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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Laramie
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Apr 13, 2013 - 11:48am PT
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Big Mike,
you have stated your creedo-- again an example of Local Events with who knows how big the boundaries are and who will listen for only your clique cares.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 13, 2013 - 11:49am PT
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Certainly does not look like its in any danger of dying out to me;)
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:00pm PT
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more Trad from decades past...
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:03pm PT
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I disagree with, you fall, you lower. We hold ourselves to a higher standard than that. If you don't get it free the first time, you've ruined your onsight. Then you have to settle for a redpoint.
If you fall, and lower, pull the rope and try again on gear you already placed, that's cheating in my eyes. Not a clean ascent.
Man that is some seriously annoying anal crapola. If i am belaying the only time i will put up with that sort of crap is on an FFA attempt. Reguler climbing just get back up there and climb it. Preferably sometime today! Maybe I don't smoke enough pot........
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:08pm PT
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That is NOt trad spirit. That is simply annoying! true trad spirit would have been to rap back to the ledge and have a party. Drink themselfs silly and finish out the next day with massive hangovers;)
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:32pm PT
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you have stated your creedo-- again an example of Local Events with who knows how big the boundaries are and who will listen for only your clique cares.
Actually it's a sport climber creedo. It's universally applied by most younger climbers that i have met. Most climber consider pre placed draws to lower the effort level on a climb as well. Otherwise, why would you pre place them?
Tradman- it's not like we sit there all day and re-climb till we get it free. We simply accept that today wasn't our day and hope that we have enough strength the next time out to get the redpoint. If it's not clean, it's not clean. Simple.
I have climbed the grand wall, but i haven't redpointed it. That will a proud day. When i climb the entire thing clean. For some even that is not enough. You must lead every pitch on a multi to truly consider it an onsight or a redpoint.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:40pm PT
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Certainly does not look like [trad climbing] is in any danger of dying out to me;)
Well, it isn't dying out in the Gunks, but that's in large part because the cliffs are on private land and the Mohonk Preserve banned climbers from placing fixed protection (with exceptions for maintaining what was already in place).
In the absence of rules imposed by some regulating body, anyone with a power drill can, with relative ease, install routes or "improve" the protection on existing routes to meet some private standard of community safety and convenience, and then it is all about gosh, we don't want to have bolt wars, so leave the new stuff in place and if you don't like it you don't have to clip it. To quote the UIAA's Policy on the Preservation of Natural Rock for Adventure Climbing http://www.theuiaa.org/upload_area/files/1/UIAA_Policy_on_preservation_of_natural_rock_for_Adventure_Climbing_-_2012_paper.pdf
"There is no doubt that a small group of climbers armed with cordless drills can have an influence out of all proportion to their numbers completely changing the character of a crag all in one weekend of bolting. Changes made too fast leave the past behind since the local consensus has no chance to act in time to stem the tide of change."
(Of course, there have been rebuttals to the UIAA statement, which to my mind fall short, but see for example http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/uiaa-issues-bizzare-indictment-of-sport-climbing .)
I like debating the definitions as much as anyone else, but I think the real issue is the bolting of trad terrain. There are plenty of overhanging crackless walls, where sport climbing has and should continue to flourish and produce astonishing achievements, but the real threat to trad climbing comes from plaisir climbing, that bastard child of sport climbing, that wants to appropriate all terrain for its own purposes.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Cave Creek, AZ
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:49pm PT
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What Rgold said!!!
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:53pm PT
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The gunks has so many great natural lines that it would be absurd to retro bolt any of them. It can and has been argued that the preserve screwed up big time when they bolted all those rap stations. That drasticly changed the charecter of the climbing at the gunks.
I do not know what it is like now but a decade ago the New River seemed to have lots of trad lines interspersed with the many sport lines. Both seemed to be getting climbed. Rumny is the only place that I am aware of in the east that mixed and gear climbs routinely get retroed into sport climbs. Much of that was done by a single individual...
Not drying here either. we got an inch or so of new snow/snice yesterday. it is melting fast but dripping like crazy as it melts...
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:59pm PT
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The biggest culprit INMOP is squeeze jobs. A sport climb 20ft away from a stellar crack climb has zero impact on that crack climb yet a sport climb 20ft from a traditional slab climb can completly ruin the traditional slab climb. Any fixed gear climb that is six feet from annother climb changes the charecter of the previous climb. bad ju ju!
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Apr 13, 2013 - 01:03pm PT
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Ditto what rgold said. They may have bolts next to splitter cracks in france, but stuff like that gets chopped around here. We do allow some exceptions though, like monster layback pitches way up the grand wall. Because not having to carry five #5 camalots up a huge wall for one pitch is totally acceptable in the squamish lexicon.
Edit: i also have no problem with "a" bolt next to a crack in a predominantly sport area. Mixed climbs with multiple pieces of gear should be left as is though in my opinion.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 13, 2013 - 01:15pm PT
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I did a few mixed climbs at a cliff that I am developing. My criteria is that if it has a continous section of gear placements I simply can not bring myself to bolt it. If it's just one or two placements on a pitch it gets bolted. One of the best climbs there starts out with and obvious crack system but finished up a thin bolted face. I did it GU and it came out really nice. One of my sport climber friends was trying to argue that If i did not bolt the whole thing no one would climb it. my answer was that i will climb it and i have repeted it several times.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Cave Creek, AZ
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Apr 13, 2013 - 01:44pm PT
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The solution for bolt proliferation is to design and spread a virus that disables power drills. If everyone had to suffer through drilling bolts by hand, there would be a lot more second thoughts before doing it.
And, (pet peeve alert) why is it OK to put in bolts at belays where there is perfectly good pro? Not exactly good environmental ethics (prod for a discussion that may be best served in another thread). God, I want/need to go climbing, rather than sitting at this computer (I actually do get some work done on it when I'm not checking out this thread!)!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2013 - 02:00pm PT
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Plasir climbing is essentially comfortizing moderate trad routes and building something like family-oriented sport routes among other things.
A friend of mine wanted to do this to classics in Eldorado: "so they could be guided"said he. I told him: "I have guided them plenty using natural anchors and in fact I would prefer it stay that way so I can teach that skill set; likewise if you bolt up all these natural anchors you're taking away an opportunity to teach, learn and practice that craft".
Luckily the local committees shut him down on that notion. I surmised this was more a fear based desire on his part than anything else. Sure storms happen; occasionally you have to leave gear, but in 40 years of climbing I haven't left very much gear to storms or guiding.
The notion that every long trad route needs double bolt anchors is something I won't buy into.
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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Apr 13, 2013 - 02:06pm PT
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Yes, and often in the middle of a storm, you get down on your knees and kiss the ground after you've bailed and were fortunate enough to HAVE the right equipment to LEAVE behind so that you could get your as* off of there without perishing.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 13, 2013 - 02:09pm PT
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Very few people should be allowed to own drills. guides retroing for teaching purposes is one of my pet peves... I have been badgered quite a bit by the owner of the guide service in central VT to add bolts to many of my climbs. His rational is that if people think it is a sport climb because they see bolts that they might get hurt if they skip the gear placements. my short answer is to teach your students how to climb. That includes risk assment! All the climbs were done GU and hand drilled on lead. part of it is fear as he has not lead them all even though they are all G and PG rated.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Cave Creek, AZ
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Apr 13, 2013 - 02:12pm PT
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What ydpl8s and trademanclimbs say!!!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2013 - 02:16pm PT
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Dingus McGee said:
I do think once a given long wall [in Yosemite ] has been freed very few will want to engage in a repeat.
That's an interesting prognostication.
So now we are moving beyond what trad is, does, and its current status in the culture at large toward where it is going, which is obviously much more conjectural.
To your point: I will say it seems the considerable effort it takes to free many of those routes may prove to be a one-shot deal, but I can't say with any surety that others won't go through the same process for repeat ascents of things other than Free Rider, a few of the Huber routes and so forth. Or that they won't be on-sited. Because as we've all learned time and again, "never say never".
I climbed Hotline with Kim Carrigan in 1980 and at that time he predicted that many of the greats wall climbs in Yosemite and those of El Capitan particularly, would go free. I said to him: "even the PO?" He said yes. I was skeptical; it's happening, of course not on the PO, yet.
We can agree that mass culture doesn't give a hoot for trad climbing, that they don't care to elevate it even if they do partake and so forth, but I'm not buying into this idea that there won't always be a hard-core style of individual, expressed in however small a group, who gravitates to a minimalist experience to test their mettle in this particular manner which we identify as trad. At the very least there is always the corner case of a small percentage of youth from every generation that wanna try things in this manner and sometimes it catches on in cult fashion.
It's called a Renaissance and it happens all the time in all kinds of genres.
Just because sport climbing now favors overhanging rock doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be the only game from here on out, soon to the exclusion of trad expression forever.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Cave Creek, AZ
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Apr 13, 2013 - 02:25pm PT
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It was really beautiful to climb at Granite Mountain this last Fall and Winter and see a solid group of younger climbers, some of who I had the pleasure to climb with, that relish the demands of trad climbing. Even the hard and humbling work of lay backs, chimneys, offwidths, and leading face away from the bolts. Trad lives on!
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