Hey Sport-Bolters and Hangdoggers!

[Dwayner]

Hey Sport-Bolters and Sport-Hangdoggers!

 

Here's a little flash from the past that was inspirational to me when I started climbing. Substitute the word "pitons" with "bolts" and I think it's just as relevant today as it was in 1972 when it appeared in the Chouinard Catalog.

 

These are just excerpts; read the whole thing at:

Clean Climbing

 

"THE WHOLE NATURAL ART OF PROTECTION" - by Doug Robinson

 

“There is a word for it and the word is clean. Climbing with only nuts and runners for protection is clean climbing. Clean because the rock is left unaltered by the passing climber. Clean because nothing is hammered into the rock and then hammered back out, leaving the rock scarred and the next climber's experience less natural. Clean because the climber's protection leaves little track of his ascension. Clean is climbing the rock without changing it; a step closer to organic climbing for the natural man...

Using pitons on climbs like the "Nutcracker" is degrading to the climb, its originator and the climber. Robbins must have been thinking of that climb when he wrote, "Better that we raise our skill than lower the climb." Pitons have been a great equalizer in American climbing. By liberally using them it was possible to get in over ones head and by more liberally using them, to get out again. But every climb is not for every climber; the ultimate climbs are not democratic. The fortunate climbs protect themselves by being unprotectable and remain a challenge that can be solved only by boldness and commitment backed solidly by technique. Climbs that are forced clean by the application of boldness should be similarly respected, lest a climber be guilty of destroying a line for the future's capable climbers to satisfy his impatient ego in the present — by waiting he might become one of the future capables. Waiting is also necessary; every climb has its time, which need not be today.

Besides leaving alone what one cannot climb in good style, there are some practical corollaries of boldness in free climbing. Learning to climb down is valuable for retreating from a clean and bold place that gets too airy. And having the humility to back off rather than continue in bad style — a thing well begun is not lost. The experience cannot be taken away. By such a system there can never be "last great problems" but only "next great problems."...

Carried out, these practices would tend to lead from quantitative to qualitative standards of climbing, an assertion that the climbing experience cannot be measured by an expression of pitches per hour, that a climb cannot be reduced to maps and decimals. That the motions of climbing, the sharpness of the environment, the climber's reactions are still only themselves and their dividends of joy personal and private.”

 

[ 06-18-2002, 09:57 AM: Message edited by: Dwayner ]

[richard_noggin]

Blah! Ba! Blah! Ba! Blah!Yea! R.R. is not anyone I would mentor from and who would wear that manky ass climbing wear any way?

Bolts, don't chop them don't bitch about them, if you don't like them skip'em ,STFU and just climb dam i get tired of the SOS , lame ass treads

[Dennis_Harmon]

Hey Dwayner, Great post guy! But I'm pessimistic enough about this issue that I don't believe that any intelligent dialogue is going to change anyone's ethics or behaviors out there. Check out the responses to my post under 'spray' if you want to see the average intelligence of these idiots. They're not going to stop or even slow it down. After all, Mommy and Daddy spent a lot of money on those drills and, by God, they're gonna use them. Dennis

[Off_White]

Hey Dwayner: I was just thinking about that article this weekend. I started in 74, had a copy of that catalog, and not being much of a wall guy, I've only placed about a dozen pins in my life, so that revolution happened pretty damn quick. What I was reflecting on this weekend, as I was introducing two youth to the fine art of trad leading, was that the real reason for that shift was that nuts were easier and faster. I don't think the clean climbing revolution would have happened so fast or completely if nuts were harder to use than pins, its simply a better technology. Its always easier to get things to change if you make it easier and cheaper, like getting manufacturers to stop polluting is easy if you can prove it will save them money. The uphill battle is that sport climbing is easier (in terms of effort to get out climbing, not in terms of ratings) and cheaper (rack of draws versus a set of cams & nuts). And sometimes, we all want easier, this is why most of us buy beer instead of make it. I'm not saying your cause is pointless or useless, just that you're not going to have some startling paradigm shift like what happened in the early 70's.

[ScottP]

quote:

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Originally posted by whillans:

Protection is for wimpy losers. If you can't solo the route you climb you shouldn't be climbing.

take up something easy like caber-tossing or lager swilling

nancy boys.

---

Not quite in the same league as lager swilling, especially when it's got to go end for end straight in front of you...

 

 

[ 06-18-2002, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: ScottP ]

[JayB]

Apples and oranges. Robinson was advocating replacing one form of protection with another in order to preserve the rock, not doing away with any protection whatesoever out of a commitment to that ethic. Had he done so, his essay would have been dismissed out of hand as the ravings of a lunatic and would have had no influence on climbing whatsoever.

 

The fact of the matter is that there's quite a bit of rock out there that's only protectable by bolts, and while a plea for judicious use of bolts to protect only quality lines might resonate with most climbers, anyone who argues on behalf of abandoning the use of bolts to protect oneself while climbing them, or for turning every bolted line into an X-rated death route in order to preserve the rock, is going to enjoy roughly the same level of crediblity with climbers that Ted Kacynski currently enjoys with the general public. Not a promising strategy, IMO.

[Peter_Puget]

Doug R quote: “an assertion that the climbing experience cannot be measured by an expression of pitches per hour, that a climb cannot be reduced to maps and decimals. That the motions of climbing, the sharpness of the environment, the climber's reactions are still only themselves and their dividends of joy personal and private.”

 

Don’t forget that this was in essence a marketing campaign intended to sell gear. Marketing hype of the 70’s combined with the romantic notion that the outdoors was character building. Surely the quickest scan of CC.com will send that notion down the crapper! As with most ad campaigns they seem to age faster than scat. Just a few years later the same company was claiming the superiority of “passive” camming devices (ie Hexes) over Friends! I am happy to that I rarely ever free climb with pins anymore. However, our man Royal while extolling the virtues of “clean” climbing was wont to include pins on his rack after the advent of clean climbing. For example, The Incubus at Lover’s Leap. “You hoi polloi do what we say as we do what we want” is the message coming thru loud and clear.

 

As Pope and Dwayner have mentioned several times another article that they found influential was written by Doug Scott. For years Doug did indeed extol the virtues of clean climbing, the noble retreat and all. However, when climbing in the Himalayas (with former Seattle man Greg Child no less) he and his team were faced with a personal decision: Should they place a bolt and succeed or retreat and maintain their ethic purity. They expressly discussed a friend who despite being a fine climber was having trouble getting sponsorships because he lacked “summits”. Deciding that summits equal $ and $ equal future climbs Doug did not vote against placing the bolt.

 

Of course how this essay relates to sport climbs where neither clean or nailed protection is useful is not quite clear. Equally unclear is its relationship to hangdogging.

 

[ 06-20-2002, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: Peter Puget ]

[Bob_Clarke]

fer crist sakes enough already. Every climbing area has something - just shut up and climb.

[whillans]

Protection is for wimpy losers. If you can't solo the route you climb you shouldn't be climbing. take up something easy like caber-tossing or lager swilling nancy boys.

[Peter_Puget]

[Dwayner]

 

 

[ 06-20-2002, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: Dwayner ]

[Dru]

Dwayner

 

Do you mean to say you have never ever in your whole life worked a route or hung on a rope?

 

I dontget you on your last point. Should people not work routes? Are you advocating a return to the yo-yo ethic or just stirring up the shit?

[Peter_Puget]

 

 

[ 06-20-2002, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: Peter Puget ]

[Dwayner]

 

 

[ 06-20-2002, 01:28 AM: Message edited by: Dwayner ]

[Peter_Puget]

 

 

[ 06-20-2002, 01:47 AM: Message edited by: Peter Puget ]

[Cpt.Caveman]

You guys do all the hugging you like.

 

I bet ole FB is offering up some horsecock to your ladies right now

[Dwayner]

 

 

[ 06-20-2002, 01:27 AM: Message edited by: Dwayner ]

[Peter_Puget]

 

 

[ 06-20-2002, 01:49 AM: Message edited by: Peter Puget ]

[Dwayner]

 

 

[ 06-20-2002, 01:28 AM: Message edited by: Dwayner ]

[allthumbs]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cpt.Caveman:

You guys do all the hugging you like.

 

I bet ole FB is offering up some horsecock to your ladies right now

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But the ladies prefer their cheese on a cracker, not oozing from horsecock foreskin.

[Retrosaurus]

For Fred, the ladies will bring their own crackers.