Permanently Modifying the Rock - A Confession

[JayB]

One of the of the primary objections I’ve heard to placing bolts from those opposed to the practice is that it permanently modifies the rock. Sure, other points have been made about respecting the style of the first ascencionists, not bringing the rock down to your own level and many others which I agree with. However, after reading several posts on the subject my mind turned to a group of sandstone formations about two miles south of my house – the Garden of the Gods. The primary occupants of the park are mini-van driving denizens of the plains (Kansas et al), sporting prosthetic camcorders, leather-pouch-belt thingies, and enough adipose tissue to keep a candlemaker in business for weeks, but there’s some quality climbs to be had there as well.

When a friend came out for a visit, we headed up a moderate trad climb by the name of “New Era.” We climbed the whole thing without so much as laying a hand on the scarce fixed gear on the climb ( a couple of mank, rusty, fatigued baby angles placed in the hemp rope era and one ¼ inch bolt with a home-made super-jingus aluminum hanger) as you can just sew the thing up with gear. The pro’s a bit more sparse on the second pitch but it’s certainly there. We topped out and got some mad props from some the omni-present German tourists whose bus stopped so that they could marvel at the prowress we displayed on this stout 5.7 testpiece.

Prior to reading the proliferation of anti-bolting posts on this site I would have rapped down with a clear conscience and a light heart, but now my experience has been forever compromised. For although I had not so much as layed a hand on the fixed gear present on this climb (which was presumably placed on lead by men climbing with wafflestompers and hemp ropes so it’s ethically sound hardware – phew!) I had PERMANENTLY MODIFIED THE ROCK (shudder) during my climb. I took a non-standard start on some gritty, chossed-out quasi crack to the left of the actual start and broke off at least two holds with my feet in the first 20 feet of the climb. But my sins were far from complete. Every time I touched the rock I displaced a few grains of sand with my fingertips, and who knows what horrors I inflicted upon it’s fragile tableu with my size 11 shoes with each foot placement. And oh the toll my skin oils will take upon the rock when they commingle with the delicate silicates that hold the whole thing together!

What’s one to do? Even eschewing the rest of the rudiments of the modern technology that have hitherto prevented me from having truly met the rock “on its own level,” such as cams, nuts, tape, shoes, and clothing and climbing the thing as naked as a baboon will not save me, for even so much as a gentle, chalk-free crimp will forever alter the rock! Despite driving an internal combustion vehicle, using electric-power at home, using pro smelted from ore that was surely mined from the earth somewhere and a rope derived from refined petrochemicals etc, my heart recoils at the thought of modifying the rock in any fashion whatsoever. My dreams of ethical purity have been shattered, and now I question whether I can go on, for whatever I touch, even it it’s bullet granite, I will permanently modify. If that’s the bar which all ethically sound climbers must clear, I suspect I’ll have to abandon the sport.

[pope]

Wow! I'm amazed by the funny, clever and provocative contributors who post at this site! So.....where are they this evening?

[JayB]

Beats me.

[Dru]

Erosion takes place

humans are "erosions little helpers".

1000 000 years from now all the rocks we climb on will be toast anyways

but if you chip you are still weak

rap bolter dru

[bobinc]

I nominate JayB for the Best Edited and Most Ironic message yet posted on CC this year. If only a few more denizens of the e-world would follow his lead...

[fredrogers]

quote:

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Originally posted by bobinc:

I nominate JayB for the Best Edited and Most Ironic message yet posted on CC this year. If only a few more denizens of the e-world would follow his lead...

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You have a second for that motion. LOL.

[Cpt.Caveman]

I nominate me

[chriss]

In the Garden of the Gods you can carve your intitals in the rock with your finger after it rains. Even some guidebooks say not to climb there until days after rain because the rock is so fragile.

I'm sure you've done Montizuma's Tower by now. THE Classic Garden Route. Now think of the route without those obnoxious bolts added a few years ago. It was an adventure then, even when surrounded by tourists in minivans.

chris

[Dru]

garden of the gods is starting to sound like peshastin...

[Cpt.Caveman]

NO shit

[max]

worse.

[JayB]

"In the Garden of the Gods you can carve your intitals in the rock with your finger after it rains. Even some guidebooks say not to climb there until days after rain because the rock is so fragile."

True enough. Even if you were weren't concerned about preserving the rock, the concern that most of us have for conserving our asses would keep us off the rock for a couple of days after a good rain. The place is scary enough with shiznit cracking off even when it's bone dry in my opinion.

It hadn't rained for a couple of weeks prior to our climb but the sweat pouring out of my unchalked palms on a wicked hot day may have caused some fairly significant erosion. That's one of the funny things about the place - one of the few crags around where the ratings get stiffer over time instead of the other way around, as once crisp crimpers mutate into dry-heave inducing half-pad slopers with enough traffic. That, and the fact that I have yet to get a camcorder and/or one of those waist-belt pouch deals, lead me to climb elsewhere if I can...

[Marty]

I think I'm guilty too, because this one time, at climbing camp, I tried this route over and over cause I just kept falling, and I left black spots on the route from my shoes.

[plexus]

Peshastin is still far worse than Garden. Although out yonder near the 'worth, you don't have to get a permit to climb, like you do at Garden of the Gods.

Speaking of the big cheese, by God I hope there are rocks to climb in Mexico.

[JayB]

"I nominate me "

I second the motion. The captain rocks the hizzouse...