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scuffy b
climber
The deck above the 5
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Sep 24, 2007 - 05:06pm PT
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Dang, your thought was interrupted.
You were about to say they're both getting really close to
revealing the basic core truths behind our existence?
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Spencer Adkisson
Trad climber
Reno, NV
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Sep 24, 2007 - 05:12pm PT
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Jaybro,
Message delivered. Gut laugh achieved. Best regards from Gregor.
Apparently he had a reeeeel good time on the Feather River last weekend. Don't expect to see him ditch the boat any time soon.
What is this madness he mentioned about a 5.14 Off-Width? Yikes!
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Sep 24, 2007 - 05:14pm PT
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Scuffy wrote: You were about to say they're both getting really close to revealing the basic core truths behind our existence?
That when it's raining (like here in Colorado today) people get bored!
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scuffy b
climber
The deck above the 5
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Sep 24, 2007 - 05:17pm PT
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...and then Wes says, You call that bored? You dinosaurs don't
know boring from...
and then Bob says I've been mored bored than you can even conceive, when you were still in diapers!!!
and then...
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Sep 24, 2007 - 05:23pm PT
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Funny stuff scuffy.
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Hammer
Social climber
Custer, SD
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Sep 24, 2007 - 05:35pm PT
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The old, bold routes??? That's the idealized version of what people think was the 'adventure, vision and determination' it took to do the old X rated routes.
'...Bold, unbelieveable determination and skill...', Superbad, inspirational routes...'. bull.
It seems like the only routes valued as routes of 'historical character' are the R and X rated ones. I'm guessing a lot of them were just put up by guys who were in over their heads and just didn't have the skill to stop and place pro, and couldn't downclimb so they had to push on and were lucky enough to live.
Here is an example of a route put up in the so called 'old, bold' style. About three weeks ago I did an onsite, trad first ascent on the Fist in the Needles, a long vertical flake system with a crack behind. I was forty feet up before I could place my first piece of gear, a small/medium nut in a crack behind a flake, I backed that up with a medium cam about six inches higher. I put two more pieces in the crack in the next eighty feet or so that could easily have held twenty more pieces, then joined an existing route (Little Finger 5.6/5.7) for the short top section (one old hanger held with a button head). The new route is fairly sustained 5.8, I call it Middle Finger.
Bold? visionary? committed?...bull. I was just in a mood to climb, felt very confident, and wanted a nice FA in my 65th year. Rather than keep it a 'bold' museum climb I intend to go back and add two modern bolts below that first placement so others will climb the route. It will be a 5.8 that a 5.8 leader can climb. Doing it the way I did wasn't bold, it was just plain stupid.
Ooopps, after reading 'The occassional test piece...' upthread by Tarbuster, Maybe I'll leave it as is. Although then maybe the 'local community' will add bolts some day.
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wbw
climber
'cross the great divide
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Sep 24, 2007 - 06:10pm PT
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Is that a nut cup that Hot Henry is wearing in the photo downthread?
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Sep 24, 2007 - 06:18pm PT
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Wes wrote: Some people never grow up, they just get old.
Wes wrote: I generally try to piss people off, tell them they are worthless and washed up, then watch them redirect that energy into something great in order to prove me wrong. I can take your hate if it makes the world a better place.
Thanks for trying to make me great and for making the world a better place.
Love you too.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Sep 25, 2007 - 11:26am PT
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Wes=Boring
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Sep 25, 2007 - 11:48am PT
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"Firm rock, rich in good holds. Up I go, no need for pitons here. There is nothing finer than this kind of climbing, with the abyss ever-deepening below." Hermann Buhl
Hammer- I put up lots of "museum climbs" because I am in the mood and because I like that sort of excitement. Just like YOU. Style is a reasoned approach and not an accidental, piss stained outcome. You are comfortable on 5.8, I don't mind 5.11. At 65, how long have you been doing new routes?
Wes- With your insipid snivelling about all we can hope for is a change of diaper and some good air freshener. Y huela!!!!
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Hammer
Social climber
Custer, SD
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Sep 25, 2007 - 08:21pm PT
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Been putting up a few new routes for the last three or four years, easy stuff mostly. I enjoy free solo when I'm in the mood, usually in September and October in the Needles when there are very few people around.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Sep 25, 2007 - 08:31pm PT
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Spenser, that guy may be a little dyslexic with his numbers, what can you expect from a cockroach? But I could tell ya stories about him ....
"I think a 50 year old man with grown children just called me gay. that is awesome."
Who said that one? Help an old bro out, wheezegimp, I missed that one and my bifocals won't last through that many, 'previous'es.
Also,
How can a fidy yr old have grown children? are there 50-yr olds who are, themselves, grownups? Could I find a 50 yr old woman who climbs and has out grown her comittment issues? I have heard rumors... you are my guiding light, weakwrist.
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Hammer
Social climber
Custer, SD
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Sep 26, 2007 - 01:25pm PT
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Steve, I don't put up museum climbs so we're not alike at all.
I will go back and add two bolts to the lower section so others can enjoy that route. You on the other hand, deny certain routes to anyone who is not willing to risk life or serious injury.
I know of no way other than R and X rated routes that one person can effect the resource in any state or national park (public property) so as to deny others use of that particular piece of real estate. Doesn't seem fair to me.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
LA, Ca
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Sep 26, 2007 - 08:36pm PT
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Earlier Hammer said "...I'm guessing a lot of them were just put up by guys who were in over their heads and just didn't have the skill to stop and place pro, and couldn't downclimb so they had to push on and were lucky enough to live... "
If this were true there would be a lot more dead climbers. From falls that is.
You ought to consider the possibility that before bolts were the norm, back when gear was crude, many climbers actually had more skill at protecting themselves than most climbers do now.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Sep 26, 2007 - 09:03pm PT
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Man, Wes, you write the most annoying trolls, but ... I guess that's the point.
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Anastasia
Trad climber
California
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Sep 26, 2007 - 09:07pm PT
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John Muir efforts of preservation don't influence us today?
I don't have the fatalistic idea that my efforts to preserve climbs will go unnoticed.
Neither do I believe that the deaths of the old climbing guard such as the passing of John Muir will end this argument.
Saying so is naive.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Sep 26, 2007 - 09:10pm PT
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Strangely, or perhaps not so, there's a good chance you're right on that one Wes.
I said as much back in the 80's when sportclimbing was starting out. Sure, I liked putting in ground up routes that were a bit necky, but harbored no illusions about stemming the tide with those efforts, and I did them for myself. I predicted the masses would favor a more predictable environment. And you know, by definition, the masses outnumber the highly invested and spirited few, so I figured they would assert themselves in time and prevail.
However, things are not so binary and the Warbler's quote goes some distance to describe the multivalent reality at hand:
"I don't really think there are that many runout routes that truly call for "risking your life". It seems like the few screamers you hear about on routes with a rep for runouts rarely even result in significant injuries.
History repeats itself. Good chance there will be a day when more climbers want to run it to challenge themselves. Why spoil the resource for those potential climbers? "
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scuffy b
climber
The deck above the 5
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Sep 27, 2007 - 11:58am PT
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Stemming the tide with a reasonable compromise is a dream.
What one climber, or group, deems reasonable (eg 15 ft runouts
are reasonable, 40 ft are not) will always be excessive to
someone else.
Saying that a bunch of climbers agreed, in, say, 2011, that
Climb X-Y has the right number of bolts, will be just about as
compelling as saying that the first ascentionist put in the right
number.
Any number (15, 20, 10) is divisible by two or three or more.
If I want the bolts at 5 ft on a particular climb, what the hell
do I care that the runouts used to be even worse than they are
now?
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scuffy b
climber
The deck above the 5
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Sep 27, 2007 - 02:11pm PT
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Ideals don't hold in the real world.
The needs of the community will dictate.
Aren't the needs of the community an ideal that won't hold in
the real world?
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scuffy b
climber
The deck above the 5
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Sep 27, 2007 - 03:21pm PT
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Can we say that the needs of the community (ephemeral) are
analogous to the "reasonable compromise" you mention a few
posts upthread?
My feeling is that the reasonable compromise reached when there
are still a few elder statesmen around will not hold any more
weight than a rigid anti-retrobolt position.
What reason do you have to place faith in a reasonable
compromise?
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