 'safer' will surely be close behind. Beacon without pins? That would totally suck and from my perspective it boils down to respecting Beacon's history and traditions or not. The p1 pin off the ground and p4 angle on YW are basically marginal and both funked with a minimal flick of the wrist, but at least there's pro around the p4 angle so I reset it as well as it could be. The p1 pin I also reset as good as could be, but it likely sucks again at by this point. Given the [unfortunate] sport character of that pitch I'd probably just replace it with a bolt if anyone was nervous about it. No, I said short pins of any type were bad and that a couple of the knifeblades were bad. In general, there's not enough 'meat' on the blades for super longevity so I'd recommend Bugs whenever possible. When I checked those two p3 dihedral pins they were beyond solid and didn't budge a fraction of a millimeter, both sounded good as well. I think the drainage through there is pretty good though it would be good for someone to check them all again given it's been eight years.

Good on you. The vast majority are bomb and even if one does come loose it will only need to be reset. But I still have what's left of Middendorf's spare pin rack and some others and you're welcome to it all if you're going to do more of it and run across the odd instance a reset doesn't work and a swap needs to be done.

Crikey dude, you just aren't getting it are you? And by the same token you'd have to carry a wrench and more to check a bolt. WTF? No you don't have to carry a hammer around all the time... Let's try this once more for like the millionth frigging time: FIXED PRO - BOLTS AND PINS - HAVE TO BE MAINTAINED OVER TIME. That means someone (hint: BRCA), needs to check the fixed pro on some regular basis. Do all of it every five years, do a few routes every year, or fuck it because you're too damn busy clearcutting, terraforming, bolting aid lines, and retrobolting to be bothered and take your chances. ACTUAL REAL SCIENTIFIC DATA only comes from someone (anyone) putting themselves out there and making observations. Observations take time and effort to go out and make them. And, check it out, that's exactly what I did from 2005-7, I checked every single anchor, bolt and pin on the South Face with the exception of some of the lines over the AoT and Riverside. I replaced 74 anchors - in which both bolts were spinners in 54 (73%) of them. So, from ACTUAL REAL OBSERVATIONS (curious, do New Relic customers ask for 'scientific' data, or just the ordinary kind?), the result was that bad bolts, as a percentage of total bolts, were off the chart bad compared to bad or loose pins as a percentage of total pins. And it should be noted that lots of the pins were way older than most of the anchor bolts. The best bolts out there are old 1/4" split-shanks. Don't know what the wonder alloy is they're made of, but one of them burned the teeth off two new Lennox sawzall blades that will cut bolts all day long like butter and it barely made a nick in it. Unfortunately all the hangers on those are complete shite. A couple of worst bolts were older studs, but most by far were eighties and nineties 3/8", five-pieces. Probably a third of those were badly placed and not perpendicular to rock face. Some had silicone sealant and stacks of washers behind the hanger to try tip it to compensate for the bad drilling angle. Some were in places such that water would tend accumulate in the hole. And hey, I like to party and climb as much as the next person, but it's probably best to refrain from picking up a drill when you're too stoned and/or drunk to drill perpendicular to the rock. You can paint it as a problem better bolts (stainless) will solve and you may be right (Bill would be the one to consult on that), but I have my doubts. I'd have to make observations over time of well-placed 304 / 316 bolts by pulling a couple at 4/8/12/16 year intervals to really say. I've climbed around Asia and the track record there isn't so fabulous. Sure, we're not on the coast, but it is wet and it's ocean air that drives the kite/windsurfing in the Gorge. Again, I have my doubts about anything but titanium glue-ins. And here's a recent article from the BMC titled: " Should stainless steel bolts become a thing of the past? " Personally, if I were to replace or place any bolts going forward it would be with titanium glue-ins. Second to that I'd probably go with SS glue-ins. Why glue-ins? Because the glue helps keep the steel from corroding inside the hole if you're talking SS. BUT, glue-ins are super finicky relative to knowing what you're doing and being sure you do every aspect of the job well or don't bother - it's definitely not a Wayne and Garth sort of deal. Of the SS glue-ins I like these folks products: Bolt Products and there's also a ton of good info there as well. For me the deal with bolts out there is, short of titanium glue-ins, eventually the bolts are going to go bad and it's hard if not impossible to tell when and if that has happened. The pins can be checked over time and that is a feature I do like about them. I view it similar to choosing a cam or a nut for a placement - I'm going with a nut every frigging single time if there's a good spot for one, if not then a cam. Out at Beacon if there's a good pin placement for a medium / large LA or Bug I'm going with that every time, if not then a bolt. But again, all of this - just like learning and doing the monitoring or cleaning South Face column routes - takes time and effort. Over three years I spent hundreds of hours doing all three, over eight years way, way over a thousand. It also takes assembling a decent kit for doing the fixed pro work and extended cleaning sessions if you want to do them with the least amount of pain. Talk and [honest] intentions are cheap; spending the cash kitting up and for gas and actually logging the hours doing any of the three is a pain in the ass and takes time away from actual climbing. But you're either doing it or not, and if you're not, then you're just blowing it out your ass and what the fuck is the point of a BRCA or a committee beyond howling at the moon and wailing over the closure? [ P.S. All of this could easily have been in place for a decade now if the laser focus on the closure, fuck-the-man, and bold make-believe fantasy / slander hadn't been the dominant theme and order of the day. ]

These two pins were the only ones on the entire South Face that were anywhere near in this state and a far higher percentage of the bolts replaced were that bad or almost that bad. And, by and large, it was the newer, best-looking bolts placed in the 90's which were the worst of the lot. Again, the pins way, way out-performed the bolts over time by a long shot. The deal with the pins out there is: * Small pins of any type suck and are basically not worth placing; if you can't place a medium or long pin don't bother in terms of fixed pro * Angles of any size are worthless over time due to having so little surface area in contact with the rock, also don't bother (and almost all are in spots with good pro) * Bugaboos are truck and hold up well over many decades and are to be preferred over knifeblades * Lost Arrows are truck * Soft spade Euro spades are surprisingly good, particularly when a thin column crack has and curves / bends in it which knifeblades and bugs won't snake around After maintaining / replacing both bolts and pins, I'd personally favor a pin out there over a bolt every time in most cases because I can check and maintain a pin whereas there is no way to really check or know what's happening with a bolt 10, 15 or 20 years later.

The knifeblades were replaced with bugaboos or LAs and the bad small angles were in bomb gear placements and not replaced. The two lower FoF knifeblades:

Beacon wouldn't be Beacon without him...

Fixed that for you.

Crikey, the usual Beacon bullshit. Love how you guys just make it up as you go along. To be clear, I've never said the pins at Beacon ARE bomb. I said I checked and either reset or replaced any bad pins in 2006-7. I also did say: a) That comparing the performance over time of the pins I checked compared to the 144 anchor bolts I replaced, the pins WAY out-performed the bolts, one of which broke simply under the weight of the breaker bar being on it and another that broke before a quarter turn. b) That I trust the pins out there more than the old bolts because I've checked both and seen the performance over time of both (and thinking bolts are always better than pins is right up there with thinking cams are better than nuts). c) That fixed pro - pins or bolts - need to be maintained on some regular basis, like maybe a full survey every five or six years, but then yeah, just like everyone adopting a south face column line to keep clean every year, that would take some actual time, effort and sweat which for sure has never been on the agenda. The BRCA has been exclusively in the closure biz for years now. Done an anchor survey? No? Developed a fix-pro maintenance schedule? No? Developed your own fixed pro management plan? No? What a friggin' surprise... New year, same wank. Carry on. P.S. Oh, and if the 3rd pin on FD is loose, maybe skip the online operatic and just go reset fucking pin. Or, of course, you could retro bolt the whole place to Planet Granite standards and make everyone nice and safe.

Exactly what percentage of sport climbers do you suppose do trad as well? Pretty small percentage. And that there are a couple of sport climbs out there is regrettable [from my perspective]. Bill, I agree, with the right committee mix. In the case of Beacon though, that would mean first developing a positive relationship with those damn park bastards and ho's. Quite a challenging prospect no matter how you look at it. And, as ever with committees, the real trick isn't saying what to do; it's doing what was said. You betcha, by three weeks. Not only that, he styled it first go, no falls, no hanging.

If only that were the least of the potential... Get a frigging grip. The 'point' isn't now and never has been about there not being a committee; it's solely about the make-up of the committee and the leanings of any majority. Beacon is a trad oasis in an ocean of sport climbing and it doesn't take a high IQ to figure out the long-term implications of the committee getting adversely loaded. Even from within the twisted confines of the Beacon Reality Distortion Field it shouldn't be rocket-science to figure out what that could potentially mean. And while I know it's a real stretch and distraction clicking a mouse and all, but for about the twentieth time, you folks should consider looking at the Eldo site to see what real cooperative management between [trad] climbers and a state park system looks like. But if you do look at it keep the caveat in mind that Eldo climbers and the park folks have a longstanding, trusted working relationship with the climbers acting in good faith and above board (possibly because the CPS kept Eldo from becoming a quarry). It's something pathetically lacking at Beacon (oh, I know, I know, it's clearly because they're all ho's and bastards and everything is soooo completely unfair to all you blushing, lily-white innocents...). Again, after all the adversarial shenanigans and endless shit-talking of past couple of years, good luck with the notion the committee will be made up mainly from within your ranks.

This prospect was THE primary driver for my getting actively involved in 2005. And it was emphatically stressed at that time by a (then) director-level AF representative who said [essentially] this: From my perspective, both then and now, that basically equates to blowing the place open to retrobolting at some point down the road - sooner rather than later would be my guess given you guys seemingly now don't have any qualms about five pitch bolt ladders and retrobolted, headpointed FFA's done with pre-placed pro (and that's 'keeping it real'?). This committee's actions have far more potential to alter the fundamental nature of climbing at Beacon than the closure ever did. Kind of ironic to see several years of energy frittered away on the closure when the real danger is likely to be welcomed with open arms under yet another mistaken and wishful assumption you'll be making up the committee. Good luck with that as this is now quite likely when the whole adversarial thing is going to bite you in the ass.

Good job. It's now been completely cleaned out and put back in commission and will suffer much less final rope drag with the new anchor.

Yep, true enough, but then facts, objectivity, politics 101 and any other form of reality-based thinking are always going to be a serious wet blanket out there in the distortion field.

Hmmm. All fine except that's not the route or the crux problem that defines it. Let's do get on it and take a look...

Topher, that bolt may need to move to the right to where the actual crux problem is...