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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 23, 2010 - 10:22pm PT
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Cigarette butts stuck in cracks...
Some team even went up the Shield and thought to equip the anchors with power points including screw links. I cut them all off. AND carried them down.
Every water bottle I found on top I emptied, crushed and carried down, even though the weight of my bag was killing me.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Oct 23, 2010 - 11:12pm PT
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nice mark, walkin the walk.
by powerpints, you mean equalized chain anchors? or what?
I'm going to ditto what Karl said that I believe many (not all obviously) foreigners are the culprits of trashing our YNP cliffs. I hate to stereotype but I have seen this several times...same reason the nail on clean routes, drill bathooks everywhere, hammer nuts into pinscars like heads, carve symbols on the rock...etc...many of them don't give a fuk, or have a totally different perspective on wilderness ethic.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 23, 2010 - 11:19pm PT
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The power points were threaded cord through the bolt hangers, equalized to the screw link. The trouble is that you can't tell how old they are and they take up room on the hangers.
Any half way decent climber should be able to create the same thing with slings or rope in less than five minutes anyway.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Oct 23, 2010 - 11:21pm PT
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probly rap anchors from someone bailing? i dunno...seen that before though.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 23, 2010 - 11:24pm PT
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Maybe we need to add regular top-down cleanups of the 'trade' routes to the FaceLift repertoire? Although it sounds like caches left by climbers are also part of the problem.
Climbing rangers Jesse and Jake, on their recent descent/clean-up of the Nose.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 24, 2010 - 12:10am PT
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Tom wrote
Part of the problem is the trend towards faster and faster ascents. When a team is striving for a speed record, that crucial quarter ounce of an empty water bottle might be all that keeps the Hotshots from being venerated on Hans' website
That's a total unsupported fantasy. There NO WAY the speed climbers are responsible for much litter at all!! They hardly carry anything and know better. Why post stuff you are making up in your mind?
Pud wrote
The folks that first did these climbs were true conservationists. The folks that followed paid attention to this and followed suit.
Again, no way. Not only were these routes put up with pins and bolts, but, in my experience (which I admit started around 1981 when I did the Nose) the Old Skool tradition was to throw your sh#t bags and almost all the big trash, especially bottles, off the wall and then do a wall clean up after you hit the valley floor.
This didn't work that well. I promise, the base of El Cap is WAY WAY cleaner now than it was in the 1980s even with far more wall traffic. Camp 6 still stunk and had junk 30 years ago.
It's just that the American Climber have finally embraced a cleaner ethic. It just that El Cap is the Mount Everest of wall climbing and more people dare do it with less experience and knowledge of how it should roll and from so many different cultures
Peace
karl
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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Oct 24, 2010 - 12:20am PT
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I was referring to the likes of Pratt, Robbins, Roper, Chouinard, Denny, Herbert, Steck, et al.
Most, if not all have proven thier commitment to conservation over the years.
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The Larry
climber
Moab, UT
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Oct 24, 2010 - 02:08am PT
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There are plenty of American climbers trashing the peg board.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 24, 2010 - 02:19am PT
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I was referring to the likes of Pratt, Robbins, Roper, Chouinard, Denny, Herbert, Steck, et al.
Most, if not all have proven thier commitment to conservation over the years.
They're good guys. There's no evidence that they didn't throw their trash off the wall back in the day, and they definitely didn't bring their poop up the climb.
That's not a strike against them, they didn't know better, just like they nailed everything, they didn't have much choice and had no way to anticipate that better tech would come along "if they waited"
Peace
Karl
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Oct 24, 2010 - 07:49am PT
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I was referring to the likes of Pratt, Robbins, Roper, Chouinard, Denny, Herbert, Steck, et al.
Holy moly . .. . back then, nobody was on the Wall.
And, who cared?
NOW?????
The Wall is like a freeway - hundreds of fecalists go up every season.
I am SO lucky I have never done a trade wall, and only weird lines rarely done.
When I did Bermuda Dunes, I had to pick up trash from the Alcove. There was ALOT of trash there. Hauling trash is not that difficult, but that place had about a 1/4 haul bag worth. The base of the Spire Chimney was FULL of trash.
I also picked up trash from the base of Texas Flake when I did Dawn/Tribal.
When I did Cosmos, there was no trash.
When I did Magic Mushroom, I had to pick up trash from Chieftan Ledge, because that is part of the Shield.
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redrocker
climber
LV, NV
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Oct 24, 2010 - 10:09am PT
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Since it was undoubtedly climbers who left the garbage in Mark's photo I'd like to think that at least some of it was dropped down there accidently.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 24, 2010 - 01:58pm PT
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redrocker wrote he hoped some trash was accidental
I think giving people the doubt is a generous hearted quality, but ....
Don't think much of that is true in the long run up there. That picture is taken after many "expeditions" have been lowering the trash level in the crack behind camp 6, year after year.
I think we just have to get the word out louder and clearer to anyone who might head up there, leaving trash on the wall is not cool.
The other issue, camp 6 is sort of the last stop before the summit. That means some folks probably abandon wall water there if they don't need it. People drink that wall water and don't feel as responsible to take those bottles (somebody else's bottle in their minds) to the top.
If you kill it, you gotta pack. Wall water 101... and no leaving a few drops
Peace
Karl
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 24, 2010 - 02:03pm PT
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That picture is taken after many "expeditions" have been lowering the trash level in the crack behind camp 6, year after year.
Umm, Mark's photo in his OP is from the Chieftain Ledge (Chieftain Hotel) on the Shield, not Camp 6 on the Nose. Tom's photo of Jesse & Jake rappelling is from the Nose, but lower down.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 24, 2010 - 02:44pm PT
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None of those bottles in my photo were inaccessible, and even still, if you drop it, it's still your responsibility and you need to make a serious effort to retrieve it.
I'd also like to address leaving full water bottles all over the place. There were dozens of bottles at the base, on any and every ledge and on top. There were probably 40, 1 liter bottles on the ledge above Mammoth aside from the 10 or so gallons on Mammoth itself. John and I pre-hauled our water up to Mammoth and labeled it with our intended route and date.
In the future, I'll be emptying, crushing and carrying to the top any unlabeled water bottle I come across.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 24, 2010 - 03:11pm PT
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Umm, Mark's photo in his OP is from the Chieftain Ledge (Chieftain Hotel) on the Shield, not Camp 6 on the Nose. Tom's photo of Jesse & Jake rappelling is from the Nose, but lower down.
My Bad, and totally obvious now that I think about it. Camp 6 is way worse
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Oct 24, 2010 - 05:06pm PT
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That's a total unsupported fantasy. There NO WAY the speed climbers are responsible for much litter at all!! They hardly carry anything and know better. Why post stuff you are making up in your mind?
Um, NO. It is NOT unsupported fantasy. I've personally stood under the Nose while a IAD team chucked off every piece of f*#king litter they were carrying...GU pouches, water bottles, etc. This was a "local" team with at least one SAR member involved.
Two months later, walking the base to pick trash and hunt for booty, there were again lots of smallish water bottles stuffed with GU wrappers. An aquaintance who was on the NA at the time said it was the same deal, a NIAD team chucking off their trash with the intention of walking the base later.
Are they responsible for the majority of it? Of course not, but to claim someone is making it up?
So maybe know WTF you're talking about before you question someone's honesty.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 24, 2010 - 05:22pm PT
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Sad to hear that Capyurass
Now, THAT was some support for the statement.
I still bet that IAD team were some foreigners. That's an almost unbelievable level of stupidity for anyone in the circle of valley climbers.
Idiots!
Peace
Karl
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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Oct 24, 2010 - 05:26pm PT
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Dude, you're a walking contradiction.
Edit:
I think passing the buck does nothing to help the problem.
So what if it's the "circle of valley climbers" or Japanese or what ever.
Makes no difference.
Not taking responsiblity for oneself is the issue.
F*#k, I gotta find something better to do, being injured SUCKS!
carry on.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Oct 24, 2010 - 05:38pm PT
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My personal pet peeve is pee bottles. I'd so rather deal w/ a hundred stinky belays than an aged, leaking bottle of urine. I just don't get the logic that leads to their abundance.
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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Oct 24, 2010 - 05:56pm PT
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“The Dance of Bliss” sculptor by Mike Sohikian using a #1107 High-Strength Grout
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