Doug T

Let me know the climb and the gear and You can come get it.

Here's the optional processes I would suggest: 1- Buy some Yellow "Caution" tape and crow bar and borrow a rotohammer. Go to Index at 5 a.m. and flag off the area, posting on the board that you'll be knocking off a block. Set up a solid independent anchor, preferably using the big trees nearby. Drill a bolt into the bad rock, Clip into the new bolt with an old rope in the independent system, pry out the rock and lower it to the ground. 2-Buy some Yellow "Caution" tape and a crowbar. Go to Index at 5 a.m. and flag off the area, posting on the board that you'll be knocking off a block. Climb up and knock it off that pesky block with the crow bar. Enjoy the sound as the block enforces the Law of Gravity. Make sure you haven't loosened any other blocks, then rap down and post of any damage to bolts below that may have been damaged. There's been some blocks knocked off routes over the years, some good, some bad. Maybe take someone else up there to show them and see what they think. Have fun with it.

Yes I have fallen on the 3rd nut placement. The crack constricts for a proper nut placement. I haven't fallen on the lower 2 because they all go in at the same time, but both set well and required significant effort to remove. That's just using one of the 2 (TWO) cracks. After I climbed it, we pulled the rope and my partner lead it, using my gear and inspecting it from below and above, finding another good placement and agreeing in the absurdity of the new bolt. If the argument for the bolt is that it's too hard to place gear in the 2 cracks to adequately protect the climb, that's wrong. It's not hard to place gear there. Justify however you want. Having led the climb dozens of times over the years, I know that the experience has been dulled for anyone climbing after that bolt was placed. If making the climb even safer than it is was the goal, while still defacing the rock, you could have simply tapped a pin in and out of the crack a few times and created an even better nest for the nuts. At least that would last until the rock eroded away and not the 1 human lifetime of a good bolt. Climbing protection has improved since that first bolt was planted. The old bolt was irrelevant for a long time. Now there's a shiny new irrelevant bolt. At least the bolter asked around. Sadly he/she didn't ask me so I could demonstrate the multiple good placements and try to deter the action. Bolts have their place at Index, but this one was a poor judgement placement.

Went to Index today, expecting to do a quick warm up on Godzilla then play on something else. We get to the anchor and see a brand new, entirely pointless and unnecessary 3/8" bolt on the second pitch of City Park. There has for many years been a relic 1/4" bolt on that line which, as a reminder of the past and what pioneer climbers used as pro, served a good purpose. I've been climbing at Index for 17 years and NEVER considered the original bolt anything more than a psycological piece and waste of a quickdraw. It has never been an issue because even as a relatively new climber back then, I was able to put in adequate protection with nuts. So to make the point that the new bolt is litter, I led the second pitch of City Park today with just the set of nuts on my harness. After placing 2 bomber nut placements, I had to ask my partners for more draws so I could keep placing bomber nut placements. I placed 1 more before making the move to the ledge, where I placed another. One of my buddies who is taller was able to place an additional nut before making the move to the ledge. You can see the bolt in the pic between the first and second piece. Each of the lower 3 nuts in the picture will take a leader fall. The fourth one will also but the climber must be pretty tall. The fifth can be placed by any climber whose hands reach the little shelf. In addition, I didn't have enough nuts to even try using the crack LEFT of the bolt, but on visual inspection, I could have placed 3 more. There are 6 good nut placements available to an average height climber, 7 for a tall climber, and an 8th utterly bomb-proof nut, all before moving onto the ledge. I'm not interested in a bolting war. I won't remove the bolt myself. I'll just point out the obvious. There are MULTIPLE good natural placements that don't require anything beyond that carried on a normal rack. The bolt that was there was pointless to even new climbers at the grade and was backed up. The climb is a crack climb and needs NO bolts. The fact that the old, fully rusted bolt still was in place is evidence that it wasn't taking falls through the crux moves of the route. Natural pro was doing its' job. The bolt placed should be removed by the person who placed it. You have taken away from the experience for anyone who tries to climb this line, expecting an easily naturally protected route. If you're that itching to replace bolts, I can suggest a list of bolts and anchors that need replacing due to galvanic corrosion or just plain age. Doug Taylor

He was one of my heros. I remember seeing him on an advertisement climbing some JTree 5.10 when he was in his 80's. Thanks for the motivation Stimson. Doug Taylor

Ice, Aleve, and take October off from climbing.

I'd like to add Racer X

I smell BS too. A couple of months ago we removed over 25 FEET of webbing and rope from those 2 trees and put in an anchor. The new anchor is safer and easier to belay and descend with. The old anchor was an eyesore. We asked lots of folks, including the ranger, their opinions of putting in an anchor over using the tat rappel and the unanimous reply was that an anchor was better. This is the first complaint since the anchors went in, yet the route has been climbed many many times. The silent majority prefers the anchors. So put your crowbar away and pick up your wire brushes and bush-whackers and put your energies into making the place a better climbing area. Doug Taylor

400 Minutes Smith Rocks and Skaha

To paraphrase Michael Reardon, Naked barefoot free-soloing is the only true climbing. EVERYTHING else is a compromise.

First off, to everyone who took the time out of their day to check out my little vid of Gabe (flashclimber) on thin fingers, I'm honored. Next, I appreciate all the criticisms. I am seriously trying to get better at the entire video process. Even if you hated every second of the video and told me why, it'll only help me get better. As Gabe mentioned earlier, my ultimate goal is to make a commercially available product. Whether it becomes a commercially "viable" product is unlikely. What I am trying to do is make things that people will want to see. At the current pace of collecting raw footage, it's gonna be well past this year before I get a product out. I managed to score some sweet video software and hardware(not enough of this) to have the "potential" to make some entertaining stuff. But it's like I'm driving a Formula 1 racer but only have learner permit driving skills. So constructive criticism is very welcome. What I put up on Youtube is there for folks to enjoy, for the climbers to show off to their buddies and for me to improve my filming/editing techniques. As for music, the final product would need legal music anyway. So if you don't like my musical choices, turn the volume on the video down, plug in your Ipod into your ears and enjoy it the way You want. I think that's awesome. Tape: If you have bony hands with thin skin, you'll use it. I agree that Index hand cracks are pretty skin friendly. Gabe doesn't always use tape, but from an editing standpoint, it makes for a nice reference point in the processing. I've permanently scarred my hands climbing a 5.8 hand crack, so not wearing tape crack climbing is like not wearing climbing shoes. Wearing a white shirt when you're being filmed climbing... That's bad... ;-) I'd like to have more folks to film. So if you see a dorky bald dude with a fancy pants camera out at Index, swing by, say hi and let me know if you're willing. Doug Taylor tonkashouse@comcast.net www.DougTaylorReptiles.com

I'm a dog lover, I have 2 well treated, well behaved dogs. If a dog is on-leash, not barking or threatening and you're cleaning up the dog crap and you really can't be without Fido, then fine, take your dog. Off-leash, barking, threatening, crapping... get serious. That belongs at home. Knowing the nature of this site, someones gonna come back with some witty comment like "Shove it up your ass" or something. Don't bolt cracks and don't bring your dogs... it's just better etiquette.

Were the anchors chopped or the hangers/nuts just stolen? Doug T

It's pretty crazy there. Lots of the light stuff dropped by Zoom, including one rock that, had anyone been belaying when the rock fell, would have been thoroughly killed. The biggest rock, that I would guess would weigh in at 1 ton, cratered out into the dirt road about 100 feet out from the rock. There's a tree whose top 15 feet is in the middle of the old parking area while what's left of it is still about 100 feet up the cliff and horizontal. Climbing on Zoom or Kite Flying Blind would have felt like having your head in a Guillatine today. I didn't see any damage to the lower routes. It was so wet when we started today that it wasn't worth going up... not to mention climbing under recent rockfall seemed less than prudent. There should be more news tomorrow. Doug T

It's the nature of this area. I think we've got folks stealing hangers for their own projects elsewhere. I don't think it has anything to do with any ethical statements about pro. Engrave all hangers with what route it's on, epoxy the nut, use glue-ins or use Petzl longlife bolts that can't have the hanger stolen. Doug T