Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 06:39pm PT
|
Tuolumne is a great example of a place with a fair amount of run out climbs. Many lines were put up by Yosemite Valley hardmen, some of the best climbers of their generation, turned loose on another world class area that had very little interest previously because Yosemite valley was so close. Plus it has lots of face climbs, many done in an era of boldness. So really a perfect storm for run out face climbs.
But there are still MANY lines left in Tuolumne. Look at some of Greg Barnes' lines like Shagadelic or Blown Away. Put up relatively recently with more bolts than other climbs. There's plenty of rock in Tuolumne for all styles of bolting. It is understandable route that route developers (usually advanced climbers) equipped these route for their ability and spent the time and expense on bolts for their ability rather than spending a lot of time and money on bolts they didn't need. So it's really cool when someone like Greg spends a lot of time and money putting up moderate routes for moderate climbers.
As I said earlier I'd far rather hike an hour and put up an FA than retro-bolt a climb closer to the road (even if it wouldn't be chopped).
This is all about ethics not style. No one should care how you climb a route, e.g. if you pull on gear. But when you add bolts you are changing the experience for everyone that follows you, that is ethics. You have to draw the line somewhere and this is the best way to do it (as mentioned it's not a hard and fast rule, but works well in most situations). Much worse but similar would be chipping a route. You can say well just don't use the chipped hold (don't use the added bolt) but how do future climbers know what the chipped hold is (or added bolt is)?
It's not that the FA owns the route, it's that changing the route effects it for future climbers.
If you get hurt it is usually nobodies fault but your own.
|
|
granite_girl
Trad climber
Oakland
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 06:46pm PT
|
Seriously, kudos to Greg Barnes! I've always wanted to thank him for what he did on Dozier. It feels like a public service. I just wish some of the larger Domes had a few more routes like that. Shagadelic is another great one.
And that FA party that allowed the retro-bolting of Snake Dike - they get some serious props in my book too. I never could have had the experiences I've had on Half Dome, especially with novice climber friends, if not for their foresight.
|
|
Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 06:50pm PT
|
granite_girl by her own declaration has not and never will do a new route, yet she is happy to say that many of those who have did not do so to her satisfaction. Her statement that "Tuolomne in its current state is a monument to the egos of climbers past" is hogwash. There are more moderate easily protected routes in the meadows than she'll ever do. Unless of course all she can do is clip bolts.
I mean seriously, have you done the regular route on Fairview? Or maybe that one needs bolts too?
I'm sorry if I come across as mean spirited. If you knew me you'd know that I am not. I just know that there are all sorts of climbs out there, and all sorts of climbers. Plenty to go around, so when someone with no skin in the game starts accusing others of egoism etc., the hair on my neck stands up. Do names like Kamps ring a bell? Do you think his style of climbing was driven by ego? His style was one of elegance and beauty. He and climbers like him set a standard which many others, myself included tried our best to emulate. Not because of ego but because, as Mr Worral stated so nicely upthread, it was beautiful to see the long uninterrupted expanse of granite.
edit: Most of the above post is rude and offensive to someone I do not know. My apologies to Granite_Girl.
|
|
patrick compton
Trad climber
van
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 07:11pm PT
|
Ksolom, thanks for berating granite girl for her honesty and for speaking her mind.
Let the sausage fest continue unencumbered by thoughts of there being even a hint of compromise possible.
Sac up bitches! (Said in best dave chappelle impersonation)
|
|
StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 07:15pm PT
|
I'm sorry, but if you decide you can't do a climb in the style of the FA, don't whine about it. It really says more about you. Speculations about the motivations of the FA party under these circumstances are very self serving.
I went to BY 3 times and tried to lead it once. Got pretty far, but did not have the requisite sacage. Never thought about trying change it, just stood there marveling at the accomplishment.
|
|
granite_girl
Trad climber
Oakland
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 07:21pm PT
|
Ksolem, you bring up an interesting point. If I read you correctly, you are saying that by putting in a bolt, you eliminate the possibility of a particular kind of experience. An experience that is simultaneously athletic, aesthetic, and mental. I can see why it would make you sad to deprive others of that experience.
It makes me sad to stand in line at the bottom of a moderate climb (or, horror! be that slow party holding up others on a popular climb), when there are so many good climbs possible in Tuolumne. Climbs that are not currently climbed, because they were originally free-soloed, or put up with too few bolts for most moderate leaders.
Just to be clear, I am not talking about adding convenience bolts to crack climbs like Fairview. Just adding bolts to bring down the rating of some climbs from X to R, or R to PG.
Edit: Hey guys, the debate's been fun. Like I said earlier, I don't really like to get sucked into this kind of stuff, especially on-line, so I'll sign off here. Best of luck to the bolters and non-bolters alike, and many thanks to all the FA parties, both run-out and grid-bolted, who have made climbing possible for people like me.
|
|
wstmrnclmr
Trad climber
Bolinas, CA
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 07:22pm PT
|
Toker Villian Ahhahaah...........So easy to troll using this subject for bait......How many threads? I have to admit the Hedge may be the best troller on here so far. I fell for it. So much reaction to one with so little credibility. Good job man! And mt10910...Way to use Largo's photo dragging this thread to a new low......Doesn't matter. No more retro's gettin' placed in TM in my lifetime anyway.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 07:43pm PT
|
Expanding? Please, only way that thing is expanding is if you place a pin in a stupid placement. A3? Only if you had a lack of hardware or sucked at choosing pin placements. Nobody had ever done inverts/feet first? hahahaLOLOL. Man, I think you guys actually believe your fairy tales.
And btw, I didn't pre-place pro, or use aid climbing methods of taping for size or gloves either. So rodeo up on that, cowpoke
The amazing thing here is that some yokel admits to taking three days to thrutch up something that was fired 39 years ago, then sprays about how deficient my effort was, reciting, again, the silly myth that my hands were "taped to fit the crack." Has anyone ever actually done this? Who, and where, and who witnessed it. And you know perfectly well that the crux is off size and hand size doesn't matter.
And so far as there being all kinds of inversion jamming done before 1974, as you indicate, kindly list examples. You can't, hayseed. And of course you didn't need to pre-place pro because you had cams. Back then, we had steel bongs, which you never once pounded into the route lest you'd know the thing expanded like your very mind when you gut that Olde English 800.
So you enjoy A1 protection, have the advantage of practicing on many other testpieces featuring hand stacking, still fall off the damn thing shamelessly probably 25 times, and come bellyaching on this thread, taking smack about how Richard Harrison (veteran of 250 walls) doesn't know how to place pitons, etc? Go back with steel bongs and see how much smack you talk.
Rodeo that chump, LOL.
JL
|
|
Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 07:48pm PT
|
Ksolom, thanks for berating granite girl for her honesty and for speaking her mind.
Judging by her subsequent post her skin is thicker than yours. I tried to be clear that I was not berating her.
She mentioned some routes established by Greg Barnes. Greg is a great guy, and I think it's cool of him to put in well protected climbs that G Girl likes. Greg has also been very helpful to me and others in our effort to replace rotten old bolts in many climbing areas. My focus has been on the CA Needles, and Greg has been very generous through the ASCA with materials and tools.
|
|
patrick compton
Trad climber
van
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 08:06pm PT
|
you mean like these MT?
..and yes, that is a relatively teeny tiny penis, coincidence...?
|
|
StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 08:20pm PT
|
Wow, sounds like you saying Bachar sand bagged BY.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 08:23pm PT
|
I've never been on the bleeding edge of climbing ability, but some of the most treasured memorable leads were climbs that have now been neutered.
Glad I got to do them before they were altered.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 08:23pm PT
|
No 5.13 X routes because nobody wants to try and onsight at that grade without massive bolts.
Another thing is that the people doing run out FAs are not infringing on your freedom because they are not imposing anything on you. You are not obliged to climb anything. You do it of your own free will. I can understand wanting decent pro on 5.7 routes, but griping that every 5.10 and 5.11 route does not fit your criteria, then blaming the FA folk for poor behavior is a screwy kind of logic. And let's remember we are talking about a minute number of routes here that are actually R or X at the 5.10 grade and higher. Surely less than 5% of all routes nation wide. Yes, you can have everything, but you'll have to earn your right to climb those 5%. Bitch if you want, but the runout won't get much shorter. So at some time you simply have to shut up and put up.
And Joe, i know for a fact that you are perfectly capable of climbing most of the roures you are complaining about, if you haven't already. I also know you are a very kind natured dood, all the favors you did all those broke climbers in the Valley when you worked there. So I'm a little confused where you are coming from on this one.
But enough of this.
JL
|
|
ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 08:33pm PT
|
Here is the question:
If new routes were being done on-sight solo in 19digity, even up to the 5.9 and maybe 5.10 grades, why was it ever o.k. to place a bolt?
Also, The 5.10-5.11 and maybe 5.12 slab run outs of yesteryear (I hold steep GU routes in a different class) would be child's play for many modern climbers, even on-sight and hand drilling and all of that. Why were those routes not left for a future generation to simply solo??
I really respect what went down in the 70s and 80s, but also don't see how that forever defines U.S. climbing.
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 08:35pm PT
|
This is an American thing, although I imagine that if somebody retrobolted some of the hairball old test pieces in the Verdon, even the French would get pissed off.
I was surfing the web, looking at pictures of routes done long ago that I don't have my own pictures of, and low and behold there was an ice gully that was sport bolted.
The rock to the side took g-rated pro. Perfect stopper and cam placements.
I asked a bud who is in the know regarding world climbing, and he told me that the guides got tired of dying.
Alpinism is a real sport. I weep for any of you who missed out on it, and for those still at it, buy a ticket to Cham and dirtbag for a summer.
With a power drill, you can put in a modern bolt in about a minute..or drill the hole that fast. It is such a small amount of effort to retrobolt.
Like I said before, climbing has moved away from slabs. A slab is not anything vertical or less, like the video of Tommy Caldwell using these micro holds on Mesca Dawn.
Now that the bolt wars are over, I'm for adding enough bolts to make modern power meisters comfortable on slabs. These routes are just gathering dust. Different areas have differing opinions, but my buddy put up a couple of runout slab routes at Enchanted Rock. A few years back, the locals "fixed" the routes. Not only did they place bolts on rappel, they changed where the routes went. There is a sort of logic for this:
On the FA, it was a race to the next bolting stance. Perhaps the better line goes in a different direction from the stances. Anyway, he wasn't amused.
I remember when sport climbing really took hold. Christian Griffith wrote a letter to Climbing, and I can only vaguely paraphrase it:
"We are not pile and crampon laden mountaineers.....what we are doing is totally new."
That was true as well.
How can everyone be right? Scaring the youngsters isn't as much fun as it was back in the day.
Here is the story of my 100 footer, written by Duane Raleigh, who told me I could do it, and being 19 or so, believed him like Moses.
http://www.wichitamountains.org/bigbite.html
If you added two bolts, that pitch would be easy. We had 150 foot ropes back then, so he caught me from a belay while realing in yards of slack.
To this day I have no reason why my feet started slipping. I'd done the hard part in about five minutes. Funny reading, all true, but I don't remember stinking burning EB's.
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 08:37pm PT
|
I should say that the bolts that I really hated were the convenience bolts and chains at Quartz Mountain. Others like them. We used to downclimb a 5.8 and do another route. Safer than rappelling.
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 08:39pm PT
|
Very few routes have true death potential. I took that hundred footer off of an x rated route and got away with it. Duane pulled in enough slack to keep me from breaking my legs on the knobby start of the route.
My brother in law broke his leg on those knobs on a route that shares the belay. So it is legit go to the hospital. Duane saved me.
|
|
Splater
climber
Grey Matter
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 08:45pm PT
|
I'm not sure if most younger / newer / safer type climbers fully realize all they have now that didn't used to exist.
Have you seen the old green guidebooks that used to be all the info that was available to weekend warriors for places like Yosemite or the High Sierra?
There were NO cams in stores until 1978 - WC fixed friends.
There were NO small or flexible cams until 1985 Wired Bliss & Metolius.
The revolution in climbing shoes occurred from mid 70's RR/EB to 1982 Fire to ~ 1990 multiple models.
There were no modern comfortable harness until ? early 80s?
There was NO internet and NO sport routes, and no electric drills.
Just using the mountainproject search tool for California Sport routes,
which is far from comprehensive:
5.0 - 5.7 362 routes
5.8 - 5.9 825 routes
10a - 10b 888 routes
10c - 10d 622 routes
11a - 11b 679 routes
11c - 11d 416 routes
12a - 12d 565 routes
13a + 128 routes
|
|
johnkelley
climber
Anchorage Alaska
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 09:02pm PT
|
40 years ago? I'm still putting in routes ground up. Most of em tend to have some kind of runout. If you don't like them go climb something somewhere else. There is no shortage of stuff to do. WTF?
|
|
NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
|
|
|
Sep 13, 2013 - 09:03pm PT
|
I often see a comparison between a new climb and a canvas upon which a painting is applied. There is a huge difference.
A canvas is a commodity item, and if one is used up you can get another pretty much like it. A painter who enjoys their own style doesn't stop anyone else from grabbing another nearly identical canvas and doing something different with it. While there are tons of rocks around, they are in fact a limited resource. Especially if you are looking for a rock to do a particular kind of climb that appeals to you, at a certain slab angle with a certain friction, with a certain interesting color or formation, with a certain crack width at a certain angle, etc.
I think a better analogy is this: imagine if Ansel Adams had decided that the only way to take photographs of South Dome was to do so while riding a unicycle on a suspended wire while also juggling. Forever after, the only people who can take photos of Half Dome must follow this protocol or not take any photographs of it. That sounds like a pretty stupid scenario, but how different is it from our present fetish to dictate how a community resource should be enjoyed based on the way it was done by one party who happened to be the first?
I just don't see the philosphical underpinning for the model. I do see the way in which it creates culture and history among climbers, helping to cement the creation of a community. And I enjoy that aspect of it, and willingly play along. But beyond that motivation I don't see any inherent right a first ascent party has. If simply being the first to enjoy a resource in a certain way dictated the method that all others must follow, why, we would never have any climbing at all. Why not honor the ethics, history, resources, etc. of the first party passing through an area that declared it "unclimbable by humans"?
In short, I don't believe in sustaining a climbing meritocracy. But I am also interested in preserving the past and maintaining some fuel for future dreams. How to allocate resources in a way that is not overly biased toward skill and fear tolerance? Where to draw the line is fuel for endless debate.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!