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WBraun
climber
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Jan 31, 2015 - 07:49am PT
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Instead of chopping rappel routes and other extreme stupid topo over dramatizing knee jerk reactions.
Either learn to climb or stay away from climbs that you can't understand ....
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Jan 31, 2015 - 08:03am PT
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NDG is a spectacular hike. So many great views, a bit of routefinding and a bit of spice 4th class. Scoping out HD and Washington Column is nice. Except for one time when it was over 90deg and I got whiny and dehydrated I have always really enjoyed the hike, hell I even enjoyed some of the hike that time. But I like hiking.
I don't quite get why so many people will do just about anything not to hike in such a beautiful place.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jan 31, 2015 - 08:40am PT
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North Dome gully? Ha! There are lots of folks who insist on rappelling rather than walking a few hundred yards along the top of the Trapps. Oh, and this just in---some people are recommending using the RA raps as the descent of choice from Washington Column. See http://www.mountainproject.com/v/rapping-royal-arches-after-washington-column/109999200. Extra down-traffic, now with haulbags...
It's part of the evolution of rock climbing, in which the physical activity is increasingly separated from its natural roots. The sense in which nature dictates where a route goes and how it is climbed has been narrowing for years, a trend celebrated by some and decried by others, but a trend nonetheless which shows little sign of abating.
With that idea, essentially that nature is the world's greatest route-setter, inevitably will come people who are not going to be interested in aspects of rock climbing that stray very far from the physical activity of moving from hold to hold. And as this group grows in its ability to influence, the pressure for what might once have been viewed as artificial conveniences will grow as well.
Combine with this the asymmetry of the relative ease of modifying routes compared with the difficulty of "unmodifying" them and we have a situation in which inertia strongly favors the modifiers.
Once modified, the discussion is, except for some minority voices, no longer about whether the modifications ought to have happened at all, but rather how to improve and extend the work already done. Adding reflectors to the rap bolts on RA is a typical example.
Of course, as WML has established, all this is just a hallucination brought on by low T. In any case, there is very little to be done about it, and perhaps, given what seems to be the inevitable explosion of popularity of rock climbing as a purely physical activity, it may be a good thing, because there are still plenty of locales that require some effort to reach and have yet to be equipped with bolts at every belay, so there will probably be a segregation of climbing groups, with popular accessible areas like Yosemite sacrificed, like the Aiguille du Midi, to the crowds.
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David D.
Trad climber
California
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Jan 31, 2015 - 10:10am PT
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I think the solution to the problems on the RA raps is simple. Install a zipline anchored to the top of pitch 16. Run it down to the SAR cache. Climbers can hit a button at the top of the zipline that alerts YOSAR to have some snacks and a beer ready for them when they get down.
Boom, problem solved.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 31, 2015 - 10:22am PT
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Chappy,
I was amused to find those rescue reports, obviously they only occur with the last teams rapping as any team rapping in from above would help out the lower team.
But like everything else in climbing, knowing when to use a "stopper" knot on the end of a rap rope, and when not to (judging when the likelihood of getting a rope stuck on the throw in the actual terrain), and when using a stopper knot, having the presence of mind to check the knots are off the rope when you go to pull, all these are part of learning to climb.
The guide book says don't go down the NDG at night if you don't know where you're going... is there anyplace on the cliffs you should go at night when you don't know where you're going? Should the guide book say "use a stopper knot" and "check that the stopper knots are untied before pulling your ropes"?
I am also with rgold on the Trapps walk off, which I remember very fondly from my time climbing in the 'Gunks from 1980 to 1995. I was astonished to learn that it is uncommon since I left.
It would seem a rather academic discussion except for the fact that people get killed now and again for their lack of experience and their presumptions.
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cuvvy
Sport climber
arkansas
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Jan 31, 2015 - 01:11pm PT
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Would love to do that route sometime. Nineteen thirties established. Sounds like climbers are getting wimpier by the decade.
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dave729
Trad climber
Western America
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Jan 31, 2015 - 01:21pm PT
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For crosscountry skiing out to Dewey point the Park places
those tags on trees to guide people.
Maybe the day will come when climbers are considered people and retroreflective tags will be placed leading over to the NDG.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Jan 31, 2015 - 01:52pm PT
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Reflective things are strictly verboten in climbing. Please move lots of rocks and only use huge cairns.
I plan to epoxy cairns to the anchor stations in order to make them more visible.
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Jan 31, 2015 - 03:58pm PT
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That's it... I give up. Adventure has officially left the building. Thousands, perhaps TENS of thousands of people have made it up and down the Arches without reflectors and diagrams and safety nets. Plenty of people have been caught by darkness and had to spend a chilly night but it gave them a great story for the bar. If you need a carefully demarcated line to follow then stay in the gym where the tape points the way and any mistake is met with a soft landing on foam.
Eff me!
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Woody the Beaver
Trad climber
Soldier, Idaho
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Jan 31, 2015 - 04:27pm PT
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All this talk of moderate climbing is getting me aroused. Maybe I should head to the Valley this spring for a return visit, after 40 years, to Royal Arches, just so I could flounder down the NDG again. It would probably take me three days, with nappy-times and bivvies. If needed, rig a 2-on-one haul for the prune bag.
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gumbyclimber
climber
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Jan 31, 2015 - 04:35pm PT
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In the same way that mandatory bike helmets actually increase injuries, trying to dumb-down the Arches raps will have the result of increasing idiocy>epics>rescues>fatalities. I've done the Arches at least a couple dozen times and never once have I remotely considered the raps to be one of the options for getting down.
I'm not, however, necessarily opposed to sign-posting the descent, to some extent, like many other trails. This would also likely to lead non-climbers into getting in over their heads attempting to use it.
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dave729
Trad climber
Western America
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Jan 31, 2015 - 05:53pm PT
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So that sweet climbers trail up to Cathredral Peak is ok
but one over to the NDG would destroy the adventure?
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Jan 31, 2015 - 06:53pm PT
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First time I did NDG was in the 70's after climbing the Arches. It was a simple hike, to be honest. Second time I did NDG was '86. Sons of Yesterday was pretty new, very new actually, so Jocelyn and I went to go do it. It was a lazy, we're bored, off-the-cuff, mid-afternoon deli decision. We took our woefully light rack and a single 150' rope that Lechlinski had loaned us. So we do it, it's great, but lo and behold it does not go to the rim. I thought it went to the rim. WTF. It's pretty late afternoon now. We dip over to Awhanee Buttress and start gunning up that. Never done it, no topo or route info but what you gonna do? After a lot of dirty 5.9/5.10 with sh#t for pro we rim out. Now it's pretty late twilight and we set off at a dead run over to the column and NDG. We start down too early and -- god help us -- get into a rappel. Realized what a huge mistake this was after 50' feet or so. Rope back up and climb out. Find NDG, and by now it's just barely light enough to spot features. By the time we hit the talus it was just f*#king pitch black. We brailled our way through the talus and got back to the car sometime way after midnight. We were thrashed and parched, but felt awesome because we knew we'd had ourselves a little self-inflicted, can-you-believe-this-shit mini-epic and it had been the most nerve-wracking fun we'd had in ages. Live and in-person it's a hilarious story. Especially our panic-driven quest to speed-climb Awahnee buttress in the twilight.
Point is: we were improvising under less-than-perfect conditions, and we knew it, and were totally OK with just squatting at any old point, having some uncomfortable pine-sap sex, freezing our asses off, and waiting for the sun to come up. I always felt that Kat Walk off of Middle was way scarier and sketchy.
The very notion of rapping from the f*#king RIM to get off RA, or for that matter any other route that hits the rim, just strikes me as a horribly insane notion. I've done hideous walk-offs to avoid rapping even 100'. If I were God the rap route would be history, and Royal Arches could be a great, low-stress environment for gymbies to learn how to cope with long routes and long descents.
wtf
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jan 31, 2015 - 07:18pm PT
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In the same way that mandatory bike helmets actually increase injuries, trying to dumb-down the Arches raps will have the result of increasing idiocy>epics>rescues>fatalities.
Perhaps it should be noted that helmets generally reduce the severity of brain injuries. But when the biking public is forced to wear helmets, perhaps by some local law, the rate of head injuries has been observed to go up. This doesn't mean bike helmets are not protective; it seems to imply that bike helmets encourage more risk-taking by bicyclists and less care by motorists. Insurance companies are familiar with this phenomenon; it apparently happened when antilock brakes were introduced too, and one can't help but wonder whether cell-phones might similarly have increased some climbers' risk tolerances.
I agree that the same thing happens when routes are equipped with bolted belays and/or rap lines. Even if they actually do make things safer and not just more convenient, they may also encourage more risk-taking by parties that might have thought twice about the route, might have prepared for it more fully, and might have started out earlier. "We can leave later and always rap from anywhere." and "if it is too hard we can just rap off at any point," for example.
I don't think there is any good data, but I wouldn't be real surprised if it turned out such "improvements" really do increase the climbing accident rate. The trouble is that the climbing population has increased so rapidly that it is hard to tell whether a perceived increase in accidents in fact represents an increased rate or not.
These observations are actuarial in nature and are not based on any philosophical attachment to more rather than less route "improvement." The bicycle helmet conundrum ought at least to give pause to those who think they are in some sense performing a community service by doing things like creating bolted rappel routes as an alternative to walk-offs, since it is possible that the perverse proclivities of human nature will turn everything on its head and create new occasions for accidents.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Jan 31, 2015 - 07:38pm PT
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antilock brakes were complete crap is why accidents went up.
While I am pretty sure creating a rap route will increase the risk of rap accidents.. I'm still of the opinion that making a better rap route than the already existing will reduce the accident rate. The only caveat being that it might be made more popular. That is a real concern.
I'm pretty sure removing the rap route would reduce the rate of rapp accidents. I'm also pretty sure someone would put it back up re increasing the rate of rap accidents.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jan 31, 2015 - 07:54pm PT
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Of course creating a rap route will increase the rate of rap accidents; that's not the point. The question is whether creating a rap route will increase or decrease the overall accident rate. I don't think anyone really knows the answer, and tried to make that clear.
I certainly agree it is way too late to try to turn back the clock on RA, and never meant to imply anything else. My point is still that folks who believe they can engineer more "safety" into climbs might consider the potential for unintended side-effects.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Jan 31, 2015 - 07:59pm PT
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My apologies for the snark
I'm pretty sure that the RA rap route has increased the rate of accidents overall. Probably has increased the amount of traffic for one thing and there is no question it is more dangerous than NDG.
Its a complicated subject for sure.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jan 31, 2015 - 07:59pm PT
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I have a confession I love rapping. So many crusty old dudes hate it but I think it's fun. More time on the wall instead of hiking. I almost always use an autoblock on the leg loop for first one down and a firemans belay for subsequent rappers. My knee is bad so I'd rather hang ten in a harness than pound on my knee down a steep rocky trail. F that.
The first time I went down ndg was after my second or third time up ra, racing the sunset, losing the trail, just having enough light at each section to find which way it went. My partner was ready to bivy but we had no alcohol so f that too. I honestly didn't think it was that bad but I have a good sense for finding trails. For after the column its a fine descent but to go out of the way for two miles just to avoid rapping, no thanks.
The only time I've come close to waiting to rap was my story earlier where we volunteered to rap with the party ahead of us cause the were slow and had never been down it.
It takes me 2 hours to rap it with a single rope. It would take me longer to do the ndg.
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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Jan 31, 2015 - 08:42pm PT
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BVB, great story!
having some uncomfortable pine-sap sex
with just a tad TMI!
LOL!
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Radish
Trad climber
SeKi, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2015 - 08:45am PT
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Just wondering if we figured out anything here? Should there be anything done to the Rap Route? The Royal Arches route seems to attract folks who want a long easy route and don't have much experience. All the climbing is that but the Rap is alittle more heads up. The fact that its a bunch of Raps is sure a big factor. And the feeling of help close by may cloud a new climbers mind late at nite too. So, anybody??
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