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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Sep 20, 2011 - 07:30pm PT
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Jeebus, that's a funny post. You're right, that's what all these guys speaking in tongues are trying to say.
Ron, I agree.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Sep 20, 2011 - 08:46pm PT
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Last I heard Superpin was 5.10 not 5.7, 5.8, or 5.9. Even with the bolt it was also an R route.
Climb the cracks as it really hard to put the bolts in those as the drill usually doesn't fit
Just a question has there not been hundreds of pieces of fixed gear retro fitted on El Cap routes. Is that what WOS is about? I have never read it.
I think Henry should now have to climb his route. If he lives it stays as is. If he dies the bolt should get put back.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Sep 20, 2011 - 08:50pm PT
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Ohh I like it! an eye for an eye. a bolt or a fall. Summit or Plummet!
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johnboy
Trad climber
Can't get here from there
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Sep 20, 2011 - 09:49pm PT
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Paul hit on this, and I wish it were true.
"and hence have respect and admiration for those that came before them."
But that just isn't the way it is anymore, simple as that.
Why take the time to worry about it, waste of time herding cats. I'm going to do the climbing I like, on my own terms, in my own time.
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johnboy
Trad climber
Can't get here from there
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Sep 20, 2011 - 09:56pm PT
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Furthermore the only guidebook with any decent history has been out of print for over 20 years. I saw one for $177 yesterday on ebay. I would say many people that have started climbing within the last 10 years very often wouldn't know who Robbins, Barber, or all the rest were.
Mike, have you gone through the one the Conns put out a couple years ago? Well worth the read with a bits of good history in it.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Sep 20, 2011 - 10:05pm PT
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That was Lindsy Stevens, she redid all of the Conn Routes and did a book on it. It only has Conn Routes in it and it is pretty close to Piana's book which in turn was close to the Conn's and Kamps before them as I understand it. I do have Lindsey's book, but I continually forget to look at it as I pretty much use the Piana book. But I can't imagine anyone just starting out is going to shell out that kind of money to get Piana's book on auction.
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johnboy
Trad climber
Can't get here from there
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Sep 20, 2011 - 10:16pm PT
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That's right, forgot, she even signed my book, duh.
If I remember correctly (slight chance) she didn't quite do all of them and that Jan and Herb helped a lot with the book.
Sheesh, and I thought I'd done I lot of their back country climbs, she put me to shame.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Sep 21, 2011 - 01:21am PT
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So I was belaying at the first pitch of West Crack on saturday; I look over to the left and someone is being lowered from a climb and I couldn't believe how many bolts were on it ; they looked to be 3 feet apart. It looked absurd.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 21, 2011 - 06:03am PT
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Mike M.:
Your comment that I did with Athlete's Feat just what you have done in the Needles... etc.
That's probably right, in essence. But it occurred to me some might not
have it clear what my view is. Don't presume that because I don't
especially find fault with Henry that I DO find fault with those
who did not chop the bolt when it first appeared. Nor will I presume
to know what the thinking is of those who didn't chop the bolt (though
I tend to like Rich's comment
and of others that the bolt might best have been chopped years ago).
In my opinion, the responsibility for chopping such an added bolt
is either the person who did the first ascent without it or some
other recognized talent, as opposed to those who really need the
bolt. It would probably be a major ordeal to chop the bolt, what with
having first to get to the top of the spire, then I suppose lower
back down and hang from the rope to do the removal. I'm not sure
anyone who does the route, with the bolt or not, isn't a pretty
decent climber, by necessity, and it doesn't seem to be a route
done all that often, relatively speaking, over a period of 30 some
years. It would be a bit of a paradox or slight contradiction
in terms that one should decide to chop the bolt but in order
to get up there should need the bolt!!!?
With Athlete's Feat, it is easy enough to go up Country Club Crack
and traverse over to a position above the bolt.... But the mainstream
of climbers simply want that bolt and aren't going to take no
for an answer, to hell and high water with history....
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Sep 21, 2011 - 06:20am PT
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If you have not climbed a route you have no buisness chopping it. To climb something else and rap in to chop is the work of a total coward. The Only time it would be justified to chop a bolt without climbing the rout is a squeeze job that infringes on an existing route. If you can clip from the existing rout or if the bolt draws you off rout to clip because it is so close to the existing route then it is fine to chop that bolt only after climbing the existing rout but without climbing the new route. In all other cases the chopper Must climb the offending route before chopping or be forever labeled a coward.
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jopay
climber
so.il
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Sep 21, 2011 - 08:43am PT
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Good conversation here, up thread I spoke of Kamps getting the second send of a ground up trad line of mine which has some pertinence to this conversation. A couple of years ago it was pointed out to me that three bolts had been added to the route. I made an effort to find out who did this but was unsuccessful. Subsequently the bolts were removed, in part because no further hardware is allowed there, and most important at least to me was the travesty of desecrating a route done in the best tradition. But what was to follow was the most interesting part, while the route had bolts, folks I had climbed with and knew me and the routes history apparently rushed to lead the route, and a couple rather pointedly told me the bolts should stay. The lack of respect for a bold line troubled me and still does, I'm pleased to hear others who feel our traditions should not be brought down to fit everyone's sense of comfort.So what do you label an ascent done while the bolts were there?
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sethsquatch76
Trad climber
Joshua tree ca
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Sep 21, 2011 - 10:53am PT
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Retro bolting routes is wrong, and in fact it is a issue of our elders.....Its the older generation that added bolts to each others routes, not the younger generation. "Mainstream climbers" dont even know how to use a drill.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 21, 2011 - 11:57am PT
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It is interesting to note how the attitude towards bolts has changed over the years, from the time of the ascents establishing Needles traditions to the present. Here is a quote from Art Gran's 1964 Shawangunk guide:
In recent years there has been an increase throughout the country in the use of bolts, although the increase has leveled off at the present time. To learn to climb well takes time, but there is no greater reward than to reach the level one is striving for. Climbing takes skill, whether free or with aid. The art of nailng takes many years to master. However, there is no art to pure bolting. One can learn to place a bolt in a few minutes and, with enough endurance, ascend any wall in the world. That is why climbers make every effort to avoid placing a bolt; instead they spend ages trying to place a piton which uses the faults that nature created. There is no major climber in this country who will deny that a single bolt mars the beauty of any route. A bolt is an admission that the route licked a climber technically. In only a few extremely rare cases are they absolutely necessary. Think twice about placing a bolt and thus spoiling a lovely line.
I think the most striking contrast to this is DM's comment about 5.11 climbers running it out on 5.7 and so "locking up real estate." The real estate has been "locked" only in a very particular sense. DM himself, as well as all the other 5.11 climbers, of his generation, arrived at the skill level that enabled them to run out 5.7 climbing without having to bolt already-established 5.7 pitches. They climbed routes with good protection, they honed their skills painstakingly over time, and they waited until they were ready. They unlocked all kinds of real estate the old-fashioned way, by earning the ability to do it.
Now comes, apparently, a group of climbers for whom the locked real estate is not an invitation to practice, training, and the perfecting of skills. It is instead an offensive denial of an entitlement. These climbers seem to believe that they are owed they right to climb sections that nature has declared to be run-out, and the solution to this injustice is not to bide their time while perfecting their craft, but rather to put in some bolts so that they can comfortably do the moves right now.
A number of climbers in the Thimble thread mentioned how Gill's ascent of the Thimble changed their concept of climbing. Not so for this new group, who seem to want to change the climbs to fit their current concepts and skill levels, rather than either rethinking or aspiring to anything.
As is usual in these discussions, little or no mention is made of all the fantastic young climbers whose goals include the unlocking of the locked real estate of the previous generations, before moving on to accomplishments unimagined by their elders. No one seems to care about them. The real estate bequeathed to them in good faith by earlier generations is apparently up for development, leaving nothing but paved-over remnants, bolted parking lots where wild forests once grew, in which the next generation is exhorted to imagine the original landscape by "not clipping the bolts."
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Sep 21, 2011 - 11:58am PT
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With Athlete's Feat, it is easy enough to go up Country Club Crack
and traverse over to a position above the bolt.... But the mainstream
of climbers simply want that bolt and aren't going to take no
for an answer, to hell and high water with history....
It's only easy enough to go up CCC when you use the bolts on that route.
It is interesting climbing history that someone was able to climb the start of AF without bolts (before the holds deteriorated), but that has very little do with how 99% of climbers will get by 10' of blank rock to access the good crack system above.
Here's one way to think about it:
 If you're only interested in history and nut hugging RR or whoever, no bolts;
If you're interested in actually getting out there and climbing, sometimes you need bolts.
How many people would climb the start of AF without at least 1 bolt? (Could probably get rid of one).
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 21, 2011 - 03:27pm PT
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But we're talking about a 34 year old bolt! That bolt belongs squarely the group of climbers who locked up the real estate. This new group who seems to want to change the climbs to fit their current concepts? Applies to the previous generation in SPADES.
So often its 'do as we say, not as we did.'
DMT, I didn't make it clear that I was commenting on the attitude expressed by DM and the situation in the Needles generally, not specifically about Superpin, about which I have said my piece.
But since you bring it up, I don't think your characterizations are accurate and your conclusion is certainly not fair.
The bolt on Superpin was placed by a disgruntled individual who had to be rescued off the route and who placed the bolt with the aid of the rescue rigging. At least part of the motivation for that bolt was a slap in the face to Henry, who was said to have "stolen" the route, although the guy he "stole" it from couldn't even do it.
Nothing about this particular situation really fits into the usual frameworks for these debates, but in any case I'm far more upset by someone putting eight bolts into a short route Kamps did with none.
I have said over and over since the Superpin bolt was placed that the locals ought to chop it. Henry took the same position, and asked DM to do it, but DM declined. To the extent that the locals let that bolt stay, you are perhaps partially correct, but only in the contorted sense that they did not do as I say. And in almost all other cases, the locals did act to preserve the original character of the area's routes.
And so, your crack about "do as we say, not as we did" is completely off the mark. The locals, who did not chop the bolt, are not saying that it should have been chopped, and I said for years, whenever someone would listen, that the locals should chop it. No one has been inconsistent in their stance or is now calling for behavior any different from their earlier positions.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Sep 21, 2011 - 03:55pm PT
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All of these disagreement could easily be avoided if climbers could spend some research time in advance and simply refer to the manual "Climber Ethics, Morals and Other Bullshit Miscellaneous Quandary's Resolved Forever"....by Royal Robbins.
This book, long out of print, was published in the early 60s and updated 3 times since then. In fact, this very issue was roiled and resolved in short order on page 36 of the manual.
The cover:
Let us now move on to important subjects. ?
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 21, 2011 - 04:02pm PT
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Although it is fine for me and others, flush with self-righteous indignation, to proclaim that the locals ought to have chopped the bolt, it is quite another to be a local and go and do the deed.
I think you will have to gear up for a significant bit of runout climbing, even with the bolt in place. Preparing mentally and physically for such an undertaking is one thing when you aspire to the ascent itself, but it is quite another when the only purpose is to clean up someone else's mess.
It really isn't fair to criticize the locals for having no appetite for this particular task, and it is easy to understand why, in spite of the egregious circumstances surrounding its placement, that particulasr bolt remained in place all these years.
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Russ S.
climber
Seattle, WA
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Sep 21, 2011 - 04:10pm PT
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rg - do you think the needles climbers are so inept they couldn't find a way to get the offending bolt? Even a modestly clever climber like myself can figure out how to do it in about 10 seconds of pondering...
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 21, 2011 - 04:12pm PT
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Some just won't get it, and that's fine I guess. But yes
in some ideal world it would be best to have a climb remain
what it was, especially if it's a route done by a true master,
such as Royal or Henry. They created something. That bolts
were added to Athlete's Feat and Superpin to make them do-able for
others, is unacceptable in that "ideal" world of high ethics and of
preserving history and tradition. But, as people make climbing
over in their own image, bolts get added. Bolt wars have to be
avoided, and often the will of the stronger climbers is
of no concern to others who want somehow to feel they have done
these climbs and who feel justified in retro-bolting.
Country Club Crack
was originally an aid climb, the starting wall was done with
a shoulder stand, one aid bolt, and the lasso of a horn. Then
people came along and started their bolt wars, giving that start
a line of bolts. Finally after lots of chopping and replacing,
one bolt remained. Royal showed how to aid the pitch without
any bolts. When the route was done free, that one bolt was
about to fall out and so was replaced with a better one and moved
a few inches left. The free variation involved a difficult first
move (solid 5.11) to get to the clip the bolt, then another
section of hard 5.10 or 5.11... I'm not sure what this has to
do with the discussion of Athlete's Feat to question how CCC is
done... And I have to utterly disagree that to want to preserve
the original route, such as on Athlete's Feat, is self-serving
or of far less importance than to create ready climbing for all...
While I was unsuccessful at preserving that original character,
and the bolt is there for the happy use of everyone, it was
because there was no discussion, no working together, no method
by which to make such a decision. It simply amounted to
the masses rule, or the new generation over the old. Now, in
Eldorado they have the action committee, and people can be heard,
and issues can be voted on.... Doesn't mean the result wouldn't be
the same, but it's better than simply showing up and finding the
bolts back in their place.... and with word out that they would
be replaced as many times as necessary.
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