crimper

kevbone was just there and took some photos. we talked while he stalked the base. yes, we both need to get lives. he didn't have the guide with him and had trouble seeing the aid lines so can't judge whether they bolted the aid lines for sure. but he did count 13 bolts, including some on the pillar you mantle to start dracula - so at the least they added a new bolted start to dracula. he said they literally drilled the first bolt head-high, near a cam plament. excuse me while i puke.

sounds like another vote for chopping...

thanks for snapping those photos. that's definitely the bolt line. i counted 13 draws hanging, even though you only marked 7 here...is it possible they placed some gear in between bolts???? or did you not mark every bolt? anyway...the last bolt shown in the photo - at the small roof - is where the "leader" was when me and my family had to leave. if that's the last bolt they drilled, maybe they stopped after i spoke with them. (it was only about 1 PM) then again, their battery might also just have run out of juice at that point. now let's hear from olson or anyone else who knows these routes....just how blasphemous is this "route"?

hence "route" not route.

i always saw the most desireable outcome being these guys removing their own bolts after politely being encouraged to do so, for the various reasons already mentioned. but i have to say i'm surprised that anyone even remotely considers this "route" to be acceptable, given the context and history of their chosen location - whether or not they retrobolted an aid route or just drilled up up and away in a parallel line 10 feet away.

Hi Tim, looks like you above. Before these guys take more abuse, I want to be clear that I am not exactly sure where the bolts are in relation to those old aid lines - but if they're not on the routes, then they're certainly right next to or even between them. Bolt 13 at around 35-40 feet was being used to pull right over the center of a small (2-3 foot) but steep and curving roof that was maybe 15 feet horizontal. The rock above the roof looked mostly blank, at least from my stance about 75 feet back and down, though crossed by a horizontal seam. Sound familiar? If someone took some pictures and wernt up there wth a guide we wouldn't have to make any assumptions. Then again who knows how long or deep the passion for this topic will last.

ivan nailed it: at worst, they bolted an aid line: chop on principle. at best, they bolted an aid line 65 feet up blank rock on a pretty chunk of rock in a rock-limited metropolitan area. in a county or state park. and spent at least $150 to do it. future climbers could get the same experience aiding the boltlines at the PRG. perhaps chop to discourage more lame ass lines? so yeah, we can (continue) to talk shit at them. but at the same time (and as was pointed out to me), there's at least 15 hangers out there that will only be missed by 2 people.

kevbone: it's not hearsay when i am directly saying it. also, the prohibition on hearsay (when such actually exists) is that it deprives the other side of the right to cross-examine the witness. as i'm responding to posts (i.e. being cross-examined) and have first-hand observations, i'm actually providing the opposite of hearsay evidence. in other words, i'm actively dispelling misinformation and providing useful info.

kevbone, all bolts are not equal. if they were all equal, why have you posted pictures in the past of bolted cracks at smith? actually, i know the answer: they offended you and your sense of ethics and fairness. you considered them to be mistakes that you wanted to share so that these mistakes wouldn't be repeated somewhere else.

i'm trying hard not to slander these guys. the belayer, Tom, was in his 40s and had all the gear (down jacket, helmet) you'd expect on a climber. he did not strike me as a redneck, or unintelligent - just misguided and unaware of the implications of drilling a bolt ladder on a free climbing wall - and possibly retrobolting an aid line - just 20 miles from downtown portland. nate, i like your humor, but i don't want to see anything happen to them - although if someone can contact them they should be a) educated and b) encouraged to chop their own route so someone else won't.

hey joseph, as usual you make some good points. i was just appalled by what i saw, and so i asked question after question, and the more i asked the more i felt sick. i explained that there are 6-7 walls past the bat wall that perhaps were more suitable, and asked if they'd considered going there, or to an obscure crag or even undeveloped cliff and they told me that smith was too far. when they said they had done research i asked if they had spoken with a few of the FA parties on Bat Wall routes and they said "no" as if my question was a crazy one. the responses showed me they don't know anything about local ethics or history - and didn't really care. they just wanted to bolt on lead on a steep wall, goddamn it, and right here in portland within 15 minutes of their car! furthermore, there's a good chance they bolted right over existing aid lines without even knowing it! so i guess i am openly wondering if anyone cares. better yet, does anyone know these guys and want to try to talk some sense into them? i saw 2 cars that i think were theirs, as there were no other climbers at least to the bat wall, and all other vehicles were fishermens'. PM me and we can discuss.

eldiente/nate: i asked what the point of drilling a practice bolt ladder was, since you can only "practice" drilling on lead once on a given line, but i was met with some pretty nonsensical reply that smith was too far away, and that they had researched the issue and decided that the bat wall was "far enough out there." that's when i got more interested because i realized these guys probably didn't have a clue, or a context for their "route," yet here they were drilling bolt 13 of a bolt ladder that will go - and here is the funny part - not to a summit or new terrain but to an anchor they already installed at about 65 feet. they already rapped the line, even!(it was like watching someone use a machine gun on a harmless and beautiful animal) i am not trying to make a "superiority" argument here by implying that only "experts" should have the right to drill bolt ladders. BUT there should at least be a point to drilling a bolt ladder BEYOND the driller's singular and unrepeatable experience of drilling 18 bolts. right? or can anyone with a drill and some charged batteries and over $150 worth of bolts/hangers drill bolt ladders anywhere and anytime? i felt like i stumbled onto an accident scene right before the ambulance arrives to clean up the mess. so who's gonna clean it up? PS: Hey Bill - not "self-righteous" because I'm not going to talk about how many bolts I haven't drilled on the routes I've put up, just "concerned and curious" if this was A-OK behavior and whether their route is gonna be there a year from now.

to clarify, the "Tom" is not "Tom Scales." also, i'm not positive their bolts cross the aid lines but when i got home and looked at olson's guide, it sure seemed likely they crossed/followed the A4 roof variation.

Slightly sarcastic title. I'd write more if I could BUT i just walked under the Bat Wall, 2 kids in tow, and saw 2 guys drilling bolt 13 of 13 in a row, about 3 feet apart and maybe 40 feet up on the left side of the Bat Wall, maybe 10-15 feet left of Dracula. It appears the route might be crossing one or more aid climbs. The belayer, Tom, told me they had researched the issue and decided to drill a "practice aid route" in that location because it was pretty "far out there." We had some more exchanges, but I'll omit them for now. Anyway, the aid routes were put up by Wayne Wallace and Tim Olson and I wonder if these guys contacted them. Bottom line: I'm not the rock police, but this seemed to be really questionable ethics on a beautiful smooth orange chunk of stone on a premier free climbing wall. Other thoughts/intervention ideas?

oh and bill, be sure and climb "humanality" the 5 pitch 5-10 starting at the freedom bar (unless it was washed away by the tsunami) and which also ends with a free rappel that lands you on top of the freedom bar. it's as good as everyone says. the first pitch is a tree (yes, tree) with 5-9 hand jams you climb 50 feet to gain a ledge system. threads only of course. also, there is an optional 6th pitch i led that i recommend if you feel adventurous. picture a horizontal traverse of the inside of a 30 meter wide toilet bowl, with 400 feet of overhanging limestone and sandy beach under you. and all on threads, at 10a or so. start in the dark to be the first on the route.

i made sure to bring a set of stoppers with me. used them on some slabby stuff. but never on the steep stuff, which usually sports fixed pro every 5-7 feet (as if i could hang on long enough to slot gear anyway on those routes!)

hey bill. i sent you a couple PMs last week with beta on some 5-10s that are dead vertical, not overhanging. again, go to the keep! (the least steep climbing i found) and have you climbed any boltless, threads only, routes? i did take a 15 footer onto a thread (i got off route and there was no downclimbing - i later found out that was a common "tourist" mistake on that route, as i had an audience of locals watching it all unfold and cheering after i whipped) and it held. (thread equals fixed natural pro in the form of a knotted sling threaded through a limestone tunnel - a little spicy when they are clearly abraded and salty in some cases)

kevbone, i think you would be a much happier person if you quit cc.com for a month. you wouldn't be jealous of other dads who climb more than you, or childless climbers who climb even more. you wouldn't repeat your claim that all trip reports are spray because you wouldn't read any trip reports. you wouldn't argue passionately about climbs you have no intention of climbing. you wouldn't call ivan a "bad dad" after after TR he posts. you wouldn't get to troll joseph, though, and i guess i would miss that. then again, who could possibly take your place as cc.com whipping boy and easy target? and you may ask yourself, is this a troll, or is it not? and does it even matter when you have 10,000 posts to your name?

I'd like to say thanks to everyone as well. I think we honestly expected the event would be a success thanks to the positive feedback we were getting from cc.com and the entire Pacific Northwest climbing community, but we were still overwhelmed and overjoyed at the turnout. Everyone who had anything to do with this event should be proud to be a par of it, and please know that it wouldn't have happened without you. Also, if you had to wait in line at the end, sorry, but we were onsighting the auction process and it turned out to be harder and more sustained than we expected. The free beer people kept feeding me also let me take a few liberties while on the microphone so sorry for any offensiveness. Kind of. It got the job done.

Bill, I like IPAs.

since we're spraying, farrgo, i questioned whether the crumbling should get a 12a because i agree it's pretty much a 5-11 climb with a boulder problem start. but it wasn't my route and i didn't get to give it the 'official" grade. that said, i haven't been on it in 2 years, so who knows if we have even climbed the same route? (the route name seemed pretty accurate to me) and so is that the only 12 you've been on at ozone? (and based on on that one route you've decided that all 12s at ozone must be 11s?) and what 10a at beacon? blownout?

What Ivan said is pretty right on. The routes were cleaned as well as possible, but mother nature has ensured that some - though not all - of the routes at Ozone will always be works in progress. The guidebook makes this clear (again, as all guidebooks do) We can all name plenty of Smith Rock routes that fall into the same category, with key nubbins and flakes disappearing and making the routes feel harder (or easier) than the original rating. and speaking of ratings, what 5-12 at ozone feels 5-11? just curious, because there are only 3 at the whole crag, and all 3 are at the far end in "the cave." (that question is for you, Farrgo

my take from doing this climb 2 weeks ago as my first climb at WA Pass: i led the slabby face into the bear hug as one long pitch. i didn't like the obvious friction crux (it's a white smear from traffic) which is well above gear (for me, a slung horn and a decent cam) and after some up/down/up/down b.s. i realized i could traverse right about 10-12 feet to a crack system. i did just that and backcleaned on easy terrain so that my second could climb the friction crux and not have to follow my traverse. (then again, i'm used to oregon basalt and get spooked on runout friction granite, most WA climbers probably don't even blink at that sequence - also, my partner found the slab crux more like 5.8 on follow) above, we had brought 2 numbers 5s for the bear hug pitch. in hindsight, one would be enough to keep things reasonable, though two made it downright comfy and way safe. and a 4 only fit at the start of the wideness, not really protecting you once you get higher.. finally, the 5-10 variation just below the slabby face is sweet, i was glad my partner led it straight on instead of sneaking around it, as it was a great dual crack system with great pro (assuming you're fit enough to place it) great into climb to WA Pass, not nearly as runout as other WA granite multis i've been on. (for which this dad of 2 young'uns was thankful)

hemp 22 is wrong. (no offense!) the routes he describes are a couple hundred yards left of the routes you're asking about, and and at trail-level. then again i can't help you either.

i've seen both a cougar and a bear walking down the train track while climbing in the free for all to pipeline area. on different occasions. as for the lab, we spent a while explaining to the manager to expect a minimum of 200-300 people. he said he would start the night fully staffed and start to send people home if he could. he was super cool, and absolutely understood the nature of the event.