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BLD
climber
excramento,CA
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:00am PT
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YEEEEEEEHAAAAAWWW!
Rite bak at ya George.
Dis iz just like old times.
well not reali but ya no.
Ill tri the telee.
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grover
Social climber
Akanada
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:14am PT
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This kinda thread reminds me of this one time, which in fact reminds me of that other time, which reminds me of that final time, which reminds me of that great time, which reminds me of right now.
Shotguns on the porch talkin bout the good ole days ?
What are you people, a bunch a hicks?
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grover
Social climber
Akanada
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:20am PT
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You know what you need to do Sean?
Hire a limo, buy a bunch of tickets for your friends and family to a YES show in San Fransisco and forget about all this hogwashin, bachstabbin, shittalkin.....
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BLD
climber
excramento,CA
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:25am PT
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SPIT------TING!!!!! BOOOOOM!!!
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BLD
climber
excramento,CA
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:27am PT
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Grover is on the porch.
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Sean Jones
climber
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:31am PT
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Grover,
How the hell are you man ? Funny you mentioned the Yes show. They haven't played in 5 years but are doing a 40th anniversary tour this summer. 40th!!!!! Now that's proud. Not too long ago I was at Thayne's house and looking at pictures of all of us heading to Yes in a limo. Maybe we can hook up this summer and do it one more time. This could be the last chance to do that. Hope to see you soon man !!!
S Hole.
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grover
Social climber
Akanada
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:36am PT
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Yep on the porch with only one shell left in me 12 gauge.
After reading a bunch of this thread over a whack o days, all I gots to say is, alot of you need a tissue for this issue.
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grover
Social climber
Akanada
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:47am PT
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40th?
Fer real?
Whoa!
i'm there...
i could always be confused into a wee little trip like that.
When i saw yer post about the porch thang i just had to respond.
Tooo much.
Mark
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BLD
climber
excramento,CA
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:52am PT
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True that and don't worry we've got tissues and ammo. I wish this porch was actual reality like the moons before.
The snow is melting and I'm claiming we will see a 2nd Ascent soon enough. That's what this thread needs.
B........
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jstan
climber
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Apr 19, 2008 - 06:22am PT
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Well, we have created something new. A thread that you get a to-do list from. I have to go and excerpt the major posts, and consider them side by side. Got to pull Tom's posts out for sure.
Karl's summary is pretty real world. But this really is not just more of the same, simply because now we have the internet(ST). In the past everyone just went off pissed and there were permanent hard feelings. "Rat's Ass" was a popular phrase. There is a difference now.
The future appearance of HD is a real trip that brings me to mention the NF of the Eiger. Have you looked at all the routes now on that face? Probably everyone here was affected in a seminal way by the story of the White Spider. If I were to encounter first a current map of the face and then the story of the White Spider, I would merely conclude the first guys just screwed up. No biggie. So here is the trade. We lose the story of a really heroic struggle, something close to the guts of climbing that affected us all, so that a hundred guys, most of them dead could, if still alive say, "Yeah. One of those lines on the face is my route." As for anyone needing thirty routes on that face, I ask you, Anyone planning to "do" the NF Eiger thirty times?
I would add to Karl's summary. In life we make trades every day. The trade I sketch above is pretty pathetic. Long ago I stopped looking at a guide when I went to a new area. Once you get past the noobie "tick list" mentality you just go, walk around, be amazed at the neat things, and explore.
Back in the day in the Gunks we had an outlying cliff that suddenly received more attention. A guide would have soon come along but we all thought about it and decided we would rather leave it as "our wilderness". Rather than have ten cliffs all covered up to the wing wang in lines, why not have some variety.
If we decide there is nothing we can or should do we all can see where we are going in this incremental process. Yosemite will have sixty or one hundred areas all grid bolted. I just don't know about you guys. I really don't.
All so a lot of dead people could, if they sudddenly came alive again, might say, "Yeah. that line was mine."
Jeesus.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 19, 2008 - 10:30am PT
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Kman wrote
"We're not going to agree.
Karl, I disagree, I think we do agree.
I think everybody will agree that starting at the bottom and climbing to the top is the best style. I don't think anybody argues against that. Even the FA team of Growing Up knows this--they deliberated the pros and cons carefully before taking action.
The disagreement is over tolerance."
Hey Kman, we're already disagreeing about agreeing! Of course you're right but that wasn't my point. We're not going to agree about what style is acceptable (not to chop) Most folks know what is ideal.
and regarding popularity, can't we communicate without taking things to exaggerated levels? When a 5.13 climber does a 5.9+ face and uses one or no bolts, that route isn't going to get many ascents even if it's a fine line and personally, I think that's selfish to condemn the stone to disuse. If that climber took some money and time to think, "How can I put up this line so that a climber capable of doing it could have a fine, not safe, but not deadly adventure on it? That would be awesome. It doesn't need to be every 3 feet.
But still popularity means something because climbing isn't all about the top 10% of climbers who have plenty to climb and put up many of the new routes. Does everything have to be about them, them, them? Face it, these elite climbers have put up a lot of routes like that in TM and the Valley and guess what, elite climbers don't like to go back and repeat other elite climbers moderate R/X rated routes, they just like putting up up.
The little people may revolt! In Yosemite it's pretty dang common to have a line of three parties starting off some popular route while other moderate routes rot in X rated mode cause some elite guys went up there in a day and did it with no pro.
I posted Aaron's message for only one reason. I don't know him but he spoke to the motivation of putting up routes that others could enjoy.
Let's bring selfishness into this discussion.
People who want to do first ascents get selfish and sometimes don't consider the future of the route.
People who want to do first ascents get selfish and use the tactics they feel are required to do the route even if others object
People who have done first ascents selfishly like the glory of their proud contributions to remain intact and not diluted by the little people climbing next door.
Climbers selfishly want their areas to conform to their aesthetics and taste.
Climbers selfishly want routes to climb that don't involve stabbing their commitments to family in the back.
There has been a lot of concerns that some of these faces will wind up with lots more routes than they have now. Given enough years, that's actually relatively inevitable, not because of rap-bolting but because we're all selfish and climbers want to put up routes. Now, the difference may be that 50 years from now there will be some glue technology that lets us climb till we're gripped and rest on the glue while we drill, or rap bolting will be OKed by the gym climbers of the future, or that the elite hard guys will finally get around to putting more death routes up there. The point in, the routes will go in over time just like El Cap has 50 or so routes.
The GU party put up a route with real, substantial hardware that will last. Try to do that on lead. Southern Belle had Machine Bolts. Shultz rapped in many years later to fix the route for the future hardman. He rapped in. Folks could argue that they did the route ground up in the beginning. Hey that's nice, but that's their business how much adventure they could handle, that part is a game, They sieged it and jugged hard pitches on their summit day. That's still a form of cheating to me if the game is climbing from top to bottom. I could climb well above my grade if I just fixed a line every time I got pumped and jugged back up when rested. It's just that we've accepted one cheating and dissed another.
This discussion, in part, is about how we balance our selfishness with the selfishness of others
Peace
Karl
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pyrosis
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Apr 19, 2008 - 01:16pm PT
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If you printed this whole thread as one continuous line of text in Times New Roman 12 point, it would be way longer than the route in question. Anyone sent the whole thread in one continuous push?
Much respect to everyone for their thoughts.
I hope positive change comes from this rather than negative.
-Tavis
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Apr 19, 2008 - 01:34pm PT
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Anyone sent the whole thread in one continuous push?
Uh, hello?
What do you think?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 19, 2008 - 02:31pm PT
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Karl,
I agree with many of your points, such as
 5.12 climbers should be careful when putting up 5.9s; I feel they should be bolted relative to the grade of the people who will be climbing the route.
people doing the FA can choose what level of adventure to have, hopefully conditional on establishing a route that can be enjoyed by others.
Here are 2 where I don't agree:
> The GU party put up a route with real, substantial hardware that will last. Try to do that on lead.
I have done it. So have Kelly and others. I doubt I could do it on that Half Dome slab, but there are definitely people who could. I challenge them to do a ground up FA above Sean's bolt ladder, left of the rap bolted line. Then we can have a basis for comparison. I think Klaus would have been up for it, if he hadn't been hit by that car....
> Southern Belle had Machine Bolts. Shultz rapped in many years later to fix the route for the future hardman.
I am not sure if you forgot, but they used machine bolts because they were short on cash. 1/4" were still popular on slabs at that time, also.
I'm a little surprised that you are with Joe Hedge on this point. It is really a backwards argument that says that bolt replacement is somehow unethical - that all hardware has to be placed on the first ascent and is somehow sacred and should never be touched afterwards. (my words, not yours or Joe's). Really this argument is an attempt to bond ground-up climbing with 1/4" bolts, with the hope that the general dislike of 1/4" bolts will make people dislike the concept of ground-up climbing. But most people who are tolerant of rap bolting will argue that it does not matter how the bolts got there, just where they were placed. This makes two of you like Joe's anti-replacement argument, unless you want to reconsider.
I know the currently used method of placing 1/4" bolts on lead, then immediately replacing them on rappel seems a little strange. But it has lower impact than one of the previously used method - drilling a 1/4" bathole, then hanging on it to place a 3/8" or whatever. Both have the ground-up ascent challenge. Using the bathole is a more obvious use of aid. Rapping down and replacing is also aid. But neither one is being promoted as a way to drill completely free. Just as a way to climb it from the ground up.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 19, 2008 - 03:03pm PT
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Interestingly enough many of the old school thought have accused Gu of being an ego rout yet many of the newer generation feel that it is more of a contribution. Personaly I feel that most X rated routs are the ultimat ego routs. The X rated rout is most often just a statement that My dick is Bigger than your Dick.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 19, 2008 - 03:12pm PT
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"Anyone sent the whole thread in one continuous push? "
The editor of Rock and Ice claims to have sent it in record time.
Clint, I can't speak for Hedge but I'm just saying, it says "something" when the FA guy can't or won't climb the route to replace the bolts, and that was 15 years later.
Sure the guys were short on cash at the time, but everybody's lack of perfection in route-making seems to have an excuse attached to it. "we didn't have cash to make a route with OK bolts, or enough bolts" If there were a con-side, they'd be saying, "fine, then don't put up the route" GU says, "We couldn't stance or hook drill the route we wanted" the con side says "Fine, leave it alone"
Everybody else's excuses are lame and ours are justified. Then later, folks look back at some of these X rated routes and say, "that's the way to do it, show your balls!" When really it was a lazy 5.13 climber putting up a 5.10 route with no money and only spending one day at it. (not saying that was the case in the routes we're talking about.
I'm all for replacing hardware. I just don't think this rap bolting weakness is any different that the other cheats we employ to put up routes, heads, fixed ropes, scopes, rivet ladders, bat hooks and power drills.
Peace
Karl
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 19, 2008 - 03:17pm PT
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tradmanclimbs,
Egos have many effects (not all of them bad). For example, Growing Up could still be considered an ego route as in "my route has bigger bolts and is more popular than yours".
From the article written at the time of the Southern Belle FFA, it seems clear they were pleased to create a runout route in the upper part, comparing it to the Bachar-Yerian. That was a standard of the times, among their peers. I suppose the runouts have stopped some people from attempting it. But I feel it is more the combination of difficulties which has kept people away -long approach, short/hot season, 5.12c crack climbing, 5.12d face, and runout 5.11 face. Growing up has the first 3 difficulties but not the last 2, so it should get more traffic (but not a lot).
The runouts on the Bachar-Yerian have kept the traffic down, but it does get a fair number of ascents. If it had the approach and heat of Half Dome, not many people would do it, even if it had bolts every 10 feet. Add a 5.12c crack start and a 5.12d face to that mix and you would get the traffic of Southern Belle.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 19, 2008 - 03:34pm PT
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Karl,
> GU says, "We couldn't stance or hook drill the route we wanted" the con side says "Fine, leave it alone"
Your point here is pretty good (I think the point is that we choose a style that we think will give us a fair chance of doing the route as well as a good challenge). I believe that Sean could not drill it from hooks. I am not so sure that he couldn't drill it from stance. I feel he just chose not to try it for other reasons. But I could be wrong - I would have to look at it to really understand. I think Sean made his point well when he said that he did not want to end the route below the headwall/bolt ladder, because he was concerned that somebody else would finish it in a way he wouldn't like (implying either in a very runout style, or maybe a style with bathole ladders).
I feel that if it is truly impossible to get the bolts in with a given style (say free-stance or ground-up), then it is OK to lose style points and try the next best style.
An exception (in my view) would be if the route can be easily toproped - then there is not much excuse for the impact of adding bolts. I suppose people will debate the term "easily toproped", but an easy example is a 90' cliff where you can hike to the top (think 90 Foot Wall at Tahoe). Hey, Doug even suggested toproping the upper slab of Growing Up. That would be a more borderline definion of "easily", although access is easier than doing the 5.12a/5.13a arch. The upper slab of Southern Belle could most likely be toproped in the same way - Hank and Alan rapped from 8 pitches up. Don't try it on the full slab of the South Face, though - it goes over that huge roof in the arch!
> I'm all for replacing hardware.
OK, thanks for clarifying!
> I just don't think this rap bolting weakness is any different that the other cheats we employ to put up routes, heads, fixed ropes, scopes, rivet ladders, bat hooks and power drills.
There is actually a big (small?) difference. Rap bolting can be done by someone with less skills, experience and committment than people who can do it ground up. So it can lead to poor bolt locations in some cases. This is not a criticism against Sean - I am sure that Sean did a good job locating the bolts. Power bolting is similar; it just requires some money to buy a power drill. Ground up bolt locations can be poorly chosen as well. But there is a "barrier to entry" which will weed out a few people who do not know what they are doing.
Another difference, which Tom mentioned or implied, is that rap bolting can be done fairly quickly. So if there is a race of rap bolters vs. lead bolters for routes on the same crag, the rap bolters have a big advantage. I don't think there was such a race on the South Face of Half Dome. But Klaus & Minerals may want to comment - I think they were the people most recently active there before Sean et al. Klaus did drill 5.11d ground up on Cataclysmic Megasheer. I don't know if the stances were more numerous or not than on Growing Up.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 19, 2008 - 03:48pm PT
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Thanks for the reply Clint. i would argue that 'All" the cheat techniques allow people to climb over their limit. Rap Bolting is certainly a cheat technique but, among it's many faults, it often results in better bolt placement rather than worse.
It's a little like a gun control argument, bolts don't make bad routes, people make bad routes!
Peace
Karl
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Apr 19, 2008 - 05:42pm PT
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Only humans would think that bolts on a wall are really that important and how they are placed even more important.
In the big picture it means little to nothing.
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