Validity of an the ascent

[Dru]

due to quantum mechanical effects i have a non-local correlation with many climbing areas

[EWolfe]

erik said:

ANOTHER QUESTION THAT ARISES. WHAT IF THERE ARE NO REAL LOCALS TO A CLIMBING AREA? WHAT CONSTITUTES A LOCAL? CAN ONE ACHEVE LOCAL STATUS? WHAT IF LOCAL CLIMBERS DO NOT WANT TO BE CONSIDERED LOCAL? WHAT IF PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO BE LOCAL ARE NOT?

 

QUESTIONS!!!!

 

 

I was only suggesting that was a path to locating the first ascentionist, but you knew that, didn't you?

[pope]

erik said:

Recently have been doing a fair amount of ground up adventure climbing. cleaning and trundling on lead where is needs it. digging placements out and features to help ascend. we do not scrub the lines or place anochors or leave webbing or any of that crap.

 

my partner and i were chit chatting about this while our other one was leading and he was told by the local guidebook author that we were not doing new routes, but adventure climbing.

 

granted we have climbed some great features, and some very cool. most of these routes are quite assecible to anyone who wants to walk a short jaunt up hill.

 

do out routes not count because we do not rap clean them? or make our path obvious? is one required to force a route up an inobvious line, bolt an anchor before it is considered a route?

 

an example that ws given was alot of the yoder routes in the icicle. he put them up in a similar style, just going up and climbing, not wasting time making it happy for everyone else. sometimes they were runout, sometimes they were hard. but now apprently they have gone back and started to make these routes "safe for the kids" renaming them and putting a new fa's name on the route.

 

i think this is stupid. if a person climbs the formation or feature, in ground up style it is as valid if not more valid then a reheared and overly gardened route.

 

 

It is absolutely valid and thank you for having a little vision, for being an example and leaving little/no trace. I think that you should report the routes. Why? In the future, these lines (with very little information) can be enjoyed in their original condition, much the way some of the routes on Castle are to this very day. Eventually, with traffic, they may become clean. Wouldn't it be refreshing to open the Leavenworth guide and find new routes that provide a nearly equal amount of adventure for subsequent parties?

 

I take back anything nasty I said about you. Here's to brother Erik!

[erik]

MisterE said:

I was only suggesting that was a path to locating the first ascentionist, but you knew that, didn't you?

 

please be more clear(tho i need help on that too!!!) but your statement brought up these questions for me. i have always wondered this. no where in washington i can think of is there a strong "local" community for any crag. personally i think it is a statewide epidemic and i dont see it ever changing.

 

 

[Crackbolter]

Erik, it is tough to determine how a route was established sometimes. For instance, the F/A party could have placed multiple pitons to protect areas where cams or chocks did not fit. The pitons were cleaned as they climbed up and anyone who repeats the route must do the same. If someone places a bolt next to one of the piton placements, they are only using more advanced fixed anchors that will remain in place for a greater period of time. I don't see this as any problem, only a solution to constantly degrading the rock.

 

If you want to go adventure climbing and not tell anyone to repeat your routes, sounds good. There are no rules that say you must report back to Viktor or Beckey or the AAJ. If you think your route is worthy of a repeat, you better hope whoever you tell enjoys dirt in their eyes and possibly hammering pins and trundling blocks.

 

"no where in washington i can think of is there a strong "local" community for any crag. personally i think it is a statewide epidemic and i dont see it ever changing. "

 

I know of some crags with a strong "local" community bonded by guidebook authors and first ascentionists. Oh yes, they exist alright.

 

 

 

 

[Dru]

modern small camslike Zerocams will fit in a minimal scar where a pin has been placed only once or twice. i would argue this is less unsightly than bolting a piton crack

[Cpt.Caveman]

Dru said:

modern small camslike Zerocams will fit in a minimal scar where a pin has been placed only once or twice. i would argue this is less unsightly than bolting a piton crack

 

I used a zero cam this weekend. Just for kicks hehe.

 

But what if it was sandstone crumbly like peshastin or something? Is a zero cam much of a realistic option there?

[Crackbolter]

Maybe a zero cam equalized with a piton.

[erik]

wheres the locals? who are they? how do you become one? what constitutes a local? do you have to live within a certain radius of the area? climb there a certain amount of days? put up routes? and what if there are multiple guidebooks? then who is the authority?

 

 

[Dru]

if you don't like the rock you don't have to climb there

 

you could always place 12 equalized RP's and two hand placed (non scarring) pitons and equalize it all with a couple of Screamers like they do on gritstone.

 

i have used the headpointing ethic in the past as a way to avoid placing bolts and i found it was fun, more so than redpointing.

[Cpt.Caveman]

I can see Erik's response as not smart as but actually valid. I read about ask the locals about putting in new routes, bolts etc in many guidebooks. Well where the heck are they? Guarding the cliffs or what? I never seem to see them when I go climbing. In that case I am now local to everwhere.

[mattp]

pope said:

much the way some of the routes on Castle are to this very day.

 

I said I had to get back to work but I couldn't resist responding to this minor point that is off topic. Wasn't "loggers ledge" logged because the trees were keeping moss and general filth on the rock? Don't even Midway and Saber have both fixed pins and bolts on them? Weren't the cracks gardened out? Do the climbs that we enjoy today resemble the state in which Beckey and Schoening and thier frieinds found them? When they are leading Midway, how many of today's climbers care whether Fred, in 1954, climbed from the ground up or not?

[EWolfe]

Cpt.Caveman said:

I can see Erik's response as not smart as but actually valid. I read about ask the locals about putting in new routes, bolts etc in many guidebooks. Well where the heck are they? Guarding the cliffs or what? I never seem to see them when I go climbing. In that case I am now local to everwhere.

 

There is generally contact information in the guidebooks, and usually local climbing shops have information as well.

[erik]

i guess my question is lost in my poor context. but who sets local ethics?

[Cpt.Caveman]

MisterE said:

Cpt.Caveman said:

I can see Erik's response as not smart as but actually valid. I read about ask the locals about putting in new routes, bolts etc in many guidebooks. Well where the heck are they? Guarding the cliffs or what? I never seem to see them when I go climbing. In that case I am now local to everwhere.

 

There is generally contact information in the guidebooks, and usually local climbing shops have information as well.

 

Generally - Not in some books I have seen.

 

Besides who makes the call? Do they want every joe in the world to contact them about ethics bolting and cleaning? Will the "locals" ever respond? If I contact an author is he the only local? What about others?

 

I read about locals and groups like in Leavenworth. There are groups all right. But some of them widely divided.

[EWolfe]

erik said:

i guess my question is lost in my poor context. but who sets local ethics?

 

Generally the first ascentionists of the area, which usually is a group of locals (but not always).

 

Ethics change, too. But it is narrow-minded to think that you should make no effort to find out what pre-existing ethics are in place before plugging in a bolt. That's just lazy. The climbing community is small enough that someone will know someone else who climbs locally. Knock on some doors.

[Cpt.Caveman]

MisterE said:

erik said:

i guess my question is lost in my poor context. but who sets local ethics?

 

Generally the first ascentionists of the area, which usually is a group of locals (but not always).

 

Ethics change, too. But it is narrow-minded to think that you should make no effort to find out what pre-existing ethics are in place before plugging in a bolt. That's just lazy. The climbing community is small enough that someone will know someone else who climbs locally. Knock on some doors.

 

Some "climbing communities"\locals are divided on ethics and these sort of issues. They don't even talk to each other and shit.

[Dru]

there is also the casde of long standing rivalries like between a local prominent guidebook author and a local talented climber where the talented climbers routes are consistently misrepresented by the guidebook author due to some 20 year old feud about if one "stole" a free ascent of a project the other one was working on.

[EWolfe]

Aw, Hell - then I don't know.

 

Just tossin' around some ideas.

[Off_White]

Dru said:

there is also the casde of long standing rivalries like between a local prominent guidebook author and a local talented climber where the talented climbers routes are consistently misrepresented by the guidebook author due to some 20 year old feud about if one "stole" a free ascent of a project the other one was working on.

 

There's probably more than one case like that, since the one I'm thinking of is probably different than the one you have in mind. I think Caveman is spot on in his bit about local communities being at odds. I'm not a Der local and don't really know who the parties involved are, but I'd guess that all of those putting up any significant number of new routes consider themselves "local" and that includes those willing to bolt next to decent placements. I only know of a couple such instances, but I don't get out that often, so I don't think my awareness of things counts for much.

[pope]

mattp said:

pope said:

much the way some of the routes on Castle are to this very day.

 

I said I had to get back to work but I couldn't resist responding to this minor point that is off topic. Wasn't "loggers ledge" logged because the trees were keeping moss and general filth on the rock? Don't even Midway and Saber have both fixed pins and bolts on them? Weren't the cracks gardened out? Do the climbs that we enjoy today resemble the state in which Beckey and Schoening and thier frieinds found them? When they are leading Midway, how many of today's climbers care whether Fred, in 1954, climbed from the ground up or not?

 

Things evolved from the 1950's, in case you hadn't noticed. People stopped pounding pins and began slipping in nuts. Of course the climbs are cleaner than when FB first hiked up there. Did I miss your point?

[erik]

pope said:

mattp said:

pope said:

much the way some of the routes on Castle are to this very day.

 

I said I had to get back to work but I couldn't resist responding to this minor point that is off topic. Wasn't "loggers ledge" logged because the trees were keeping moss and general filth on the rock? Don't even Midway and Saber have both fixed pins and bolts on them? Weren't the cracks gardened out? Do the climbs that we enjoy today resemble the state in which Beckey and Schoening and thier frieinds found them? When they are leading Midway, how many of today's climbers care whether Fred, in 1954, climbed from the ground up or not?

 

Things evolved from the 1950's, in case you hadn't noticed. People stopped pounding pins and began slipping in nuts. Of course the climbs are cleaner than when FB first hiked up there. Did I miss your point?

 

and things continue to evolve.

[mattp]

pope said:

Did I miss your point?

 

Apparently you did. You had asserted that people were enjoying these climbs in much the same condition as they were in when first encountered by the first ascentionists. That is incorrect. If those climbs were now in the condition that they were in when first discovered, nobody would climb them except maybe Pete and Erik.

[Cpt.Caveman]

mattp said:

pope said:

Did I miss your point?

 

Apparently you did. You had asserted that people were enjoying these climbs in much the same condition as they were in when first encountered by the first ascentionists. That is incorrect. If those climbs were now in the condition that they were in when first discovered, nobody would climb them except maybe Pete and Erik.

 

I did a rock climb once and enjoyed the "dirt". It didnt mean I was going to clean it. I felt it was better training for me. I cant speak for anyone else. It just depends on what the situation is...

[pope]

Not precisely the same, just much the same....minus a little dirt. Most of the routes have very little if any fixed protection, and what is there are seems to be artifacts of more historical interest than protective value. They were placed on lead, and that's significant.

 

Minus the dirt, this is true. But as Fred found the rock, in most cases it is still the same: no bolts, no chipped holds, no dubious hanging belays in the middle of nowhere.