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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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Perhaps the most amusing posts in this thread have been the shrill cries about chopping it. Fattrad doesn't look like he could even waddle to the base, much less do any of the actual climbing involved to get up there.
So choppers, gonna chop on the lead? Or are you gonna have to rap in to do the deed?
Is that any different?
Chopping a route on rap, all about the ego boost, none of the challenge of actually climbing a route.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Just checked out the web site WB posted.
Cool pics, looks like they had a grand time up there.
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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Hopefully the days of bolt chopping are past. The deed is done. While whatever sort of ego or monetary factors may drive a first ascent using tacticts that the closed minded boltophobic traditionalists may abhor may be questioned and discussed, everyone looses in a chopping spree. Kinda like moving from the discussion that terrorists are bad to invading a sovereign nation.
If the point of view that traditional ground up FA's is the best style we can utilize is valid, then it will stand on it's own merrits. If the crowbars come out in the dark of night, then the traditional stance is tainted and painted as stance of grumpy old men who aren't what they used to be or never were as well as the wanna be's trying to emulate them.
I think a better name for the route would have been, I've fallen and I can't get up.
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GDavis
Trad climber
SoCal
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Well, if they had climbed Sea of Dreams a month earlier I would say keep the route. As of now its just a thousand bolts to horse chute. Gimme some TP i'll deposit my opinions for ya!
oh wait, wrong thread.
Carry on.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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JHedge wrote
"Didn't Dave and Walt aid their way up SB first, thus depriving others from establishing a ground-up free route? Shouldn't they also have stopped when the going got too tough, like Sean should have? And didn't Dave go back and replace the bolts on SB on rappel? Seems to me that aiding up something, then freeing it, then going back and rap bolting it, hardly sets an ethical example that Sean's route should have to live up to. "
Nobody clarified that? Anybody know the history.
Klaus wrote
"and Karl, Jesus Built My Hotrod has suffered More damage from the attempt to free it by bolts added to sections where I ran it out on hooks. I can argue that I climbed it with the least amount of damage by Not drilling as much as a free-climber would consider sufficient. Also if that hook pitch is in fact 5.10 as Jim said, why do they even need bolts if they're such great climbers? to create a "trade route" for the masses? I don't know, but bolting an established route to free it is simply poor style"
Everybody knows Klaus climbs in the finest style that Aid offers. Some here seem to suggest that routes should be left untouched until they can be climbed in the finest style. I'm guessing these same folks would suggest that free is better style than aid, so I'm asking them if potentially free routes shouldn't see FAs on aid, particularly if there's hammering to be done.
Clint wrote: Karl's point here is that if you go ground up, there are probably not enough stances on that upper slab and it will be runout as a result. And runout is bad because the route will not get much traffic (I am somewhat sympathetic to that last part). But the route could be done Urioste style with bolt ladders and then pulling/patching if there are not enough stances. This yields a safe, ground up route. So ground up does not necessarily imply unsafe, and does not imply very low traffic (although unsafe does imply low traffic). Karl may have just overlooked this option, if he was thinking about Southern Belle (vs. say the Harding-Rowell route).
I think it's unimaginable to expect the FA party to hand-drill hundreds of feet of bolt ladders, just to erase them latter. All to lay claim to somebody else's moralistic ideas the adventure of ground up. Seems like you'd get a pretty good preview of the freeclimbing while drilling the ladders and they would provide even greater protection than the eventual few bolts that remained after chopping and patching. Really Clint, that's a stretch.
Now I'll admit that better style would have been to run-out the pitches on lead completely 160 feet on hard 10 to potential 11+, and then, if you believe in public service, rap down what's already ascended and equip the route.
but I'm not ready to tell anyone that that's what I expect from them
Peace
Karl
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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WandaFuca:
Thank you for your call.
Your suggestions for improving YosemiteLand
are important to us.
Please stay on the line.
The next available Matterhorn climber
will take your call.
....
....
....
I'm sorry,
the Matterhorn climbers
are still on their Lettuce break.
(Gotta hire real climbers...
Whadda ya gonna do?)
So Tinkerbell will take your suggestions.
You may not recognize her from your youth,
Cuz now she's a Big Dyke...
Have a Special Day
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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I love the debate around how the style of an FA effects ethics. It's one of the few really grey areas to me.
1. Should a climb be left alone for those who can do it in a better style? And what level of improvement of style justifies/demands leaving it alone. No fixed ropes? No rap bolting? No bolts? Free vs. aid? By a faster party or one that requires less holes? Shoeless/chalkless/onsight/free solo ;-)
2. If a climb can be done better by rap bolting (better bolt placements, no uneeded holes drilled, better line) does that overway the concerns of doing the FA in a better style?
3. If a climb hits a blank area should it end?
4. How many bolts are justified to connect natural placements in a 'trad' climb?
5. Is sport climbing either?
6. If a block is forced loose by a passing FA climber and it later falls when no one is around a does it make a sound?
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Strongerdog
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Doug, when you start your first reply with "I am not ashamed" it really does get one thinking.....?
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Someone upthread had suggested I should hang my head in shame, so it seemed like a direct line to start out on.
Is that what you referred to?
I'm still proud of the route. If it could have happened ground-up all the way of course that would be cleaner and I would be more proud. But that's not what the stone was saying to us as we pulled out from under the arch. We were pretty sure that something would be climbable up there because routes like Southern Belle and Autobahn and Cataclysmic Megasheer had all gone free on the upper wall.
We were also pretty sure that we didn't want to leave behind another death route. Enough of those on the wall already, and only getting worse. So it felt like an act of humility to go around and come in from above. Like we were sacrificing something of our personal FA experience for the sake of leaving behind the kind of route we wanted it to be. Something more accessible than everything on the wall so far had been.
I think that's part of this equation that some of you aren't quite seeing yet: That we gave up our personal FA experience, traded it away -- especially Sean, who wanted his first steps ever onto the summit of the Dome to be the culmination of this route -- to create this as a different experience for the future than anything yet done on the South Face.
A little pride, a little humility, trying for balance.
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couchmaster
climber
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hard to say........
It seems like the Valley always had a real strong sense of what correct style was. The changes that are coming form the gyms has pretty much put style, ethics and the enviroment back behind performance and safety.
It seem like it will be a short step to wankers like moi rap bolting a new 5.6 next to arches, and then seeing others add bolts to existing routes to increase the safety of them....you know, they will do it for the others.
Kind of sad to see this change, guess I'm agreeing with Werner, Cos and JB.
Where is the end if that is the overriding concern...ie, to make a route safe for others? That is, to make "Something more accessible" Was that ever a concern on earlier great routes like NA Wall, Salethe etc, ever ?
Based on that ideology, it will not end until the outdoors is as safe as a gymnasium. The change is coming one chink in the armor at a time. This is but one more chink. Different areas have different ethics and styles based on history, the valley has always has this strong sense of value on limiting ourselves to maintain a high standard of adventure....
I can understand rap bolting a little shithole 70' high local cliff, I mean, you have to rap down and roll 2 2,000 lb loose blocks off or die trying it ground up. So you've previewed it at that point ....but this is the valley.
Or it was anyway.
".... the end result will be routes many people can enjoy in a safe....."[i/] Like the red route in the gym, we told them that they needed to add another bolt to it, and another hold cause it was pretty sketch trying to send it being 5.10+ and most of us 5.10- climbers trying it, once that did that we got the send...
Like that.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Klaus wrote: As I said earlier, I'm sure it's a good route, I just cringe upon this tactic to create it. They set a NEW standard for Big Wall Freeclimbing that in my opinion is a step backward. Yet as others have said "it is now done, deal with it". I feel this precedent encourages the acceleration of "progress" to "develope" the potential of this wall by a simple means. It's sad.
Sorry...I said I was done...I'm not.
Big walls in the Black Canyon and Diamond (some as early as the late 70's) had top down inspection and pre-placed gear so your wrong on that point.
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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NW face of Devil's Thumb
Wings of Steel
South Face of Half Dome--Growing Up
What a tick list--man, I've got some fun to be had.
Wish I were capable of the lofty ambitions of others.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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"It seems like the Valley always had a real strong sense of what correct style was."
Have to disagree there. In the 28 years I've been around, ethical debates have constantly raged and the idea of correct style has shifted.
Clean climbing, fixed ropes, cam, sticky rubber, hand-dogging, previewing, rap-bolting, every other kinda bolting, copperheads, hole counts, retrobolting, constructive pin-scaring, tape, topos versus descriptions, competition, route-stealing, you name it.
Name almost any climber and there's usually something controversial they did.
Name almost any standard setting route and it could often be construed by go against one of the ethical principles somebody or another on this thread has suggested.
as for "top down" big wall freeclimbing. There's been loads and loads of it on the Captain as hardmen rap in to work the moves. It's just been for first free ascents rather than first ascents.
Peace
Karl
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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This is where the notion of 'community service' - even well-intended - starts to become both a minefield and a slippery slope. Such 'service' unavoidably entails subjective judgments. And those judgments of 'death routes', bolt spacing, and 'quality' of the bolted legacy left behind are just that - unavoidably and problematically subjective.
Growing Up is a reasonable endeavor to you guys, and maybe even to the majority of us irrespective of the ethos involved, but what about younger, gym-raised, 'safe' climbers who still considers it a far from safe by their standards? The risk would seem to be one of throwing SFHD open to any and all 'means' so long as the end result or 'legacy' meets their or their constituencies' criteria - which may be very different than your or ours.
And such subjective notions don't necessarily stop just at rock climbing routes either - via ferratas have now breached our shores on private lands and won't need much of momentum or time before some clever concessionaire sees the same financial potential in them and pushes for them on public lands. Commercializing previously free via ferratas is an unpopular yet growing trend in the EU right now. While the ADA was mentioned as a joke up thread - the prospect is actually fairly real - a US-affiliate of viaferrata.org could easily use the precedent of the Cable route and the power of the ADA to make a play for opening up public lands to via ferratas using exactly the same 'community service' rationale as is being presented here.
It's a Valley-sized leap from Growing Up to the Cable route or a via ferrata, but the same arguments and rationale are expressed for each and the ultimate question Couchmaster, Klaus, and others are basically asking is where does it stop? Once that door is open, who's criteria for these subjective notions should rule?
Edit: and these issues aren't constrained to the Valley, we are actively dealing with them up here as do most areas these days.
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
Lake Oswego, Oregon
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I'm winding down, but I do wonder if we can now establish routes and claim we are doing it for the future would it be wrong to establish a bottom to top bolt ladder on something significant so future climbers can learn how to use aiders and haul and bivi and poop into a bucket?
Wit that, I think I am now out.
Thanks for the fun!
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Strongerdog
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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"I'm still proud of the route. If it could have happened ground-up all the way of course that would be cleaner and I would be more proud".
I think we all agree with you.
Doug, I have followed your adventures for many years and believe you are one of the good guys. It will be interesting to see how opinions play out over the next few years as your route gets done and reported on.
All the best,
Steve
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Ihate wrote: Wit that, I think I am now out.
Thanks for the fun!
Some people were never in it...just spewing.
Dingus...and Mother...I want to...
"It seems like the Valley always had a real strong sense of what correct style was."
That's funny...
Correct style...now tell me what religion is correct!
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Gotta say Bob, I have no problem with people pointing out the lapses, paradoxes, and exceptions that went on in the 70's around the country - I do have a problem when those exceptions are presented as the rule to paint an all-to-common-and-convenient revisionist history of a 70's that wasn't dominated by a clean climbing movement.
That somehow we lept straight from pins to bolts with barely a breath in between and that none of us commonly held to a clean style or ethics in any consistent way. I hear that revisionist spew trotted out again and again - usually just alluded to, or said under one's breath, hoping no one will notice it attempting to parade as 'fact'.
I suspect I'm not alone here in feeling less than unapologetic for bristling a bit at the suggestion which is clearly Rovian in it's scope and intent.
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billygoat
climber
3hrs to El Cap Meadow, 1.25hrs Pinns, 42min Castle
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Mtnyoung wrote: "And, BTW, what's wrong with a climber's discussion containing lots of bullshtt? Isn't that a hallowed tradition?"
I'll grant that it's tradition, although I'm not sure how hallowed it is or should be. But, where I was coming from was the sense that this discussion is putting more than a few of our opinions on the line. In historical terms, accusations of this kind of magnitude have resulted in the ruin of climber's reputations and (some might argue) careers. When those are the potential stakes, I think it's wise to have a serious discussion driven by personal experience, careful thought, and respectable (even if critical) word choice.
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
Lake Oswego, Oregon
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Gee, b'ob, I checked every definition I could find and "spew" does not fit anything that I opined. And I know for a fact that I want to have nothing to do with Elfish Welfare! (But that Hermione is hot!)
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