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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Mar 31, 2008 - 01:17pm PT
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Bruce wrote: The Fet asks about why we don't hear more stories about failures.
Well, we do! Some of the best stories about climbing I have read in print are about climbers who got shut down, re-evaluated and came back to either succeed or get shut down again. It really is about the journey and not the destination. Especially if you can get your ego under control.
Bruce
Bruce...first off...how are you?
Just because they took a different path on their journey than you would...you think it is wrong....who really can't control their ego?
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Mar 31, 2008 - 01:49pm PT
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Bob,
I like what you said above about judging someone by what kind of human being they are. Well put.
I like the only go around once comment too. Unless we are reincarnated and get to be climbers again???
I had an old buddy who, when I would be too busy to go do something with him, used to say "Hey Birchell, this isn't a f**king dress rehearsal man, this is the only ride...let's go!"
I always liked that....
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Mar 31, 2008 - 01:56pm PT
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someone above mentioned the pin scars on serenity crack, which got me thinking-
maybe this HD route is really 2 routes?
one is a true ground up trad climb, hard corner pitches climbed (all or primarily?) on gear, then from above starts another climb, a hard slab mulitpitch, that was rap bolted.
can't peoples' opinions be separated by the two climbs?
the corner sounds rad, i'd to be good enough to send that one day...
5.13 slab multipitch?
no gracias, i'll just rap.
EDIT-
btw- karl, the problem w/ your "live and let live" attitudes wrt climbs and bolts an the like is that it ignores the reason the valley is the way it is, that being the peer pressure used by the community in general to discourage certain practices, even as they were gaining acceptance elsewhere.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Mar 31, 2008 - 03:12pm PT
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Greetings You Topians,
I am not ahsamed. Thought hard, agonized even, over this style, talked it down endlessly, then chose to finish the route. I'm constantly aware of what I wrote in the past and proud of those words and those ideas, and I get it that this seems contradictory. If you go toward absolutes and toward judgment, then this is not as pure a style. But it still feels like a proud climb up some of the best stone I've ever seen.
And I'm not so sure that absolutes and judgment are the ultimate deal. They seem to loom larger in our lives at night in the bar, and they seem to loom larger too while sitting on my ass in front of this glowing screen. But when I'm out there moving over the clean stone in sunshine my animal joy in the tenuous position and the finesse of moving well and being poised over the void tend to downplay my interest in absolutes and judgments and let me more simply revel in it. Maybe that's some of the point of Growing Up.
Please go climb the route and let me know how you feel about it. Meanwhile, sure I'll sit here and type back and forth about it. I value your thoughts; this is about as good a community as I've found anywhere. A worthy place to work on getting more human.
While we're talking, read the article again. I spent two months writing it because this decision was not simple, and not easy. It was complex and subtle, but it represents our best effort to grow on our noble Valley tradition and respond to that particular stretch of stone. Most places it's too steep to stance drill. It's scallpoed and polished in a way that doesn't lend itself to hook drilling. Historically, hooking was the first big step away from free and clean drilling from stances, and here that wouldn't work.
Big respect for the Bachar-Yerian, John. Your response to that stretch of stone was impeccable; it departed from tradition in a bold way. But the South Face is different climbing than anything in the Meadows. Part of my problem in writing about it is trying to convey what we found there. How we responded is easier to see. But it gets dangerous to go off into "shoulda's" without really feeling the terrain.
Big respect to you too, Coz, for your first all-free lead of Southern Belle. Honestly, though, I have very little idea what the stone is like over there a couple of hundred yards east of where we were. Thought about dropping our fixed line down there to take a look, because my respect is mixed with curiosity. Southern Belle has become such a legend it would be interesting to just be a tourist and check it out. I'm damn sure never going to see it in the traditional way, climbing from the ground. But while actually up there with fixable lines, I never had the time and energy to go look.
By the time we came to it, every free route on the South Face had upped the ante until you had to stare down death or at least being crippled to go up there. We talked to most of the activists, and their sense of it was pretty serious. Schultz said he wouldn't go back. Caylor is the only one so far to seriously pitch, 70 feet or more, off that wall. He said Southern Belle was "just a bad idea." His ankles healed, but after crawling all the way to the Valley he found that his boldness was crippled for upwards of 15 years. Potter, making the second free ascent 18 years later, allowed that he was "scared."
So it seemed that the X-club was monopolizing the wall, yet each of its members was personally backing away from the place. All the while raving about it being the best stone any of them had ever climbed on. Maybe the bold tradition was getting self-limiting there. Maybe it was time for another idea. At least to try one. And after, if it had felt terrible in my gut, felt like a transgression, I would have rapped back down there myself, chopped and patched. Instead it felt exciting, felt like bearing the gift of a superb new route.
Making these decisions was threading a needle's eye. One of the many realities that seem ironic is that the Bachar-Yerian seems safer than the South Face, because it's so steep. After paying the consequences, Caylor highlighted that: "The B-Y is a reasonable climb..." Not the way most folks look at it. The South Face is right around 75 degrees. Too steep to stance, but low angle enough to smack stuff on the way down; his fall began to cartwheel.
So here's an invitation, a potential that personally excites me but wouldn't fit in the article. The whole four months we were up there I had tendonitis in my elbow and couldn't climb. Ironically, I could hold a drill OK. All better now, so here's what I'm going to do and what I suggest to all of you who might also find the 12a crack climbing off the ground too hard. 'Course you have to walk a ways. for starters, climb the Snake Dike as an approach. Rap a ways down the upper wall. Climb back out. Three pitches down it goes to .11a. Below that it eases back into .10-something. Five or six pitches down (Sean, we need your topo) is the "Mini Snake Dike," 5.10c which looks really good. Below there is the .11d pitch pictured upthread. I think at my level I can get half way down to the top of the arch and still lead back out. I know it'll be one of the best climbs of my life. I know it'll still be sporty with some 30-foot runouts. A good rock climb, not a death route. The only opportunity most of us may have in this lifetime to experience that wonderful stone.
Well, I'll quit for now. I've thought about this so much that what I've just gotten down is the tip of an iceberg and it's still long winded.
I hope we hear from Sean too. He says it's the best route he ever did, and he's been around.
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couchmaster
climber
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Mar 31, 2008 - 03:43pm PT
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Good to hear from you on this Doug. Well said.
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Cracko
Trad climber
Quartz Hill, California
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Mar 31, 2008 - 03:52pm PT
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Thanks Doug. I'm good !
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Mar 31, 2008 - 03:57pm PT
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Seems like much ado about nothing. There is an absolute limit to ground up FA slab/face routes, even with hooks (which can result in bolts in the wrong spots). Once the bolts are there (and assuming they are placed with care and consideration), does how they were placed really matter to anyone but the FA?
Kevin Worral summed up my opinion:
Of course, a successful ground up effort would be better style and more impressive - but time and successive ascents will yield the only qualified criticism of the route, and the climbers who did it first - as I see it.
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bachar
Gym climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Mar 31, 2008 - 03:58pm PT
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Just to clarify..
I still think the BY is 5.11, A1. Even if you free climb past the bolts you are still indirectly using aid protection.
I also think placing bolts on rappel is not technically aid climbing. It's not even climbing. Placing bolts from hooks or another bolt is aid climbng - you're still climbing.
Just my whacky opinion...jb
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Mar 31, 2008 - 04:11pm PT
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I knew that Doug Robinson didn't have any class.
Just bunch of lies, slander, and rationalizations cause he doesn't want to die or be crippled!
;-)
Personally, I'd do well for myself to just hike up there once in awhile. Folks tell me they want to do Snake Dike and I like to talk em out of it.
Peace
Karl
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petey23
climber
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Mar 31, 2008 - 04:25pm PT
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For what it's worth (my opinion shouldn't count for much as I don't climb 5.12 of any kind and I'm not a local either), I respect that Doug came on here and defended it.
To me, it doesn't so much matter how the route is established. More important is the fact that some serious thought and soul-searching went into it. If someone can demonstrate that they considered the options with a serious mind and did what they thought was best, then I'm fine with it. It is more than obvious that Doug did that (and I assume Sean too).
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Mar 31, 2008 - 04:39pm PT
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I think it's a plus that they hand drilled every bolt.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Mar 31, 2008 - 04:45pm PT
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You've got to wonder how many people's opinions actually change in a discussion like this. If anything, folks tend to get more "reasonable" as they get older, and the super hardcore run-the-rope-a-mile, ground-up folks will eventually stove in and "excuse" rap bolting or whatever, rather than sticking to the hard core ethic. You think it over and ofcourse risking life and limb for a rock climb seems absurd so you do whatever in required to make things "safer" and saner, right?
Thing is, in all of those ground-up face fandangos I was involved in (when I was young, granted), the point was never to be "reasonable" or safe; likewise it was never to be unreasonable or unsafe. The point was to squeeze the most experiential voltage out of the route as you could. It was always understood that some routes simply had too many volts, at least for me, and so I didn't try or do these routes, be they new routes or repeats.
JL
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Mar 31, 2008 - 04:46pm PT
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Good post Doug and way to keep it non-combative...a few here could learn a lesson.
Some of these posts border on religious type fanatics statements.
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Buggs
Trad climber
Eagle River, Alaska
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Mar 31, 2008 - 04:59pm PT
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Very interesting dialogue. What a beautiful place.
le_bruce - thanks for the awesome perspective.
For those who have not been up there, the approach is long but well worth it, some of the most magical terrain I've ever seen.
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Buggs
Trad climber
Eagle River, Alaska
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Mar 31, 2008 - 05:02pm PT
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Another example
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Buggs
Trad climber
Eagle River, Alaska
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Mar 31, 2008 - 05:04pm PT
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And yet another. just being up there next to her is lovely, peaceful, awe-inspiring.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Mar 31, 2008 - 05:16pm PT
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I just came back on here.
DR, thanks for joining the conversation. Very nice post. It's clear that you had to chew on this choice for a while.
Buggs! You made it, you sly dog. I knew you'd have pictures of that thing.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Mar 31, 2008 - 05:46pm PT
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Largo wrote
"Thing is, in all of those ground-up face fandangos I was involved in (when I was young, granted), the point was never to be "reasonable" or safe; likewise it was never to be unreasonable or unsafe. The point was to squeeze the most experiential voltage out of the route as you could. It was always understood that some routes simply had too many volts, at least for me, and so I didn't try or do these routes, be they new routes or repeats. "
So are you really just speaking for yourself John or should we read between the lines and infer that a route like this should be done by those capable of doing them from the ground up with the little protection they could place on lead (which in this case would be almost none)?
For me, I feel like restricting a whole wall, or even a whole type of climbing (slabs that can't be stance drilled or hooked) to death routes is a type of ethical fundamentalism that serves very, very few. Perhaps 6 guys over 10 years who could simply up the ante and solo the thing.
Is climbing first ascents solely restricted to the maximum experience of the First Ascent party (while conforming to the communiity's ideas of best style) and the ones who will follow count for nothing?
This feels like a quality route that will see traffic and it won't be the sport climbing clippity do dah crowd either. You have to climb 5.12+ trad and then do 30 foot runouts.
I think Doug has made a reasonable case for the technique employed. If anyone would like to prove otherwise, seems like one could climb to the top of the arch and establish the "Throwing Up" variation a hundred feet to the right or left and there wouldn't be enough bolts on it to make it feel squeezed.
Or does it all come down to a religious kind of belief in what the sport is about and how things should be?
Or is it more like "We walked 3 miles in the snow to school and them new school kids should pay their dues too?"
Just asking
Peace
Karl
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Mar 31, 2008 - 06:00pm PT
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RE:
"The point was to squeeze the most experiential voltage out of the route as you could."
awesome,
LOL
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Mar 31, 2008 - 06:05pm PT
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Largo wrote
"Thing is, in all of those ground-up face fandangos I was involved in (when I was young, granted), the point was never to be "reasonable" or safe; likewise it was never to be unreasonable or unsafe. The point was to squeeze the most experiential voltage out of the route as you could. It was always understood that some routes simply had too many volts, at least for me, and so I didn't try or do these routes, be they new routes or repeats. "
So are you really just speaking for yourself John or should we read between the lines and infer that a route like this should be done by those capable of doing them from the ground up with the little protection they could place on lead (which in this case would be almost none)?
I'm just speaking for myself. I look back at all the crazy stuff we used to do to avoid placing extra bolts and all the times I scared myself stiff and it seems almost ridiculous. But I wouldn't have wanted it any other way and I wouldn't trade my experience for anyone elses. I don't expect others to climb like we did but I don't know anyone from back then who regrets climbing ground up.
But frankly I don't much care how anyone else climbs - never have, and I certainly don't condem Doug or anyone else. Tastes differ. Existential voltange is not the currency for everyone. Nor am I worried that wall will be overrun by rap bolters. The South Face (absolutly spectuacular photos - what a freaking wall!!) has been there forever and how many parties have gone up there from thee ground or from above?? People are lazy.
JL
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