debate fodder: lots of new climbers

[RuMR]

cracked said:

 

 

hey...you're one of the worst for agitating the pot, though...

[cracked]

Am not! I'm very nice...in real life. This place is corrupting my yooth!

[mattp]

Kassidy -

Again, you lapse into debating little bits of ones statement like JayB's supposed suggestion that pin scars are OK, while sidestepping the argument here. Yes, he suggested that he thought you had indicated that pins are OK whereas bolts are not, but the point he was making is that many climbing practices other than bolting alter the rock. Just climbing on a new piece of rock will alter it in Darrington - even if you use a toprope - because you'll likely huck off a flake somewhere and leave a bright white scar where it used to be grey. Cleaning cracks for your low-impact nuts and cams is visually and biologically much more invasive than placing a bolt, and the establisment of new climbs anywhere in Western Washington has always involved quite a bit of biomass removal. The point here is that "altering the rock" may not be a viable standard.

[AlpineK]

How come I brought up all this stuff earlier Matt, but you only take note when JayB says the same thing, huh?

[RuMR]

That's easy Kurt, cuz Kassidy has been ignoring you, so matt's just jumping Pope's poop via his responses to JayB...

 

we hear ya!

[mattp]

Yup, he's right K. Back wherever that was - page three? - we got sidetracked on issues related to visual impact and whether bolting on lead is the way to go. Remember? It's not like I said: hey Kassidy - don't answer K's quetion.

[johnny_destiny]

lummox said:

johnny_destiny said:

I know several families in the SunValley area that have engineered & architecturally designed wall or gyms for thier homes. Guess what...most have NEVER considered climbing outside.

you orbit in some wierd social circles dude. got some digits for these folks?

 

I'm good with figures and IRS tax info. Figures you say...lets just say its a ton of green. One house in CA, Ski house in ID, warm beach place in HI or the Caribbean and possibly a corporate place somewhere else. etc., etc. that is the life style of these clients.

[Al_Pine]

JayB,

I don't know if any of your invective is aimed at my post, but here is my point. It has nothing to do with the relative "damage" caused by bolts vs pitons vs ripping off a big old flake.

 

It has to do with modifying the rock to make it easier to climb.

 

For some people "easier to climb" means the whole package: physical ability, mental preparedness, protecting themselves from danger. From your posts it appears you don't mind getting a little help in the protection from danger/mental preparedness part, only the physical difficulty is sacred. Bolts don't bother you, because, as long as you follow the contrivance of not pulling or stepping on them, you have met the rock on its own terms.

 

The point of my post is, that for those who value the whole package, a bolt may diminish their experience. In your posts it appears that you either don't get this, or that you flat out reject this notion in favor of your own. If the latter is true, you are in danger of being as close-minded and pedantic as the Dwayner/Pope characters you love to spar with.

[mattp]

I'm not quite sure I read you there, AlPine. Are you saying that the relative impact of adding a bolt vs. a pin vs removing a flake doesn't matter? Cause in my book the impacts of our actions certainly DO matter when we are trying to decide if a particular action is OK or not.

 

Where you suggest that a bolt may diminish someone's experience, I would suggest you'd also have to acknowledge that it may enhance somebody else's. Maybe that is your point - I can't tell. Just about any time we scrub lichen or remove loose rock or clean a crack or install a bolt we are making the climb easier -- are we not?

[Al_Pine]

mattp said:

I'm not quite sure I read you there, AlPine. Are you saying that the relative impact of adding a bolt vs. a pin vs removing a flake doesn't matter?

 

No, I'm saying I was not adressing those issues. JayB seemed to be the only one interested in the merits of bolt vs pin vs flake removal

 

Cause in my book the impacts of our actions certainly DO matter when we are trying to decide if a particular action is OK or not.

 

Exactly! My point is that JayB must realize that placing a bolt is NOT something that is universally OK. There are drawbacks in many cases.

 

Where you suggest that a bolt may diminish someone's experience, I would suggest you'd also have to acknowledge that it may enhance somebody else's.

 

I totally agree. My point is mostly aimed at the idea that "whatever you do in terms of making the climb safe" is OK as long as it doesn't dampen the physical stamina necessary to ascend. I think it is mistaken to think this is some universal dogma that everyone agrees with, and those who don't are stupid.

 

Maybe that is your point - I can't tell. Just about any time we scrub lichen or remove loose rock or clean a crack or install a bolt we are making the climb easier -- are we not?

 

Again, I agree. There is an obvious continuum where some climber and in what situation the line can be drawn. JayB seems to invalidate JKassidy's (another battle of the Jay's! ) beliefs simply because he draws the line at a different place. To me JayB's arguments, so far, are no more compelling than JKassidy's.

 

I'm not saying that noone should ever make a line more easy to climb. I'm saying that people should realize that everytime they do, they might step on some peoples toes, and thus they should do it with at least a little bit of humility.

[JayB]

I was addressing Pope rather than you, and haven't ever argued against your point as I don't happen to disagree with it.

 

As far as camps are concerned, though, which camp do you consider yourself part of Chuck? I personally climb alpine routes, trad routes, ice routes, the occaisional section of mixed junk and bolted routes as well as combinations of all of the above - and I'm quite familiar the whole package that you speak of (thanks for the heads up though) - and I take the protection that the climb offers. If it's blank rock - that means bolts.

 

You know as well as I do that it's not the simple presence of bolts on a climb that determines the level of risk that climbing a given route entails, its the frequency with which they are placed relative to one another and the hazards lurking below a falling climber that do so. I can't think of a single bolted line that I have ever climbed that would have been anything but a freesolo without bolts, and the number of ethical purists that are clamoring to freesolo most of the bolted face lines that I bother climbing is pretty small. Moreover, there's litterally hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine, bolt -free, unprotectable face lines out there that they can free solo to their heart's content without ever having the experience tarnished by the presence of a bolt within a 10 mile radius. Moreover, the very experience that you are talking about tarnishing would not even exist with without the bolts, as it hadn't occurred to anyone to attempt those lines before they were bolted. Some may claim otherwise but I'd love to see an example. So if things work out so that the one or two people in the state that can only be satisfied by free-soloing face routes in popular cragging areas have their respective experiences tarnished by the presence of sport bolted lines a few feet away then I think I can live with that.

 

 

[Al_Pine]

The routes I value the most are the ones that follow natural lines that only use what was there to begin with. If it takes a bit more risk to pass a runout spot, then that adds to the value. It makes it more of a challenge. Often a challenge not to be taken lightly.

 

When someone places a whole bunch of bolts and rips out a bunch of trees I think it takes something away from the climb. However, it usually adds to it in terms of fun and frolic. It's a complicated not well-defined equation.

 

I have climbed quite few lines lately that I thought were marred by excessive bolting. They were definitely fun and frolicy, but they also left me feeling strangely unsatisfied .

 

If I were to side with any camp it would be less alteration camp. No-alteration can be undone.

[cracked]

I think we're getting so caught up in this 'debate' that we've forgotten that sport and trad routes are not mutually exclusive. It's not like EVERYTHING is bolted, nor is it that EVERYTHING is runout and bold and dangerous. IMHO, keep the sport routes at the sport crags, the trad routes where they've been established, don't bolt cracks, leave the mountains drill-free, and think before you do anything.

 

In other words, bolt shit at Smith, not at Seneca Rocks. Don't retrobolt Orbit. Leave the Bosch at home when you go do Stuart. Think about your impact before you pry off that flake, place that pin, or scrub that crack.

 

Difficult, eh?

[JayB]

Then you are talking about the extent of bolting that's appropriate, which something very different than the:

 

-Bolts are anethema because they modify the rock.

-Bolts on uprotectable lines mar the experience that largely nonexistent climbers would have on sections of unprotectable rock featuring nonexistent routes.

-Bolts neutralize or render trivial all risk in all cases on all routes no matter how infrequently they are placed.

 

...arguments that seem to constitute the gist of people's objections to bolting. These are the sorts of bogus assertions that come up time and time again on this board, and I am both delighted and relieved to learn that you don't personally ascribe to them.

[mattp]

We're all full of bogus arguments, though, JayB - such as when you say you've never climbed a bolted line that would have been anything but a free-solo without the bolts. I find it hard to believe you have never climbed a line that didn't have a bolt next to a crack somewhere, or a flake or knob that could have been tied off, or a skanky bush. Maybe you HAVE managed to avoid all cimbs that were bolted and which would have had a few pieces of crappy pro without the bolts, but I don't think it is fair to suggest that such climbs don't exist ... But your basic point has some merit, I think.

[cracked]

I'm just glad that we're all having such a productive discussion here. Another ten pages and we'll have saved the world! Let's keep up the good work.

[mattp]

Cracked - you actually had a good point two posts above. There is room in this world for climbing areas with different development strategies. Meanwhile, if you don't want to participate in this thread, nobody is making you but let the rest of us internet junkies at least PRETEND we're making progress, huh?

[JayB]

mattp said:

We're all full of bogus arguments, though, JayB - such as when you say you've never climbed a bolted line that would have been anything but a free-solo without the bolts. I find it hard to believe you have never climbed a line that didn't have a bolt next to a crack somewhere, or a flake or knob that could have been tied off, or a skanky bush. Maybe you HAVE managed to avoid all cimbs that were bolted and which would have had a few pieces of crappy pro without the bolts, but I don't think it is fair to suggest that such climbs don't exist ... But your basic point has some merit, I think.

 

True enough. I would have to interject a bunch of qualifiers to make the assertion non-bogus, but I would have to agree with you on the merit of the essential point.

 

And to digress for a moment, one thing that has always confused me are the folks that go to an area that is known to have a sport ethic, rack up their draws at the base of a line that obviously features bolts that are X feet apart, may even look at the guidebook and notice that there are Z bolts in Y feet - then proceed to climb the thing and complain that it wasn't adventurous enough for them because the bolts were too close together for their tastes. Sorta like intentionally going to a gay bar, looking around, then complaining loudly about the lack of women IMO. If the place doesn't offer what you are looking for, why go there in the first place?

[Dru]

Sorta like intentionally going to a gay bar, looking around, then complaining loudly about the lack of women IMO

 

If it was the right bar there might be some "women" there

[snoboy]

JayB said:- because one creates a permanent 3/8" hole in the rock and the other creates a 3/8' hole in the rock

 

Now that could be seen as a problem!

 

ehmmic said:

Holy cow that's a big machine.

 

I don't see any rivers or barges around it. How the heck do they transport it around?

 

Ummm, it has tracks, it prolly drives itself, no?

 

Seriously though, I bet it was built where it works, and never leaves there.

 

[EWolfe]

Dru said:

Sorta like intentionally going to a gay bar, looking around, then complaining loudly about the lack of women IMO

 

If it was the right bar there might be some "women" there

 

That guy on the right looks so much like VanDamme.

[catbirdseat]

Dru said:

i am waiting for the strong personalities involved in this thread to visit the rock climbing forum, observe the statements made there about placing bolts on a new climb dick cilley has just established as a top rope, and start trading inventive again

Dru, they are indeed "inventive", but I believe the word you wanted was "invective".

 

 

Okay, here is an example that I think might be interesting. On the seventh pitch of Dreamer, the classic route goes up a "dirty" right facing corner. The climbing at 5.6 is easier than most of the other pitches. You can tie off trees, if you like, once you are half way up. There is one bolt near the top, which I didn't use. I didn't think it was all that bad. I went that way, bcause I wussed out on the new alternate 5.8 variation, which is a completely bolted line (six clips) that follows slabs to the left of the classic route.

 

I can see the motivation for putting in that variation. It was to raise the difficulty of the pitch to more closely match the other pitches. It wasn't necessary at all in my opinion. I don't feel strongly for or against this, but I am sure there are those that do.

 

 

[Dru]

Dru, they are indeed "inventive", but I believe the word you wanted was "invective

 

Oh, reeling, whey do yew think I putt that in that quay? How does hook taste

[catbirdseat]

Yew can always clam it wuss a troll.

[pope]

iain said:

sixteen candles is a cinematic tour-de-force. the scene when the toga-clad donger is in the tree? simply one of the finest thespian performances in history. the pinnacle of molly ringwald's career.

 

Then...

 

 

And now.....