RuMR Posted February 27, 2004 Posted February 27, 2004 ng... Went through the developments of sportclimbing in different areas...places like smith where Alan was pretty much left to his own devices, Boulder where it was full on war, and the New where area activists kinda started by doing mixed routes to connect gear placements, then gradually saying "fuck it" and going to all bolt routes... But in the final analysis, it was Rich and the vertical world and the gyms to follow that truly ushered in sportclimbing by introducing masses of urbanite climbers to the sport... Folks like dwayner did their best to stem the tide, but it was pretty much unstoppable and we have arrived at an "English" solution to protecting traditional climbing...some areas left to traditional climbing...seems like an ok compromise to me when you look at the actual #'s per year being introduced to climbing in the article...
Dru Posted February 27, 2004 Posted February 27, 2004 The article was an after-the-fact defense of sport climbing by an Ontario has been sporto who edits the magazine. His contention that "sport climbing has won" was bunk in that if it had we would have retrobolted all the crack climbs like they did in France and Switzerland. It would be more accurate to say that sport climbing has become accepted as an acceptable type of climbing, than that sport won and trad lost. In fact if you look at the current scene I think you see more boldness than you did 5 or 10 years ago. Bouldering leads to highballing, highballing leads to soloing and an acceptance of trad falls, leading to hard trad leads. In fact I have seen a few cases where routes that would have been done as sport 5 yrs ago are being done as highballs now. How long will it be until bolts are removed from the Fly now it has been established as a boulder problem?
RuMR Posted February 27, 2004 Author Posted February 27, 2004 I didn't read it that way at all...but whatever, you wanna argue, you can come down and argue w/ the lamppost or tree outside my office... If you look in the article, he clearly pointed out that areas had been left as mainly traditional areas...and i don't think he implied superiority of one style or another, just that gym trained climbers were quite a bit stronger in general NOW than back then... But whatever, think what you want...i don't give a $hit...
Dru Posted February 27, 2004 Posted February 27, 2004 if you didnt want to argue why did you reply? i get the last word
RuMR Posted February 27, 2004 Author Posted February 27, 2004 i wasn't arguing...just pointing out some facts... last word is here
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