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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Apr 24, 2008 - 05:35pm PT
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Hi Ed,
I figured someone would bring that up. Glad it was you, with your balanced view old/new, trad/sport, crack/face.
Can't wait to do your new line at Reeds. I've been looking up there for years, wondering why no one...
Maybe see you at the Ahab session tonite?
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Sean Jones
climber
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Apr 24, 2008 - 07:38pm PT
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Ed
I read something about reports from Nuts Only Cliff being bad. I must say, I'm amazed that somebody actually made it up there. Figures it had to be some crack climbers that love to hate bolted lines. They just went to the wrong cliff. If you love climbing cracks, go climb cracks. You can tell from way down on the road below that Nuts Only is a bad cliff for a crack lover anyway. I did every one of the new lines up there about a decade ago. For any climber that wants to go to a place with a killer view of the valley below, nice crispy edges instead of a bunch of slime and grease(better known as glacier polish)and hundreds upon hundreds of feet of all out amazing climbing. Go to Nuts Only by all means.
There's a 5.12c arete up there called "close to the edge" You can't miss it. Hands down one of the best for the grade in the valley. No second ascent to my knowledge. Oh yeah, I rap bolted it. I guess it never had an ascent to begin with. Can't remember,I may have even pink pointed it. Better hurry, you can get up there, on sight it and place the draws while you do. Then you can one up my ascent 2 times over in one shot.
Oh f#ck, did I say that ascent word again. Sorry John. Someday I'll get the picture. Hey Ed, this is not directed at you, I just started it with your name because I read it from your post. I don't know you and I'm sure you're a great person.
Bottom line everyone, Bolted routes are nothing new to Yosemite. There is so many of them. In the valley, in the high country, and all in between. The climbing is so good on so many of these faces. It' amazing to me how much resistance people have to this way of climbing. Just like snowboarding. But look where snowboarding is now. Climbing already is where snowboarding is. Everywhere else in the world. But not Yosemite.
I've lived in this canyon for 20 years now. And grew up not too far down the road from here for many years on top of that. More than ever lately, I've been watching people sit around and complain about EVERYTHING ! Sitting in absolute HEAVEN and bitch to no end.
Big valley trad climbers bitch like nothing I've seen in my life. Yet the same mother f%ucker walks over to the gas station, pumps his big high impact car full of gas ( gas that our PROUD country is blowing the F$CK out of a bucnh of people and even worse, people's children for ) then drives down the road blowing pollution all over and pulls over to ..........
Go Trad climb. Big clean mother f$cker. Pulls out out his nice rack of gear with nylon slings( some wonderful company's surely killing the f#cking planet to make for us all ) and goes off for a big day of "clean climbing" Sorry but there's no such thing as a clean human doing anything.
Thousands. I mean thousands of trucks FULL of concrete have been pouring into Yosemite over the last few years espessially. Sewage backs up in the pipes every summer and dumps into the Merced. World hunger rages out of control. The ice caps are falling apart. The polar bears and many others are clinging on for dear life.
We're all spoiled rotten to be able to take the time to climb anything. Any day. If you want to sit around and bitch, bitch about something bigger. Better yet, Get off your ass and do something about it.
I could go on forever. I need a break from this computer.
Im not pissed off either !!!
This is just the way I feel and I'm not afraid to say so.
You know I love crack climbing by the way. Do tons of it. Even on FA's. Always looking for the path of least resistance or the most natural lines first. Why do you think Growing Up takes 1,000 ft. of cracks getting to the headwall ? That's the longest stretch of continuous cracks on the whole wall.
Another thing I really want to add here is how much respect I have for all the badass climbers of all walks. I always have.
John Bachar, Scott Cosgrove, sorry we've exchanged some tough words on this thread. You have your ways and I have mine. But by no means am I saying my way is THE way. You guys kick serious ass. Always have. At one point I was screaming about bringing up the $10,000 deal of the past. Stupid. John, it would scare the sh#t out of me to try and follow you around even now.
And Scott, it would scare the sh#t out of me to go send SB. Why do you think I haven't done that route. Same reason as everyone else. They're f#ucking scared and they should be. But there's alot more going on in climbing than just that. Your ways aren't the only ways just as my ways aren't the only ways.
There's alot of ways things go down these days. To me, They're all good. Something for everyone.
More than once this past winter I witnessed valley locals say
F$ck those climbers from the bay area. Who cares if our fixed lines hanging all over and bug them. This is our home. For real.
"f$ck them"
I'm personally sick of people with shitty attitudes in climbing or anywhere else. It's a beautiful world out there. One of the coolest things to me about this world is how different so many things are. And how there's room for all that to exsist under one big roof.
Better get off this brain sucking computer.
Peace !
Sean.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Apr 24, 2008 - 08:05pm PT
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Okay, so I am finally going to post on this. Higgins just asked me to put this up; I had it on Jstan's tangent thread where it was basically being unread. So here:
Why is there a question whether Kamps would have left that Fairview route for a future generation? He did in fact leave that route for a future generation; he made it clear. Tommie and he did not go up there and aidbolt the sucker. They left the big question unanswered. They faced similar situations in other years too, of course. And handled them in this same way.
Most of us have done FA and FFAs here. And probably all of those of us who have, have also left uncompleted perhaps quite a few more project routes, often finished by others, later. Often because the rock would not yield so easily. I can think of nearly ten routes myself.
The biggest problem in first ascents is often not just the silly moves; it’s finding your way through in regards to both path AND peril---kind of the “general meaning” of the route you are creating. Moving your rook on the chessboard is easy; the challenge is to where and what will happen? Otherwise 12 year old girls would be doing it in pedal-pushers, as Bridwell used to say.
To come up with a ground-up first ascent can be easy of course, and it also could be unbelievably toilsome and dangerous. Like Worrill’s route on Basket Dome. Just amazing amount of diligence, tenacity and I guess real power, in the end. Such stories are common in the history of rockclimbing. So Growing Up: SFHD obviously had already been a tremendous amount of work and hard as hell by the time they got to the top of the arch. And by the way it does not seem that the whole effort was a cynical cinematic undertaking, just a bit helped by the moviemaking of DR and crew who ran out of money anyway. I am sure Sean was plenty into climbing the gorgeous thing however he could. And most of us know that any route back there is going to be a very technical, difficult and huge-assed project involving a base camp, extra people, hiking your butt off and so forth. That is why there really are so few routes of any size back there. In short, a fabulous adventure in retrospect . And a huge gift to subsequent parties, maybe.
From that point upwards the route was deceptive and unclear, but the house party was only beginning I gather. One can’t honestly be surprised that at this point they came from above to try to find a way through the chaos and blanks up there. Almost everyone in the group was having personal crises and the project was costing a hell of a lot of money too, which very few climbers actually have much of. Time was flying by too. And they felt they had earned the right to use the modern stylistics of previewing and staging....after such a noble effort in the first 1000 feet. Going back down without a summitting would have been a very embittering experience. Others have pointed out a summit was not necessary to have claimed a fabulous route, but this idea is theoretical, not a human one.
At this point, all climbers up until and thru the 1970’s would have either just started bolting (as Warren had) or come back down, pissed off, and go work on something else, pretty sure no one else in the style of the day would have much better ideas.
But in the present day, we have these new, other tools and a couple emerging styles. So Sean and company knew that if they had gotten this far, having completed the most difficult part of the route by far as it turns out, others would use previewing and others would stage it and finish it. The Hubers have shown us how, all over El Cap.
So, doing this, what did the party miss out on and what is now precluded from the future for all of us? Does the route now take on the qualities of an engineering project in its second half supported by insanely novel 5.13 ground-up climbing underneath it? Will the wonder of that never-to-be first onsighting leader figuring his way through that last 1000 ft of heavenly craziness above the arch be now lost to us all forever, a wonder that undoubtedly we would have shared in ways by the anecdotes, perhaps articles etc that came from it and also became our lore? As we have for over a hundred years of climbing writing? Is the second half of the route now a large gym route? And might we find some day that there actually is another way to do the second half that then becomes the best way since there is no story to this second half; it is not a leader’s solution to this immense natural entity but a solution established by mechanical methods? Rapbolted routes often turn out to be sort of off the mark when you climb them....Or are we now simply at the point where none of this matters, the route is established, let’s just go do all those cool moves up there? Is their route an armature for great things to happen up there still? I guess we will see. All of us stand before these queries; I don’t know the answer but see these questions when I try to figure out what to say.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 24, 2008 - 08:15pm PT
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this is not a comment about Nuts Only Cliff, or about good/bad...
but, there are lines that were put up in minimalist manner with R/X ratings and the intention to go back and fix, that have been bolted over by people who got to the cliff and figured they were the first, and pushed the line in a different way.
A lot of the problem is that we only report new climbs through guidebooks these days, and the guidebook business is just doesn't keep up with the route production. And the fact that there is not a coherent Valley community.
As it was for as long as I've been climbing (nearly 40 years now), people looking for new areas and new climbs are secretive about their projects. One of the consequences of that is the possibility that the climbs are repeated, and equipped differently. This does happen, it has been happening, and it is indicative of the ever decreasing amount of cliff out there.
I'm not preaching, I hope I don't sound preachy, the only thing I think is a problem is that there is not a lot of communication about what is going on in the Valley, where I have been most active in the last 10 years (or so). Waiting for the next Valley guide isn't going to cut it with the current route production rates.
And by-the-way, being categorized as a "crack climber" is sweet, thanks you guys! I really like to be thought of as just a climber though...
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Sean Jones
climber
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Apr 24, 2008 - 08:16pm PT
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Your trapped inside my cyber world
Consumed up as my web unfurls
No secrets left for your mankind
My virus lurks throughout your viens
I'm spreading there inside your brain
A trojan horse that eats your mind
At speed of lies I will connect
I search and surf as I connect
Computerized catastrophe
Your information's what I steal
I scan you till you are unreal
Transmit your power into me
You're lying in my cyber world
You're dying in my cyber world
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
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Apr 24, 2008 - 08:19pm PT
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One guy can't do much about Polar Ice Caps, Polar Bears, World Hunger and the rest of the planets problems.... but..... one guy can make an impact when it comes to bolts. Some "Big Clean Motherf*#k" just might. Grouping all that other worldly problem crap in with your routes significance is just BS. Rant on, but it is getting kookier by the minute. Stick to doing routes, in whatever style you like, and leave the ranting to the kooks.
Side note: Fuk man! Snake! Finger! YOWZA!!!!! Hope it is on the mend.
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BLD
climber
excramento,CA
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Apr 24, 2008 - 09:45pm PT
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The Ripper
You're in for surprise
You're in for a shock
In Yosemite town streets
When there's darkness and fog
When you least expect me
And you turn your back
I'll attack
I smile when I'm sneaking
Through shadows by the wall
I laugh when I'm creeping
But you won't hear me at all
All hear my warning
Never turn your back
On the ripper
You'll soon shake with fear
Never knowing if I'm near
I'm sly and I'm shameless
Nocturnal and nameless
Except for "The Ripper"
Or if you like "Jack The Knife"
Any back country peak
Is where we'll probably meet
Underneath a dull moon
Where the air's cold and damp
I'm a nasty surprise
I'm a devil in disguise
I'm a footstep at night
I'm a scream of the fright
All hear my warning
Never turn your back
On the ripper...the ripper....the ripper
B
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 24, 2008 - 11:02pm PT
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Sh#t, we are all so lazy!
I'd be sorely tempted to go up there, bring a ledge and a some beers, and just aid the cracks, A1 the bolt ladders, send the slab and have the second (or first, nor non Ascent) It's some kinda perverse glory ain't it? and fun too!
It' just that it's a long hike and that 11d slab might not be stick clippable!
I can't believe we have this many posts and nobody has bothered to go up there and play rock!
peace
karl
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yo
climber
The Eye of the Snail
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Apr 24, 2008 - 11:09pm PT
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2000!!!!!!!!1
Wait...what?
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tradcragrat
Trad climber
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Apr 24, 2008 - 11:10pm PT
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I think it's a f#cking travesty that this thread seems to have overshadowed Supertopo's All-Time Greatest Thread. Hell it's not even on the front page anymore. Rubbish!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Apr 24, 2008 - 11:28pm PT
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Gee Sean,
for being so down on all the "bitching",
that sure was a lot of bitching up there.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 25, 2008 - 01:18am PT
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Sean,
[Nuts Only Cliff]
> There's a 5.12c arete up there called "close to the edge" You can't miss it. Hands down one of the best for the grade in the valley.
I've seen the shots by Shawn Reeder of you on it, and I figured it had to be up in that vicinity (higher above the road than Little Wing).
Looking at a list of 12c climbs that I know of, you could be right, given that there are not a lot of *** routes in that grade (or maybe not a lot of 12c routes in the Valley overall):
46. 666 5.12c *
55. Punchline 5.12c **
59. The Principle 5.12c **
149. Satanic Mechanic 5.12c R?
188. Zipperhead 5.12c
207. Meltdown 5.12c ** TR
306. Psychological Warfare 5.12c **
368. Highlander 5.12c
423. Owl Roof 5.12c
611. Close to the Edge 5.12c
641. Gates of Delirium 5.12c ***
1019. Follywood 5.12c **
1431. The Shining 5.12c R **
1446. Hang Dog Flyer 5.12c **
1570. Escape From Freedom 5.12c **
1768. Hall of Mirrors 5.12c R ***
1842. Psychedelic Wall 5.12c
1983. Lost and Found 5.12c *
2189. Mama 5.12c
2307. Croft Arete 5.12c
2344. Take Da Plunge 5.12c TR *
2350. Wicked Gravity 5.12c ***
The list is from my current project of an online guidebook update. Some routes may be out of order at present, and I haven't assigned stars to most of the new routes (Gates of Delirium is an exception because someone I know well said he thought was ***).
In Tuolumne, I bet the competition would be tougher for the top 5.12c climbs, given that there is a lot more sustained face climbing up there.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 25, 2008 - 02:02am PT
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More than once this past winter I witnessed valley locals say
F$ck those climbers from the bay area. Who cares if our fixed lines hanging all over and bug them. This is our home. For real.
"f$ck them"
I hope that wasn't me... I did note ropes in a TR thread... Werner pointed out that it shouldn't really be there as it might attract the wrong attention and I edited the reference out of the post. Didn't bug me a bit, sorry if it came off that way.
But it does raise an issue of reading into what's posted here, an imperfect form of communication. It is all so tiring. You all do live there, and that's wonderful. I suspect we envy that a bit...
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Apr 25, 2008 - 02:32am PT
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that fixed line gig is getting to be a pretty tired act.
word on the street is that after this winter season, it's not likely to be tolerated again.
abandoned property?
wilderness?
what?
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jstan
climber
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Apr 25, 2008 - 11:12am PT
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DR:
Actually I think what with Facelift and ST a whole lot is happening as regards Yosemite's community. This thread itself speaks volumes. (There was always community in C4.)
By the by no community is always in total agreement so I believe that is not a realistic condition for admitting the existence of community.
EDIT:
A huge number of local non-climbers are supporting Facelift. On the way in to Facelift3 by train I ran into people in Merced who were excited about what is happening. Another couple of days during that trip I got to work on route 120 with people from Fresno and other towns.
Yosemite has a huge community of supporters all through California. Yosemite is our crown jewel. Yosemite is not simply a place to go climbing.
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bwancy1
Trad climber
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Apr 25, 2008 - 12:08pm PT
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From Porkchop Express:
"...the amount of passion and well thought out logical concern that has gone into both sides of this debate really inspires me (hopefully others also)to not be flippant about issues of respect and ethics- something I feel is happening with a majority of "noob" climbers."
To me, this is perhaps the most poignant post in 1800. Ten years from now, climbing style/ethics will be totally different. Just like the eventual acceptance of sticky rubber, chalk, friends, and every other travesty of style and ethic that is now the norm. Like the price of gasoline, it never goes back my friends.
GU is just a tiny chink in the armor. The "flippant attitude about respect and ethics" by many newer climbers is the Rough Beast that slouches towards the Valley to be born.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 25, 2008 - 12:25pm PT
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In another thread Roger wrote that he heard there was a party on the South Face.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=583197&tn=0
Coz responded with
"Can they be reached on their cell to swing over and chop growing up, I'll pay ten bucks a bolt."
While folks on all sides have had moments of being upset in this discussion, coz has called for chopping twice now and it seems like an elephant in the room. I got a sick feeling last night that a few 'less talk, more walk" types might be tempted to make the statement of removing the route.
For me, that would inspire deep negative emotions (read way into the lines here) and feel like a big setback to all that we've tried to accomplish in discussing it on this thread.
What you do think? How much negative consensus is needed before chopping is public service and not an assault on the climbing community? If someone can decide, "Screw you, It's a free country and I"m chopping growing up!" is it equally fair to say "Screw you back, Southern Belle is an elitist death trap and I'm chopping it too!"
Want war?
How do we not go there? Is everyone prepared for where that might lead us?
At least Robbins actually climbed the Dawn Wall. Calling for a route chop without climbing it or seeing a topo goes too far when the characters involved are as credible as Sean and Doug.
I wouldn't be bringing this up but Coz has spoken twice now and I know some of the Yosemite Bolt police enjoy getting everybody's panties in a bunch and the attention this has created may be a catalyst. Can our community decide what's "Too far" versus what's "Not great style but tolerate" without getting into violent chop fests?
PEace
Karl
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shipoopoi
Big Wall climber
oakland
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Apr 25, 2008 - 12:32pm PT
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hi, a few responses here
werner, sorry if i have you pegged wrong.
slipnot, kauk bolting in tuolumne was a huge deal because it was among the first rap bolting in yosemite. at the same time, routes like punchline in the valley were causing fisticuffs. but now, almost 20 years later, rap bolting has been around for so long, and fully become a recognized style here, so i don't really see what the big deal is. i sure ain't gonna write no freaking poem here.
mungeclimber i don't necessarily agree that bolts to nowhere are botch jobs. if they become huge aid drilled bolt ladders, well, that might not be the prettiest thing. i think its one of sj and dr's argument to go topside, they respected the rock enough to not place unnessary bolts indiscrimantely on the face. i kinda buy it.
doug, thanks for the thanks
poopoi out
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SlipKnot
Social climber
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Apr 25, 2008 - 02:10pm PT
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“At least Robbins actually climbed the Dawn Wall. Calling for a route chop without climbing it or seeing a topo goes too far when the characters involved are as credible as Sean and Doug.”
Fact check: Robbins began chopping the route before he had climbed it.
The topo will have little if any bearing on whether rap bolting is inherently bad (which is the point of this thread, I think).
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SlipKnot
Social climber
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Apr 25, 2008 - 02:10pm PT
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shipoopoi
I offer no argument against the significance of Kauk’s rap bolting. But that doesn’t address my point which is that you argue conflicting views: 1) Kauk’s opening up drilling in Tuolumne should be taken as precedence setting, 2) Chill out, GU is no big deal as it doesn’t have a larger impact
“rap bolting has . . . fully become a recognized style here, so i don't really see what the big deal is”
Wow, that’s quite an assertion. Rap bolting has become “fully recognized” in the Valley??? If that is the case, I could only concur with your conclusion ‘I don’t see what the big deal is’. Previously you called the ground-up ethic so “1980’s”. Yeah, and it is also so 1970’s, 1960’s, 1950’s . . . . Don’t take one decade of an era and then dismiss the entire ethic from that decade as simply a bygone fad. What has happened is basically this: The sport climbing trend swept the nation back in the 90’s. Because that trend is less appropriate for Yosemite granite and because there is/was a strong and traditional local culture, the trend has been stunted in Yosemite. It seems that this thread boils down to this:
SHOULD RAP BOLTING IN YOSEMITE BE A FULLY RECOGNIZED STYLE?
If the answer is “yes”, then why are reading this thread? After a topo and TR are available, then we can debate whether or not it was a good route.
If the answer is “no”, then what is the proper response?
Other thoughts:
I accept Sean’s sincerity for intending to create a route with other’s in mind. Sean, while I don’t endorse GU, I apologize for being sarcastic in a previous post in which I questioned your intentions. That was wrong on my part.
While I don’t think HD should support rap bolted routes, chopping the route would be a mistake. If the answer to the above question is “no”, an appropriate response is to reaffirm that rap bolted routes in Yosemite Valley are not welcome and will not be celebrated.
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