Adding a bolt at Midnight Rock

[soulreaper]

Replacing the bolts is an excellent idea. Where they are located should depend on the availability of solid rock, as it is a little flaky around the current locations. The actual current bolt spacing makes good sense, however. When I led the climb, my only reservation was the possibility of breaking an edge while clipping the bolt, which could be consequential. However, I don't see how that necessitates an additional bolt; climbing is never without risk and the climb in its current state is certainly not that risky. Those who are uncomfortable with runouts can add/clip a sling to the bottom bolt.

[Dane]

Just curious since this thread was started in August of '05...anyone ever pull the old bolts and add new ones?

[JensHolsten]

Hey Blake...about your question concerning the where the route goes at the top...When I did the climb I escaped to the last part of the traverse route. I have tried the other vartions. The face can be climbed at 5.12+ to the anchor, but there is no pro. It does go though. In fact, Soulreaper almost had the onsight in the bag including the face, but terror struck right before the anchors and he took quite a large fall on a marginal piece. His effort was incredible and provided us both with much excitement! After this incident I decided to go left. I do think that doing SPM through the face adds an extra star to the route. To me, it is definetely the most inspiring finish.

[Blake]

Cool Jens, I didn't even know it was possible, but 12+ is not currently in my bag of tricks. Sounds like the normal finish is up/left. The small horn/flake near the top of the crack seemed loose, but it might be my imagination.

 

The bolts are the same as always (2 skinny old ones and a FP in the bottom of the crack), I think a long sling is better than a 4' chunk of rattly annoying chain, and i'd imagine that clipping a runner would be easier than a dangling chain link. You can climb the 5.9 "wild traverse" and rap down the route to leave a runner in place if desired.

 

The book said gear to 8" on Easter Overhang, which scared me off, but thanks for debunking that one. Also, it sounds like there's no "non-tehcnical" approach to the base of the sting, thanks for clearing that up as well.

 

What's there seems rad, but it's not nearly as good as the lower town wall at Index in terms of volume of great routes. It sorta reminded me of Nightmare rock with wider cracks and a whole lot more hiking/approach issues.

[RuMR]

Hey Blake...about your question concerning the where the route goes at the top...When I did the climb I escaped to the last part of the traverse route. I have tried the other vartions. The face can be climbed at 5.12+ to the anchor, but there is no pro. It does go though. In fact, Soulreaper almost had the onsight in the bag including the face, but terror struck right before the anchors and he took quite a large fall on a marginal piece. His effort was incredible and provided us both with much excitement! After this incident I decided to go left. I do think that doing SPM through the face adds an extra star to the route. To me, it is definetely the most inspiring finish.

 

hey how you doing these days, Jens? Sounds like Andrew is crushin' it...bet you are too...

 

Little Drew's leadin' now...

[Cairns]

This isn't the usual bolt or not bolt discussion. The history of this route makes it different. Who placed the bolts and why did they put them where they are? Not every FA is sacrosanct. Mistakes are made.

 

Wheretf is Dan Lapesca? Back when this route was getting attention he gave me regular bulletins.

 

I am surprised the the original poster wanted only opinions of people who have done the climb. What about climbers who might do it? Those who have already done it did it as it is/was. They might be biased. Do they plan to do it again?

 

But I personally recommend minimal alteration. There is too much of an atmosphere these days of people wanting to add a route to their collection, like a stamp. Let this be one of those hard-to-get ones.

 

Nice to see Tom Michael contributing.

 

 

[mattp]

Cairns makes some good points. I believe the FA, climbing in a traditional ground-up style, used hooks. It is not uncommon for bolts to end up not quite optimally situated for subsequent free ascents when a route is established in this fashion. I don't think it was a "mistake" so much as a product of the method employed.

[kevbone]

is when a route has been grid bolted.

 

 

How does one grid bolt ONE route? Don’t you mean “over bolt”……if there is such a thing!

[Cairns]

Cairns makes some good points. I believe the FA, climbing in a traditional ground-up style, used hooks. It is not uncommon for bolts to end up not quite optimally situated for subsequent free ascents when a route is established in this fashion. I don't think it was a "mistake" so much as a product of the method employed.

 

And then Peter Croft came along and likely would have done it with or without the bolts. One perspective would be to leave any new bolt placements near where the old ones are as a Croft legacy.

 

But for me those who might be interested in an onsight have the most to gain or lose from any decision of ErikN (good luck with that!) or some other expeditor.

 

I was only acknowledging the possibility of mistakes. Most evidence points to infallibility and I've never seen it happen, but you have to consider the chance that an FA could have been done by an idiot.

[mattp]

Even the visionary craftsman is going to make a mistake once in a while and the complete idiot is probably going to do something well sometimes.

 

Really, we're back to the question that is the heart of your post: if by some magic we reach a consensus that the route could be better if altered (or more likely if the climber who takes it upon themself to replace the old bolts decides THEY know what might be better), when might it be OK to alter an existing climb?

 

Are there cases where the FA rule might not best serve us? Could this be one of them? I bet there would be just as many who would say it is OK to add a bolt as there are who would say it is not OK if we took a survey - but does that answer the question? Is there something special about this climb that absolutely demands "preservation as is" or which might warrant an additional or relocated bolt? Does it matter if the climb is special, or how many people actually climb it?

 

Personally, I'm not urging anybody to go out and "fix" it as there are plenty of great climbs in Leavenworth and lots of them on that particular rock already. I'm not sure we "need" to do anything. However, based on the discussion here I think I'd lean toward allowing someobody to move or add a bolt in the area we are discussing if they were to make a serious case that this route was a neglected gem that merits the change.

 

My feeling here is based on the fact that there are a lot of hard routes at Midnight Rock and I have not heard anybody here say that route is particularly unique or special in its current state; the bolt in question was placed there due to a style of ascent (lead with hooks) that virtually nobody today is going to do and I assume that most climbers who are interested in and capable of climbing that route would prefer better pro than ONLY that bolt in question. And, as to the idea of leaving a sling or chain hanging there, I just generally dislike that kind of thing and I'd find an extra bolt less visually obtrusive as well as probably safer.

 

I'm perfectly happy to see the climb preserved "as is," but we really haven't yet had anybody clearly state why that should be done except for a general assertion that no route should be altered and that if we allow a single new bolt the route is going to be gridbolted or that we are next going to see chipped holds appear.

[Dane]

Lots of older climbs out there with long run outs and bolts that are hard to clip.

 

This particular climb has been done for years "as is" for bolt placement. No one has died to date. No question many of the ascents were done with a sling/slings on the bolts to make it safer getting off the ground. Most that have backed off (physically or mentally) the first clip seem satisfied with rigging a top rope and enjoying the climb until they were capable of actually leading it.

 

While I wouldn't be interested in repeating the climb again with the 20 year old button head 1/4" bolts I would be with new 3/8" stainless bolts replacing the originals. My preference would be the same locations as the originals. And yes I'd stick clip the first this time and may be even the second.

 

I do find it curious that so many are interested in adding new bolts or changing the location of the originals.

 

As I mentioned before there are two cruxs when you lead SPM as it now sits, making the first clips and finishing the corner.

 

If you haven't done the climb either on a TR or on lead you wouldn't know that. Suggesting the addition of another bolt or changing the bolt's location will dramatically alter the difficulty of the climb. SPM has never been "the" technical test piece on Midnight. But no question it is one of the mental test pieces as it now sits.

 

Some don't care for that aspect of the sport which I respect. But that doesn't mean we need to lower the difficulty of another classic climb to make everyone comfortable.

 

MattP adds:

Are there cases where the FA rule might not best serve us? Could this be one of them?

 

When did a FA become a socialist experience? I have seen dozens of FAs done in thoughtful and bold style retro bolted by "general consensus" so the rest of the community could instead of climbing them, hang on them safely. Why should the FA serve anyone but those bold and skilled enough to climb the line? Add a bolt to SPM and it will get a lot more traffic no question. Put the bolts in a better position and again you'll see more traffic.

 

Actually there aren't a lot of hard 5.11 cracks in Leavenworth compared to Index or Squamish. Just one opinion but tradition and style should matter on this one.

 

Then again you could add a typical line of "sport bolts" to get into the corner and then a couple on top of the corner to protect the "crux". Might as well make it safe. Then we can all read about the "5.11 gym climbers" who died when they fell off the ledge walking over to ROTC.

[soulreaper]

I think you're right that (occasionally) the inviolability of the F.A. style must be reconsidered; however, this is probably not one of those cases: on SPM there is a good piece of gear protecting the climbing to the first bolt. I remember the climbing being exciting but reasonable. I think most (but not all) first ascentionists are open to suggestions concerning routes they did twenty odd years ago, especially if some condition has changed. This interaction (with the first ascentionist) remains important because if nothing else it helps to preserve the history of the climb. Also, on this climb no condition has changed significantly to warrant additional fixed gear.

[matt_m]

The debate seems to be about what the "risk style" of the route was during the FFA (croft) and whether or not that should be restored. As it is right now - the bolts are manky and need replacement - period end of story. What's really being debated here is whether the new stainless should be a 1 for 1 same location replacement, a 1 for 1 replacement with location adjustment, or most controversially, SS replacement of the original bolts with the addition of 1 more bolt lower down. From all the posts, it certainly seems like the FFA and many repeats were done with slings off the older bolts, essentially creating more "clipping" locations than there were bolts (3 at least by my count - long sling, bolt that sling is attached to, 2nd bolt above)

All the recent climbs sound like they were done sans sling. Proud to be sure. Strong, impressive climbing that should be commended. But their style should in no way negatively influence how a climb is protected during other ascents. What I mean is, just because someone does a climb in a way BOLDER than the FFA that shouldn't mean everyone after them must follow the same way. If we did follow this mantra we'd have chaos every time bolt replacement came up. "I did it back in 95 when there were rusty, loose, 1/4in spinners so that level of boldness must always remain" or worse "I skipped those bolts and used crappy trad gear so should you." I don't think so. There are always bolder people out there and if the "I did it 'better' than you so now you have to too" idea were accepted - climbing would become exclusionary to the extreme.

Route maintenance should try to faithfully restore the protection LEVEL found on the first ascent (or FFA if that applies) while also taking into account current impact levels. In some cases this means pulling and plugging a hole since wide pro that provides THE SAME LEVEL of protection is now available. Pulling a bolt because you can wiggle in a marginal 00 TCU doesn't count. More controversial would be pulling a rusty pin and replacing it with a bolt.

 

In the SPM case, one has to look at what Croft had as his level of protection during the FFA - It certainly seems to me like he had at least 3 points of solid pro. So how do you restore the route to this level of protection? Replace two bolts with new locations or place 3 bolts? I tend to think that 3 SS Camo bolts have far less impact on the rock than a 4 foot piece of tat that makes climbers look bad with land managers. (The same conclusion has been made at the very anti-bolt Gunks where rap anchors have been bolted for several years to REDUCE impact). Do 1-1 replacements on the originals and add a new one where the sling would've been clipped.

[RuMR]

i say don't change the bolt count but relocate it to the appropriate location...much less of an eyesore than a ratty tatty sling hanging there...

 

but i don't really care one way or the other, as i don't climb anymore...

[TimL]

i say don't change the bolt count but relocate it to the appropriate location...much less of an eyesore than a ratty tatty sling hanging there...

 

but i don't really care one way or the other, as i don't climb anymore...

 

I agree. Just because you want to do a particular climb and it doesn't fit your level of acceptable risk doesn't mena you should change it. For example, Naural Log Cabin at Index. I'm saving up mental fortitude to lead this route. I've done it on TR, but last time I was there I did not lead it. Now just because the first run out part scares me doesn't give me the right to add bolts. There are plenty of routes that grade that are well protected.

[soulreaper]

Just don't break a handhold on the run-out like I did the last time I led it. That situation made me briefly consider additional fixed gear on that part of the route but I came back to-as you said-the fact that climbs needn't all be well-protected. If they were we would lose the smidgen of real adventure that we get from cragging as it is.