Ethics questions...

[JosephH]

DCramer,

 

Well, most all of your examples are Cali where I didn't climb in the 70's so I can't speak to what went on there in first person. I should also clarify that in most all my post I'm talking about FA activity. My partners and I were pretty fortunate in that pretty much everything we touched was an FA, and we tried to put up FA's everywhere we went for more than a day or two. The FA ethic of the day was clearly clean, no bolting, no nailing, and no dogging. Does that mean no pins and no bolts were ever used by clean advocates - absolutely not. That's the definition of a baseline ethic, it's a default starting approach to putting up routes. That doesn't mean no mixed routes were established; it meant that everyone thought damn hard and long before pulling out a hammer or drill and that that fixed pro was a permanent decision of last resort - pro, pins, then bolts was the progression. My partners and I put up easily over a 150+ FA's with no bolts and one pin during that time.

 

Again, I'm speaking of the FA ethic of the day, but that said, I saw almost no one dogging in any of the climbing areas that I climbed at during the '70s, people climbed until they fell and then lowered, and "falling" really was what you heard all echoing all day long. Most folks also pulled the rope and reclipped their pro, or at least all the folks I climbed with and around. And this has nothing to do with morality - but ethics and what climbers were and are striving for personally. If you want an brutally honest assessment of the 70's it was that only a handful of folks were really artisans with passive pro, about a third to a half were competent with it, and the last half or a third sucked at placing pro and were perpetually nervous - they saw pro as a necessary evil and were a ready made audience for sport climbing when it started to spread. Lack of craft and skill played a big role in feeding the growth of sport climbing behind talented guys like Watts who could lead trad with the best of them.

 

With regard to John maintaining pins in the Gunks, "maintaining" is the operative word and folks weren't nailing on the majority of FA's going up there at the time. As for top rope rehearsing somewhere else in the Midwest, you don't say where, but no one I know or heard about top-rope rehearsed FA's in any of the areas I climbed at during those days.

 

Again, I can't speak for the prevailing conditions in Cali at the time, or for the folks you hung out with, but everywhere I went East of Cali clean climbing was definitely the norm.

[DCramer]

So "no pins" was standard in the Desert? No bolted routes were put up on the South Platte? To be clear I am talkin FAs.

[Hanger]

How many of the 5.8 FA's with death falls were "established" by 5.11+ climbers

[JosephH]

Again, clean climbing was the prevailing baseline ethic of the day - Harvey Carter would be a very large and quite notable exception to any discussion about clean climbing advocacy and again - the character of the rock wasn't excluded from rational thought - Garden of Gods, S. Platte, and J-Tree; bolts got used and in many case were entirely appropriate when they got used. Pins on desert towers - ditto. Harvey, clean? Never that I remember - a machine gun bolter by the look of Independence Pass in '79. Again, by and large every example of routes or crags you sight are exceptions to the prevailing norm and most based on the local character of the rock. Spout all the exceptions you want - taken all together they amount to a very small percentage of the climbing going on in the country at the time. Where rock took pro, pro was used; pins and bolts were considered pro of last resort; and FA's were done ground up with no dogging - period.

[corvallisclimb]

i belive that is the fun of putting up a new is route climbing it in your own style. bash eric kohl for using old leeper hangers on his newer routes. talk shit about jim beyer taping his heads so people cant use a cheat stick on his routes. the list could go on forever but some people do just have bold style and some people plain dont. with that said climb routes that match your style, and dont worry about the other ones untill you can. it seems as if its all fun and games untill someone gets hurt.

[JayB]

Josesph:

 

This is not a dig at you, but a serious question - if your main focus in climbing is hitting up low-traffic, old-school trad lines - then where is it that you are running into the effette gym rats who won't touch anything with more than a 6 foot gap between bolts?

 

This seems sort of like a bearded three-pinner in wool knickers complaining about the droves of twin-tip and baggy pant sporting resort skiiers who are only into hitting terrain parks, and couldn't dig a snow cave to save their lives. Unless they're lugging rails and soundsystems into the backcountry, its hard to imagine where he'd run into them.

 

Another point I think is worth making is that, in the end, I think that it is the sort of climber that one aspires to be and the sort of experiences that one wishes to have as a climber, rather than the specific environment that one picks up the sport in - that ultimately determine the kind of climber that one becomes.

[bwrts]

Why do we need to bring up the past mistakes or ethics to come to an understanding about the way we as a climbing community promote future climbing?

Sure in the past, bolts were placed spaced closely...look at the DEB OF SEWS. Aid then, now an easy alpine -11.

Routes were crowded in between other routes too. Look at the Grand Central Tower Slab area (80's development I think) at the Peshastin Pinnacles. White Lightening is very close to the Easier 5.10 routes and also near a 5.8 bolt fest.

The facts are simple. Bolts placed nearby gear protection is wrong and pathetic. Bolting the toprope problem is gay and self-riteous.

Right, I don't have to clip these bad-bolts.

Yes, I could go pull them.

BUT, why do YOU have to PUT THEM THERE in the the first place. IF you are not bold enough to climb the route without a bolt next to the questionable RP or expanding flake placement then DONT FUKING CLIMB THE ROUTE. And go practice the rope trick game of route climbing on some other rock. IT is a rock and we are only wasting time.... Like this bickering....wasting time.

[RuMR]

hit jenny's up yet???

[bwrts]

no, i slept on ice last week.

[RuMR]

jenny CRAIG...

[Dru]

How many of the 5.8 FA's with death falls were "established" by 5.11+ climbers

 

I don't know but probably not as many as you assume. [chestbeat]I know I was "establishing" 5.8s with death fall potential when I was a 5.8 climber. [/chestbeat] They better not get retrobolted either!

[archenemy]

Could you please list those climbs here?

[DCramer]

everywhere I went East of Cali clean climbing was definitely the norm

 

Spout all the exceptions you want - taken all together they amount to a very small percentage of the climbing going on in the country at the time

 

 

As far as clean climbing, a couple items may be lost in the fog. In general clean climbing pro is easier to place than pins! (I’m talking ’70 gear) Perfect example: Butterfingers. Clean gear is often stronger than a pin! I’d much rather have well placed hex than a well placed 3” bong. In the late 70’s when Friends came out things got a whole lot easier.

 

Look clean climbing up protectable cracks became the norm in the 70’s. Today it still is the norm. I believe it would have become the norm even without the ethics question. In many cases it is simply the superior technology.

 

You claim that I bring up odd exceptions but frankly I cannot consider your response reasonable. You are clearly saying that it was the norm that people chose not to do FA if they would require a pin or bolt. I point out the Desert, South Platte, the entire state of Califronia and you call it the exception - a very small percentage of the climbing (fas) going on. Are you really serious?

[Peter_Puget]

Keep the spray out.

[JosephH]

Dead serious. Most of your Cali and CO route examples are exceptions to the norm even in most of both states and as a percentage of the total FA's put up in that same time frame in both places. And I'm not saying people didn't put up mixed routes - I'm saying pins and bolts were absolutely pro of last resort. I sunk a soft spade pin on a roof where the crack died six feet short of the corner for one [very desperate] aid move because the overall free climbing up to and over the rest of the roof made it worth doing. Again, lots of mixed route FA's went up, but people tried everything else they could before resorting to fixed pro. You keep attempting to paint a picture where there was no baseline clean FA ethic and that is not at all accurate.

[Hanger]

You know these gym rats are just going to come in behind us and retro bolt our routes when we die anyway

[DCramer]

Dead serious. Most of your Cali and CO route examples are exceptions to the norm even in most of both states and as a percentage of the total FA's put up in that same time frame in both places. And I'm not saying people didn't put up mixed routes - I'm saying pins and bolts were absolutely pro of last resort. I sunk a soft spade pin on a roof where the crack died six feet short of the corner for one [very desperate] aid move because the overall free climbing up to and over the rest of the roof made it worth doing. Again, lots of mixed route FA's went up, but people tried everything else they could before resorting to fixed pro. You keep attempting to paint a picture where there was no baseline clean FA ethic and that is not at all accurate.

 

JH you misrepresent my position. Read my post two up. You will see very clearly that you are incorrect. here I copied a pertinent part:

. You are clearly saying that it was the norm that people chose not to do FA if they would require a pin or bolt.

 

Now how can you reasonably interperet the post that this is taken from as saying that there was no baseline clean ethic? I have always said that the world is a Rainbow. Then and now. I also said that that baseline clean ethic exist for the most part today. here is another quote from two posts above.

 

Look clean climbing up protectable cracks became the norm in the 70’s. Today it still is the norm.

 

Most of your Cali and CO route examples are exceptions to the norm even in most of both states and as a percentage of the total FA's put up in that same time frame in both places.

 

Odd because I didn't mention routes, I mentioned areas. (ie South Platte. Meadows) I would simply ask someone to scan a Meadows guide, a Valley Guide, a Suicide guide and note how those route put up in the '70s used pins or bolts.

Edited August 24, 2005 by DCramer

[bwrts]

You know these gym rats are just going to come in behind us and retro bolt our routes when we die anyway

not if I set time bombs to blow the rocks to smitherings when I die.

[mattp]

We may have difficulty agreeing upon how many of who were doing what in the ‘70's, but brts is correct that this need not prevent us from talking about today.

 

I'd have to agree with you, Joseph, that times have changed. For example, few climbers think it is a good idea to develop crag climbs from the ground up these days and I can't remember the last time I saw someone who is actually putting up new routes suggesting it was a good idea to throw themselves at an unclimbed line, only to repeatedly fall and then pull the rope until they can fairly succeed in making a first ascent via a redpoint. Maybe you and your buddies are out there doing that, I don't know. Others are suggesting that a more careful, thought out and, yes, "engineered" approach to crag development is actually a GOOD thing.

 

Also, undeniably, bolts are used more liberally today -- even at "so called" trad areas. But there are limits, no? Even at Vantage and Smith most climbers don't much go in for bolting the crack climbs to elimiminate the need for gear (much as some climbers might like to see this).

[Hanger]

You know these gym rats are just going to come in behind us and retro bolt our routes when we die anyway

not if I set time bombs to blow the rocks to smitherings when I die.

 

lol

 

 

Or you can just sign it over to the NPS…they’ll take care of it

[Macson]

Does a 5.11 climber putting up a 5.8 route with deathfall runouts make for a contrived climb? I mean, if you don't really want a 5.8 route then why put it up? Why make it artificially hard/dangerous? And then you're suprised and offended when it gets changed?

[chucK]

I just love whenever the "5.11 climber putting up 5.8 death routes" comes up . However, we do seem to have migrated away from bringing up all those 5.12 climbers putting up 5.7 death routes. Thank god for that.

[Hanger]

Does a 5.11 climber putting up a 5.8 route with deathfall runouts make for a contrived climb? I mean, if you don't really want a 5.8 route then why put it up? Why make it artificially hard/dangerous?

 

Dude! Cuz it makes me feel like a real traditionalist hardman climbing in bold style!

 

You think my .8’s are sketchy…you should check out some of my 5.2 FA’s!

[mattp]

Chuck, I think that comes up as an example as how the "first ascent principal" has limits and maybe we shouldn't feel bound to preserve a climb that was developted by a butcher or a showoff or something, but I agree that I am not aware of a lot of this having taken place.

[Dru]

Does a 5.11 climber putting up a 5.8 route with deathfall runouts make for a contrived climb? I mean, if you don't really want a 5.8 route then why put it up? Why make it artificially hard/dangerous? And then you're suprised and offended when it gets changed?

 

Why sport bolt a 5.8 slab and make it "artificially safe"? And then you're surprised and offended when it gets chopped?