JosephH

Well, there is no 'data', but there is reality and that means it's possible to make educated guesses and use a little common sense to extrapolate from what's known. Take a shot at it - how many bolts would you guess are in WA, OR, and ID? What percentage of folks putting on a harness to climb in 2010 will trad climb?

I'm guessing there's between 80-100k routes in the lower 48. Take the 11 Western States, 7 Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states, and throw in the 7 New England states, that's 25 states. 9 of the Western states could easily support 5-7k. 2 of the Western states could probably support 10-15k. Of the 7 Midwest and Mid-Atlantic I'm guessing 6 could easily support 1.5-2.5k and 1 could support 7-8k. Call New England, the far South, Texas, and the Plains states 3-5k altogether for the sake of simplicity. That would be between 93-121k routes. Call that high by even 25% and you still get 70-93k. At an average of 8 bolts per route that would still be 560-930k bolts - not all that much hyperbole really. Throw in Alaska, Canada, and Mexico and you're definitely way over the million mark (roughly three 40' containers [bill?]). Throw in the EU and the rest of the world and you're definitely talking millions. Percentage of total folks who put on a harness this year to trad climb? My guess is 15% max - also not much hyperbole. It's pretty simple equation for me - more bolts, more climbers. My preference will always be for less climbers, but as I said, I'm not much of a people person.

maybe 10 bolts a route on average...definitely less than a 100,000 sport routes... i'd say 15,000 sport pitches would be optimistic...that's 150,000 bolts... Well, I know one individual in Boulder who's put up about a 1k lines himself in a handful of canyons in the Front Range, so I'm guessing we'd have to push that 15k number up pretty significantly. Just off the top of my head I'd guess CO sports close to that many routes by itself.

As I posted earlier, nothing elitist about me, I'm just selfish and misanthropic. I started climbing in an area off the beaten path where we were the only climbers and got used to it. I'd love nothing better than to see the sport collapse to the tune of about 90% like windsurfing did. No crowds at launch sites these days. Get a map, ring it with 15 minute driving time radii around every major city in the county and then start plotting bolts on it in red. Do that for five year intervals starting in 1970 and play that animation forward. Yeah, it requires some driving and walking these days. Probably looks about like this: [video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZqeARrD7t0

No, China doesn't have a "near monopoly" You're right, they have a near ironclad monopoly. 95% of the current world's supply of rare earth metals used in high tech and green industries are mined inside of China's borders.

How many sport climbs do you suppose there are in N.A.? Average bolt count per climb? Worldwide?

It's a different ball game than the post-WWII US 'gravy' years. Gots to actually compete for resources these days. Also note the 'The Battle Over Rare Earth Metals' (China produces 95% of them at the moment and just started restricting exports)

New strategies, techniques, and tools are one thing, but in general all I usually ever ask for is at least a shred of 'take-off-the-blinders' honesty around there being nothing either arbitrary nor subjective about millions of bolts in stone. i think most people are completely honest about their efforts...i for one, have always expressed how long and hard i got beat down on a particular project before i managed it with no falls...shoot, alot of times, i couldn't even do all the moves... Likewise, its a well known fact that sharma will literally try one of his cutting edge projects over many many seasons... I don't think that's pope and dwayner's point...in fact, i don't much understand their point...they seem to not want people to do something that those people enjoy for some stupid reason... The point about honesty is about the 'advancement' of climbing didn't come at no cost, it involved the installation of millions of bolts which attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the sport out of which a very small pool of folks 'advanced' the sport. It's definitely a non-issue if you have no problem with the proliferation of bolts and climbers.

NC historically has cranked out some of the boldest and creative climbers in the nation.

Exactly, it would seem the Chinese have stumbled upon and unconsciously recreated that experience and it's really working for them. It's ironic that ruthless state control under communism wasn't particularly successful - unless you take the long term view and see that the remnants of that state control applied to commerce [/capitalism] really does work out pretty well in a strategic sense.

...am I doing the math incorrectly? I don't see how your link gets you to 1/2. From your link:"Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said Baghdad will increase oil exports from roughly 144,000 bpd to 300,000 bpd in 2010" I don't see the actual 2009 production numbers from the US govt, but here's some recent news from Al's Jizzum. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/12/2009122013166878529.html "Total Iraq exports stand at around two million bpd of crude oil". I divide 150,000 into 2,000,000 Barrels per day (Bpd) and I still don't get half even using a Chinese calculator. Is this some of that government math? I believe it's what they're wrapping up in contracts versus what they're currently pumping...

The difference with China is better strategic State/Corporate cooperation relative to commerce and global investments. The US doesn't really even do this in the 'strategic' sense for all practical purposes, but rather our government wields power for individual commercial interests.

The point is that the Chinese are coming in behind us and, for all our two trillion, making us look like chumps and incompetents - particularly the way U.S. corps swept through Iraq like carpetbaggers versus doing any useful infrastructure work. That task is going to fall to the Chinese who will use their ability to do true infrastructure restoration as an attractive part of their overall package. They are doing the same in Africa and South America while we play war and worry incessantly about muslims. The strategic incompetence of it all is staggering - but then what do we have to show for our infrastructure restoration capabilities? An empty WTC site and the ruins of post-Katrina New Orleans? It makes us look weak and without collective will as a nation.

New strategies, techniques, and tools are one thing, but in general all I usually ever ask for is at least a shred of 'take-off-the-blinders' honesty around there being nothing either arbitrary nor subjective about millions of bolts in stone.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2009/12/23/Iraqs-oil-headed-to-China/UPI-70641261584612/ Ditto in Afghanistan... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/world/asia/30mine.html ...And it's 1 2 3 4 - what were we fighting for...

Which discredits the entire neocon ME fantasy and shows how incompetently they wielded U.S. military might. Testosterone injections for the lot of them would have been a much cheaper way to recover their Reagan-era maasculinity.

China now holds the bulk of Iraqi oil and mineral contracts. We have immeasurably empowered the Chinese with our two trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of many previous RC roped solo leading threads

True that. The systemic homogymization is complete and climbing, bolted and gear, is now officially a matter of hanging on ropes incrementally working lines ad nausem until clean sends can be done. Cool, I get it. But it then shouldn't be a mystery why there is such a big spread in everyone's sport and trad ratings. All good, but probably best to avoid situations anywhere near your limit where you'll be run out on unknown and difficult technical terrain and can't hang to sort things out. Mais alors, la grande majorité d'entre vous ne le sera jamais - c'est la vie dans les banlieues.

Those are actually CMI 'Kirk's Kamms' (on the left), the springloaded versions were CMI 'RoKJoX' (on the right). The 'Kirk's Kamms' came out in '76 and I remember the day they came into the Shawnee Mountaineering store; ran right out and almost killed myself with a couple of them straight away. I've sent Stephane an email and he'll get back to us with how long Kirk manufactured them for. Popular Science - Sept. 1977 Edit: Looks like Kirk's Kamms only ran from 76-78 and RokJox from '87 to ? (Stephane still checking on that one...)

it's just you. It's not real climbing unless a fall is likely and will involve certain death or grave injury. Everyone can do what they want and I don't judge them for it, I just think they are pathetic pussies who are ruining my sport. I hate people. The point about long[er] falls was relative to folks' delta between sport/trad levels.

Off, don't know you and haven't climbed with you, but I've certainly met exceptions to the rule, from what I hear on ST it sounds like you're one of them if, as you claim, aren't a natural or have no particular instinct for climbing. I've also run across some folks who aren't necessarily 'natural' climbers, but who do have an extremely honed gift for self-preservation that helps compensate when things go bad.

Trust me, we didn't call them the "Swivel of Death" for nothing...

Dad learned to fly in bi-planes in classes where only 2/3s to 3/4s of any class lived to graduate. He then flew single engine fighters where there weren't a lot of options when things went wrong and went on to be a test pilot at what's now Cape Canaveral. You're right, good military and commercial pilots are elitist and they don't hold a very high regard for pilots who aren't 'naturals' - principally because they've proven over the decades that while fine when nothing is going wrong - they general respond poorly when things go south. That's been my same experience with climbers over 35 years of climbing. I have no elitism my climbing, and certainly none about my climbs, none of which I would consider "test-pieces". You're more than welcome to get on them yourself, however, I'm sure you'd find them all trivial.

I don't believe anyone considers either route to be a sport climb. EBGBs was bolted ground up and considered old school bolted trad; don't know the history of Rock Warrior, but am familar with it having been on Sandstone Samuri. Making simple, obvious placements on well-defined crack climbs is not a particularly big deal, especially when climbing well under your limit. But the real deal with any significant trad climbing at or near your limit is the emotional control involved in dealing with knowing there isn't going to be a next clip unless you provide one, or in the case of old-school bolted trad, knowing the next one is a long way out. It's the emotional discipline and risks involved with the unknown - whether internal or external - that are what makes trad climbing so much more committing than sport climbing. You can certainly point out the exceptions - and I'll grant you there are a lot of them on a crag-by-crag basis - but again, the sport/trad delta says it all. I would also say, sport or trad, that a lack of experience with, and unwillingness / hestitancy towards, taking long[er] falls is also part of the issue overall and something folks don't get much in the way of experience with in gyms or on most sport climbs.