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steveA
Trad climber
bedford,massachusetts
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Sep 26, 2011 - 01:02pm PT
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Ya, I guess he was joking.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Sep 26, 2011 - 06:47pm PT
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Kids these days!They just don't want to take protection seriously.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Laramie
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Sep 26, 2011 - 07:47pm PT
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rick d,
there is a group that is converting trad to sport or Less Run Out Trad. I think very few of these altered trad routes would be considered a worthy sport route by those of us who do this sport climbing as if it were aerial bouldering but use a rope instead of crash pad for the cushion.
Oh yes, I have done a lot of the trad hoops and demonstrated skill, or should I say boldness? but when it is said and done for me I feel better getting my A kicked and my skill level humbled than what I would get if I was doing my old runouts. I feel I am no longer in the trad camp we once knew and separately that you will not find these trad rap bolters at our sport areas.
For some trad climbers the conversion to "areial sport bouldering" must be very compelling. Michael Fredrichs was in on the first ascent of Lucille with Jaybro and had done a preponderance of routes at Vedauwoo. On an occassion he ask me where I was climbing, so I invited him. He accepted but I wasn't sure of his authenticity or what his duration of interest would be. Well my intuition was quite wrong, he did not return to Vedauwoo for 8 years but instead came to Reese Mtn on all those vacations.
If we are going halt this alteration of trad routes we will have to identify the target group.
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steveA
Trad climber
bedford,massachusetts
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Sep 26, 2011 - 08:01pm PT
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Mike
He looks like you!!
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Michael Lecky
Mountain climber
Harvard, MA
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Sep 27, 2011 - 01:31pm PT
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I was under the impression that today's climbers wouldn't know what to make of a bolt if they tripped over one. Chopping bolts was an elitist pastime in the seventies, for Dog's sake. I find it very hard to believe that Henry Barber, or any other EB-shod "hot boy" of my era, still lives in the inutile past to such an extent.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Sep 27, 2011 - 06:13pm PT
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Taken from Steve Grossman and Werner Braun's comments on the Cringe Thread
The Fish Crack was another classic Henry Barber heist. The thing used to sport at least two fixed pins which made it a much more reasonable proposition as a rounded layback problem on lead.
Hugh Herr tried to do it before he lost his feet to frostbite and had to hang to get it. Two years later, the amazing Hugh sent it with mechanical feet! Hugh's climbing ability greatly outpaced his skill with hardware back in those days and I followed his lead cleaning each placement with a stout downward pull followed by a "Hugh, you're a lucky boy." It isn't easy to protect on the lead due to its shallow, flaring nature.
One of these days, the Fish is going back into Cascade Creek as the entire feature is detached; Fish Crack left side, Free Press right. It seems that every time I was up top, the anchors were different and it didn't take long to figure out where the old ones went. They kept loosening and falling out!
WBraun
climber Feb 24, 2007 - 05:29pm PT
Yeah Steve
Henry is a F'cking thief. You hear that Henry. You are a prick for stealing that climb.
Me and Kauk didn't clean out that climb 2 days earlier so that you could just waltz up there azzhole.
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Greg Child
climber
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Sep 27, 2011 - 10:19pm PT
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On this subject, and as an aging climber, I think it is pathetic when someone who is too fat and certainly overweighed by ego goes around asserting their past glory in such insignificant manner. Come on, Henry, get real and cease vandalizing routes at least as old as you. Pathetic. And get f*#ked.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Sep 27, 2011 - 11:53pm PT
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whoa! another legend pops up on ST.
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Hummerchine
Trad climber
East Wenatchee, WA
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Sep 27, 2011 - 11:56pm PT
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Sep 28, 2011 - 12:38am PT
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Greg's never been one to mince words!
Welcome to the infinite loop, Greg!
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 28, 2011 - 02:33am PT
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Clearly people don't like individuals asserting their will
and imposing their opinion, especially when it seems to be
an attack on people and their self-worth.
Clearly people don't like an outsider
dictating the terms for the locals. Or an older guy
setting the rules for the younger, etc. But I guess I have to ask
how it differs from these things when people respond with the same
assertion of will, when they demand their way and, in turn,
demean the person with whom they disagree?
I think this thread/discussion is about how to resolve some
ethical issues, how to see them in the right light. It asks
questions, expresses frustrations, dilemmas. Henry
might have been entirely wrong, but I think it's worth
hearing his point of view and giving him, at least in some
reasonable way, the benefit of the doubt. Maybe these issues
can be resolved. Maybe not. Thanks Rich and others for the civil
approach. I haven't seen Henry in years, used to climb with him
a fair bit. He'd call me when he passed through Boulder. I don't
know why he did what he did and would love to hear his thoughts.
I'm not sure how his present conditioning plays in. If he
chopped that bolt, and no one seems certain he actually did so,
he probably climbed the route to get to it. Right? I don't know.
As for that Fish climb, well,
when I was doing my Wizards of Rock book I spoke quite a lot with
Bachar about that, and he didn't think Henry stole it. Seems, though,
some are still bitter about that. We don't exactly enjoy it when
we're aspiring to something and someone steps in and "steals" our
dream. A lot of people had worked on Butterballs when Henry
led it. I think they were understandably affected, especially,
at the time, but I think some have "healed" or "grown up" or whatever
it was to take away the edge to those negative feelings and
to get perhaps a better context, with time... Those climbs
are another issue and amount to real thread drift. They can't
be compared to this bolt removal issue, in my opinion.
Edit. Late at night (4 a.m.) I was up and thinking, ohhh, I'm a
little slow. Greg was probably trying to show how what Henry
did felt to some people... bouncing it back... or something...?
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Laramie
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Sep 28, 2011 - 10:19am PT
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this post seems appropriate to bolt threads. Again.
tradsmanclimbs,
it seems the climbing literature, like guidebooks with descriptions of runouts, preserves the historical facts of these legacy/pride climbs. Apparently for some of these route makers just the history on paper and cyberspace is not enough, they want a monument. Do the locals owe them a monument?
As I have said before, if Henry had not infringed on the "project ownership" of three locals I suspect there would have been a bolt at this same high place and we would not have this discussion.
Henry told me over the phone prior to the Superpin climb that I must bring my bolt kit when he attempted this climb. Having no bolt kit seemed so ironic that I ask him what was the matter with his. He showed me a quite unused drill driver(no mushroomed head) and a kit that contained a #14 bit but studs that required a #12 bit. I did not ask anymore but was not very assured of Henry's bolting skills, yet I thought this show could be a joke. But indeed he did want my bolt kit present when the lead began. After the climb Herny alluded that he had little bolt placing experience.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Sep 28, 2011 - 02:01pm PT
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Pat, I would argue that personal attacks are not appropriate. I do not know him(Barber) and will not do that, but it is very obvious that many others have felt burned by him and feel that he was going to do what he wanted no matter what anyone else thought including the local communities where he climbed. That is the reason I posted Werner's and Steve's comments above. Now the local community is being chastised for not running out to do his dirty work. If the above is true it seems no wonder that the bolt stayed for 34 years. My guess is that these actions were more about ego than ethical pricipals or worry that the Needles are going to be grid bolted to death. We will find out when his article comes out in the new magazines next month. I bet he has a computer and coud chime in here but that would take the risk of not just having a grandstand where there will be no questioning of his actions. Here he would be scrutinized by the his peers and I am certainly not talking about me but rather the likes of you, Donini, Dennis, Rich, and the rest of the gang that are very accomplished climbers on this site and have been at this game for so many decades.
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jstan
climber
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Sep 28, 2011 - 03:01pm PT
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Is it not true that placers of bolts and choppers of bolts are equally vulnerable to charges of doing what they want, regardless of what everyone else thinks? Apriori the two situations are identical. Having a climbing partner(s) that agrees with one does not materially change anything. Neither can claim virtue.
In any human activity you find a staggering dynamic range of ability. No matter one's own ability, if you make competition with others the center of your climbing you will encounter disappointments that might have been avoided had you determined to compete only with yourself. Self-competition also makes it easier to learn when you run into someone better. It is a win-win.
This particular incident seems to involve subjugation of the need to preserve a shared resource to exigencies arising from a breakdown in personal relations. Relations are never improved in this way. So it is a lose-lose.
This is the reason many of us have, for many decades no matter the particular circumstances, felt a bolt once placed should be left in place. In hopes someday we might achieve a higher level of maturity.
It has been a long wait.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 28, 2011 - 03:33pm PT
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John, I agreed with you up until
This is the reason many of us have, for many decades no matter the particular circumstances, felt a bolt once placed should be left in place. In hopes someday we might achieve a higher level of maturity.
I'm not a proponent of wholesale chopping, even in case of outrages like the Bellringer, and I am mindful of the destruction that bolt wars can cause. But I find your position to be too asymmetric. The bolters can do as they please, and the enhanced maturity of the preservers will prevent them from acting. Good intentions notwithstanding, this ends up being a license to bolt anywhere, anytime, to any degree.
There's an old saying to the effect that good walls make good neighbors. Human nature being what it is, we need boundaries if there is ultimately going to be any distinction between trad and sport climbing, and maybe if our current understanding of climbing will be preserved at all. Let's not forget, as I keep saying, that all climbing involves voluntary renunciation of available means. Not doing things that could be done lies at the essence of the activity. Proposing what amounts to an elimination of all restraint seems to me like a dagger to the heart of the enterprise.
If maturity could happen simultaneously and uniformly, there would be no problem, but that's not how things work. Superpin is a special case in which your arguments have considerably more force, but in general I think it is about a lot more than ego and preservation of any one individual's accomplishments.
DMT, in the absence of an intervening authority (which, by the way, has amost certainly saved the Gunks as a trad area), and in the absence of mutual respect, what remains is public opinion, which, for example, has kept British Grit boltless. When public opinion is strong enough, bolting and, for example, chipping, are contained. The reason I think these debates are worthwhile and not the pointless eruptions of hot air some believe them to be is because, win or lose, I think it is important to participate in the shaping of public opinion.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 28, 2011 - 03:36pm PT
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...he was going to do what he wanted no matter what anyone else thought...
Understatement-of-the-thread award for that. How many ST regulars could be accused of the same...?
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atchafalaya
Boulder climber
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Sep 28, 2011 - 03:43pm PT
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Is there someone I can check with on this thread to approve my climbing plans for this weekend? Preferably old, not climbing often, who replies with spelling errors and illogical rants about the old days and gyms? FWIW, I intend to drill...
This thread proves again that climbing is like sex. talking about it ruins the experience. It is the doing it that kicks asssssssss. Bolting, chopping, who gives a sh#t. Good for them for doing something, anything.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Laramie
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Sep 28, 2011 - 03:46pm PT
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DMT,
A character of Sartre said, "Hell is other people."
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 28, 2011 - 03:57pm PT
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...and when, having realized this, the door to the room flies open and the inhabitants have the ability to escape les autres, their torturers, what happens?
They refuse to leave.
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jstan
climber
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Sep 28, 2011 - 03:58pm PT
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Rich:
My approach worked in the old days because we did not have many who cared only for themselves. As you can see, there were some even then.
You are right the center of mass has shifted and the old approach is no longer appropriate.
Hopefully increased communication on the web and at events held to maintain areas will provide an avenue toward higher levels of cooperation.
Failing this, regulation and or the closing of areas both move onto the table.
Cave Rock may become a model.
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