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GoMZ
Trad climber
Eastern Sierra
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Sep 14, 2013 - 03:14pm PT
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I see your point Hedge. How do we differentiate though? It is a slippery slope for sure. I think there is a place for these routes though. Who gets to determine which are worthy?
Every time I walk by a "route" like solitary confinement I think about what a beautiful line it is. A part of me feels like it is a shame that it was "put up" as a free solo thus eliminating the possibility of future ascents without risking death. I am not saying we should bolt these lines just wish I could climb them without risking my life. I do shrug it off though because I have other climbs on my list that I will do instead.
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patrick compton
Trad climber
van
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Sep 14, 2013 - 04:00pm PT
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I wishes i had me a time machine for Honnold so he could solo everything up to 12..
...and no one could climb anything!
FA rules, sac-less pussies drool. Nanny nanny boo boo!
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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Sep 14, 2013 - 04:27pm PT
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Kind of reminds me of the argument for tearing down old buildings to put up yet another glass-and-steel tower: the old building isn't serving anyone, it's not how we live these days, it's hogging primo real-estate, etc. Later on, though, people look around at their faceless, character-free city and wonder where all the charm went.
The fact is, the FA principle is not perfect, but it's the closest thing we have. We're kind of stuck with it, unless we want a completely anarchic dumbing-down of all climbing areas. I do not want this.
Some FA's were indeed put up by people of a mental state to which few aspire: stoned, macho, adolescent, unhinged...these examples can be found. In another light, they serve also as examples of what can be achieved by humans of singular vision. We all appreciate the art of a Van Gogh, but few would trade places with him. That's OK.
Many more FA's have been, and are being created by, folk with a more 'community-service' outlook. If the Van Goghs scare you too much, there's always TV. This was created with the masses in mind. It's not often as brilliant, but it serves. Thousands of these routes exist. I would submit that sport climbs outnumber the runout testpieces in this country, by a huge margin. Greg and Bryan and those guys are doing the majority of climbers a huge favor by putting up repeatable, mortal climbs. They're fun, and safe. Lots of times I dig these routes.
Sometimes the TV climbs don't get the best terrain. Too bad. There's not a dome in Tuolumne that you can't walk to the top of. Take your modern pro and super-sticky shoes and your explicit beta and Google-Earth the f*#king dome and throw a toprope off it, you can't lead it.
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kpinwalla2
Social climber
WA
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Sep 14, 2013 - 04:46pm PT
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Consider this example of the "first ascentionist owns the route" paradigm... Suppose a 5.13 climber finds a new area with gorgeous granite domes covered with moderate face routes. Although she has no qualms placing closely-spaced bolts on new sport routes that are near her limit, she feels no need to protect the 5.6-5.9 face climbs on the domes. She methodically solos all the new moderate lines or perhaps occasionally girth-hitches a chickenhead (one or two her 100 ft. of climbing). By the "rules" is every other climber required to solo these routes, or use only the unlikely-to-actually-hold-a-fall chickenheads? While this may seem like an unlikely scenario, something very similar was occurring at the City of Rocks in the late 80's. Sport climbers had "discovered" the City and were busy putting up steep new lines on the Dolphin and other crags. Unfortunately, from my point of view, they also started to explore some of the lower-angled knobby faces. Since these routes were far below their limit, they placed very few bolts. At the time, I was primarily climbing trad routes, because most sport routes of the day were beyond my ability, but I could recognize what was happening. The guys with drills were not only putting up the hard routes but also claiming the prime moderate terrain and putting routes up in a style that kept moderate climbers away. Where were the moderate sport climbs? I decided the time had come to remedy the situation, so I pulled out an old hand drill and spent most of a day establishing "Conceptual Reality" - because it realized my concept of a well-protected moderate sport climb. Guess what? Conceptual Reality quickly became very popular - probably because a huge number of climbers (the majority, perhaps?) were not climbing primarily to test their fear-management skills and risk death or serious injury. (go figure!) In fact, Conceptual Reality was so successful that I decided to buy a power drill and focus on putting up new routes, bolted in my own style. I've put up dozens of these routes and most of them are quite popular. Over the years I've endured plenty of verbal abuse from the "big balls" "rip the heart and soul outta climbing" crowd. A favorite was some guy who thought he was dissing my route when he said "my grandmother could do that". My response was that I figured I'd be a grandparent someday, and when I was, I still wanted to be able to climb it safely. For every negative comment there's been about a hundred that are very appreciative - "I got my first lead on your route", "your route was my first multi-pitch" etc. etc. Bottom line, I won't retro-bolt your runnout nightmare route that rarely gets climbed and exists primarily as a monument to someone's fear-management skills, but please acknowledge, as others have here, that we all play this game for different reasons
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patrick compton
Trad climber
van
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Sep 14, 2013 - 04:49pm PT
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Ronski,
So this is the badge of honor, putting up lines so pointless that no one wants to do them?
Wow. No wonder no one under 40 is on this rotting porch of easy chairs.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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Sep 14, 2013 - 04:49pm PT
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The kpinwallas are out there, and they put up lots of climbs. Case in point. Thanks dude.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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Sep 14, 2013 - 04:51pm PT
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And climbers should indeed beware calling the kettle black when they throw around the term 'pointless'. You'll get nowhere fast with that one.
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rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
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Sep 14, 2013 - 05:01pm PT
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OK, jdhedge, I'll admit it. I guess I was a 5.13 climber, and certainly all my Stonemaster friends were adolescent adrenaline stoners too, since we could boulder circles around most folks our age. I pulled off the Hangover at Tahquitz onsight with no falls. We could really climb, we were good at it, and we did FAs. We "ran out" those bolts because--as you have heard time and time again--it was often too hard to stop and put in one more unnecessary bolt. No, we didn't do it to spite all you; in fact, we didn't care about YOU at all. (And, I guess we still don't.)
We were playing The Game Climbers Play--obviously with different rules than you. Rules we believe correct, but rules you believe to be arrogant, insulting, and flagrantly childish. So be it.
Some of our FAs remain unaltered by you children. May they remain so as a challenge for you, when you are ready.
Tell you what... You get good too. Take some time and develop the mental fortitude ("sac", in other words) necessary to play at the higher levels of the one true Game. Free solo the same sh#t that Bacher did. Get comfortable with climbing at levels higher that you can imagine in your small little world, and maybe then you'll see why we never really pushed the absolute limits of OUR climbing ability on the sharp end, with only a hand drill in our back pocket and ill-fitting EBs on our feet.
Yeah, we were chicken-shits not to have put in all those extra bolts you need to make those X and R routes accessible to 5.10 climbers. And you are chicken-sh#t, if you can't wait to become a 5.13 climber before you approach our heinous, horrible, mean old 5.10R routes. Boo hoo!
Mental fortitude. Yeah, that's it.
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aguacaliente
climber
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Sep 14, 2013 - 05:03pm PT
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Somebody could have climbed that route before Bachar and established it in their own style, but they didn't. (I wasn't around but gather there were no conga lines in 1984.)
It's kinda humorous or something reading California people flame the crap out of each other over the limited supply of rock. Compared to most inhabited places California has plenty of rock per person. Maybe the stuff that is 20 minutes from the road is climbed out. Previous generations could explore the unknown 20 minutes from the road, new generations can walk to explore. That's a little unfair, so's exploration - once someone's been the first to climb a mountain, nobody else can be the first again.
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DavidRoberts
climber
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Sep 14, 2013 - 05:26pm PT
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Wow. I am really sorry I ever found this thread. To hear many of my heroes speak with such arrogance, condescension and adolescent bravado is disappointing. Your accomplishments on the stone are both bold and admirable. Your attitude is something else. I will always aspire to match your climbing ability. Your lack of humility and maturity, especially at your ages, is something I truly hope to avoid.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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Sep 14, 2013 - 05:27pm PT
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Jeff, you don't own it, but you do set a bit of an example.
All arbitrary rules give forth quirky little offspring. The FA principle has given us some runout test pieces, lots of trad and sport climbs, a few oddities like bolted cracks and the occasional true outlier like Solitary Confinement. So be it. It's not a perfect system, but it's pretty good, and we fuk with it at peril of losing more, I would submit, than we stand to gain by opening the door to 'improvements' by anyone with a drill. Or a chisel. I'm not worried about El Cao getting grid bolted, but I would hate to see, say, Fairview Dome turned into a consequence-free playground. Consequences make our game real.
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patrick compton
Trad climber
van
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Sep 14, 2013 - 05:38pm PT
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Reality is relative.
It seemed to get real right about 11+/12.. and those stances for drilling. .. or later rapping and drilling. .. seemed to be a lot more pertinant.
Hedge keeps repeating this because it is logical sticking point of the argument.
Individual is greater than community. Part is greater than whole.
Rugged individualism, Distinctly American west.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Sep 14, 2013 - 05:42pm PT
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I read somewhere(and truly believe) that climbing is:
33.33333333333% physical ability
33.33333333333% technical ability
33.33333333333% mental ability
Rmuir & Largos posts have been spot on.
Respect those that had the vision, they did the work, they broke the barriers & they required all of the (mental, Physical, Tech) skills to put up the route. Whether they put in 18 bolts or zero over a hundred feet it was their call to make. If you have a problem with it you should have got off the computer or couch or whatever you were doing & gone & done it the way you saw fit. But you didn't, so don't complain & think it should be your way, just get stronger & better & do the routes or don't. It is great to have the option for self discovery, personal power, risk management, adventure & physical challenge available- if you want it. These days, if you don't want it, well there is many other options for you too, but thinking everything should be for everyone is a shallow pool to draw from IMO.
BTW i'm 32 yrs of age & will have you all know that not everyone of a younger generation(at least around here) is a whiny, lightweight, weenie bitch like many of those that have posted their crybaby, disrespectful opinions on here. Many much younger than myself understand the path you need to follow in order to prepare yourself for the many great historical testpieces that previous generations were kind enough to leave behind for us to be tested upon. Many appreciate the history & reason they are there. Altering them without permission is also altering a great testament to human ability. I've spent much time waiting & preparing for specific climbs until i was ready, many times i wasn't & had to bail or back down but i wouldn't ever want any of those climbs to be changed in any way to suit my selfish, pussified needs so that i do not require the full balance of mental, physical & technical skills to step to them. If i came back to them & found they were weenified I would be super bummed. Everyone wants everything easy these days & i really find it refreshing to know that there is a pastime like climbing where mental focus, patience & hard work can bring great rewards if that is what you seek.
See ya later, i'm going sport climbing.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Sep 14, 2013 - 05:51pm PT
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I just received a PM from Granite_Girl, regarding a post I made back a ways here which was rude and uncalled for. Her note to me was much more civilized than I deserve, and it is clear that I owe here an apology.
I really try to only say things on the forum which I would say face to face around the campfire. This time I broke my own rule. Hopefully if we ever cross paths in the non-virtual world she won't give me the smack-down I deserve.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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Sep 14, 2013 - 05:57pm PT
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Sounds like they were real to her. Maybe they weren't the consequences you'd hoped for, but there's no denying their reality. What's your point? And who's talking about ignoring consequences? Not me. I just said they make things real, not that we should ignore them.
And you asked about the rock...not the ice. Not going there. Start a new thread for that one.
I feel like there's kind of a statute of limitations on changing routes. After a certain number of people have climbed something, and had a certain experience on it, it's no longer OK to add fixed pro that significantly changes things. The route kinda goes into the public domain. If you wanted to safen up a pitch, you shoulda done it within a season, or a year, of putting the thing up. Depending on how far from the road, how much traffic, et. etc. Like that last pitch on Super Chicken: too late.
Ditto with taking bolts out, I guess.
But anyhow, once that route has entered the public domain, it's kind of a heritage piece. You might not love it, you might have made different choices if it was your route, but it's not. It's everyone's, and right now 'everyone's best and most respectful take on the thing is that you don't mess with things without real good reasons, and consensus, and a bit of respect for accomplishments that happened in a very different time.
Climbing may have an element of consensus, but it is not fundamentally democratic. All climbs are not for all people. What is so hard to get about that?
Why should ordinary people have access to extraordinary things without doing the work required to themselves become less ordinary?
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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Sep 14, 2013 - 06:11pm PT
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Stretchin' it JAB. Big difference between tidy bolted faces and adventure choss where you're just reporting back on what you found.
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DavidRoberts
climber
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Sep 14, 2013 - 06:44pm PT
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Ron, climbing performance and the 'head game" have always been a deeply personal thing to me. It is not about competing with others, showing my "sac" or earning the "respect" of my peers. It is about a personal dialogue with fear, managing risk and learning how to truly listen to my head but not be ruled by irrational fear. Fear often wins, but getting past that is the process. That just me. Others live to sport climb, and I like that too.
When I read many of the posts by the "old guard," I hear a lot of ego and distain for others that don't climb as hard as they do. They claim ownership of a public resource, and state that anyone who is unwilling to meet their standards can't go there. They claim that its about preserving the "adventure." These are 5.13 climbers that are whining that their 5.9 solo should remain off limits to all but other soloist. If you disagree, then members of this group won't hesitate to call you a "chickenshit" or weak. No sharing, no dialogue, just dogmatism and name calling. To me, that is sad. It just sucks to see people that I held in high regard, whose stories I have enjoyed for many years, espouse a position that is more fitting for a testosterone filled HS boy than the elder statesman of american climbing.
I am not promoting the retrobolting of every mentally taxing runnout climb. I don't want to remove fear or the need for emotional control. I would like to see some compromise and an end to blind dogmatism and arrogance that leads to SOME amazing climbs being off limits to those not willing to risk death.
One more point - even if the 5.9 solo is bolted, the adventure is still there for the taking. Just don't clip the bolts. The existence of bolts never stopped Honnald from pushing his limits. Problem solved... unless this is about ego and keeping the "fluff" away.
David Roberts
Alpine, CA
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wstmrnclmr
Trad climber
Bolinas, CA
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Sep 14, 2013 - 07:03pm PT
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mt10910.....It's too bad that this subject always brings up pissing match's and ego flares, with a generation trying to hold on to relevance way past the shelf date. This topic has been bandied about for a long time with the usual outcome of same ideas. DMT's idea of "Respect" for an individuals right to express him/herself without manipulation in any medium you choose. The way it is know (or is it changing as things do when larger numbers participate) is still where, at least in the case of climbing, respect is shown for one's vision as applied to their craft, not ownership of the rock but of their idea and creation of how to usethe rock.
By your reasoning (and Rhodo touched on this), it would be OK for me to decide that the line you put up (say in the context of safety, which seems to be one of the larger themes in your argument) is too safe and not in keeping with the so called spirit of the community of the area and that it would be OK for me to remove protection. I disagree whole heartedly with this reasoning because I believe in your right to put up a climb in whatever style you see fit and I respect your right to your point of view and your ideals whatever your intent. This to me is the idea of the FA's right to protect and preserve their creation (not ownership of the physical rock) and I suspect, at least in the community in which I participate, is still the one of the very few, if not "Laws", then "ideals" which the community embraces throughout changes in the climbing community.
Your original OP idea keeps coming up as it should because it is important to review it as the climbing game changes. But the idea of the FA's right to maintain their creations seems to be the one ideal that get's passed on.
Perhaps because it's innately human to do so? I love the paragraph in "Fountainhead" where Howard Rourke explains this in his defense.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Sep 14, 2013 - 07:19pm PT
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I am also saying that the journey of emotional exploration that occurs on a climb is a personal thing. I do not buy that adding bolts to potentially popular lines eliminates the potential for that to occur.
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Nor do I.
But somewhere between around 1980 to 1990, a change in orientation occurred, a switch from the route/FA team declaring to the world what was required to climb said route, to a subsequent climber, surfeited with self-entitlement, telling the route what criteria it needed to meet to be valid and authentic, this criteria having no impact on the likelihood of psychological adventures, the belief runs . . .
That's not been my expoerience.
Case in point. I’d been climbing several months and am starting to tackle the bolt protected face climbs up at Suicide Rock, mostly in the 5.9 range. I stumble onto a route called “Harm’s Way,” requiring a 35 foot runout on what was probably 5.11 in the old boots (pre-EB), and is still 5.10 even in sticky rubber. I looked at that run out and nearly sh#t my pants.
Harm’s Way was WAY over my head at the time, and I used my fear of the route as motivation to hone my skills and train my mind till I had the nerve and the sac to give it serious try. The point is, the route, and Bud Couch (RIP) who did the FA, couldn’t have made it clearer what was necessary to climb it. I had to do the runout. Or no go. There was no arguing or reasoning with the runout. It simply was. That was the challenge.
Now someone comes along and the route, and Bud Couch (RIP) no longer speak to him with any authority, with any prestige, with any sense of tradition or courage or gamesmanship. Instead, the climber now speaks to the route, informing the route, and Bud Couch (RIP) what is required of the route, which is to fit his or her personal criteria. And if it doesn’t, the climber has every right to go off on both the route and Bud Couch (RIP) about what a vain and macho cheater and fraud it/he was for presuming he or she was there to risk his life, that he had no right to his life and that the route was simply invalid as is because they say so for a bunch of reasons other than the fact that they are scared shitless and have neither the psychological or physical resources to handle this challenge.
What has happened, in the blinking of an eye, is that whereas once, a route declared to the world what was challenge was, and invited all comers to have at it, now it is the climber himself who declares what the challenge is or must be, according to her or her own criteria, since no one “owns” the route, and the challenge has no “right” to impose itself on Josh or Sara, as it were. They are not there for the shallow game of challenging themselves in the outdoors, but for something finer, something “individual,” something courageous which the rubes who established such routes could never fathom.
Notice here that the only thing that matters is the technical grade. And in the homogenization of all things, climbing included, all 5.10a must be climbable to all 5.10a climbers since that’s what the rating says. The idea that a few routes like Harm’s Way are NOT for 5.10a climbers is simply not fair, since it was so far below the max of the guy who first led it. Raher than work on increasing your max, now the fly thing to do is to try and dumb the route down to your own level for person reasons.
In this subtle but decisive shift from the route telling us what is required (traditional), to us telling the route what is required, then bashing the route if it falls short of our criteria, the core of adventure (you cannot control the process or the outcome) has been co-opted for a fey, New Age, smell the roses ethos where I decide what the climb can give me, not what I might bring to the climb.
To insist that this is an improvement or a mature take on the old trad milieu is a blatantly narcissistic turn of events that virtually nobody could once have imagined as coming from an insider in the climbing world. Now, some are saying, there are no standards to try and live up to but your own.
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Sep 14, 2013 - 07:38pm PT
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Abandon all hope ye who enter here . . .
;>(
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