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mooch
Trad climber
Tribal Base Camp (Kernville Annex)
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Since you chimed in ec (4 years ago on this threwad ;), I would hope you would go back to replace that bolt on 'Strange Brew' at The Needles! Having done the second pitch (5.8), the one and only bolt to that pitch......was no where to be seen!! And the so-called knob tie-offs low on the pitch are down right useless. They are both small and rounded. Imagine looking down 100ft, while you're in search for this lone old 1/4" bolt and you see that both of your "psychological" tie offs are GONE! and have slid down to your belayer.....which, at this point, is completely useless. I scanned for several minutes and never found it. 5.8X, on a seldom done route, can really magify the senses!! I saw Kris put a note in the new guidebook about the bolt I mentioned being gone. Maybe you and I can get out there and replace it. And with your permission, add 1 or 2 down lower to supplement the "ghost" pro. I'd pony up the bolt/bolts. Sorry......didn't mean to threas drift. Just was an eye opening experience. :)
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Talk, talk, talk.
Lets just pass the cup for funds to pay someone to bolt this puppy.
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mooch
Trad climber
Tribal Base Camp (Kernville Annex)
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Sure. Let's get the Americans Climbing Safe Association involved. Wait.....the Safe Association of Ameicans Climbing may just do it for FREE.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Really, so Werner's...
We're not talking free soloing which is a cat of an altogether different color.
And the second weakest and most pathetic argument for retrobolting it comparing bolting to broader environmental or infrastructure aspects of industrialized societies. If you can't make your case within the scope of climbing itself you simply don't have an argument.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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And desecration of the rock is NOT the issue, desecration of the created route is.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Heck ... The last time I saw Wild Jim Wilson, last year at the GYM, he gave me permission to go and bolt that sucker. As long as it was me bolting on the lead....
jess saying.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Tut, I agree that Ricky can do whatever he wants to his route so long as his partner agrees. But the question was 'should he' and No, he shouldn't for all the reasons laid out above. But if he wants to now 'share' his route with more people, or wants to climb it again but no longer has the skills to do so, then bolt away. But it isn't like he should do it to make it safe.
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gunsmoke
Mountain climber
Clackamas, Oregon
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It doesn't even have to be safe, ever. I just support his original desire to make it not deadly.
Getting evac-ed is ok. Getting killed isn't. Got it.
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mooch
Trad climber
Tribal Base Camp (Kernville Annex)
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If the man wants to "touch-up" his Mona Lisa, let 'em. TM isn't a "paint-by-numbers" area like Riverside Garbage Dump is.....
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gunsmoke
Mountain climber
Clackamas, Oregon
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I don't think anyone is telling the FA that they can't do a "touch up."
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wstmrnclmr
Trad climber
Bolinas, CA
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Surprised this is getting rehashed.....
For me, Rick Acommazzo was the name of the slab game when I got into it. He, more then all the rest, climbed face in the style I aspired to...He helped invent hard slab in a style that is still largely unsurpassed and sadly is fading from the climbing radar: That of a quiet (I didn't get the ego hit from past history) person (used 'person' for DMT) climbing ground up, drilling from the most hideous aid less stances (think about it the next time you stand in the "hole" on GBG on Royal Arches Apron and clip the bolt. Let go with two hands when you do it.), and acquiring the skill, both mentally and physically to put up some of the most beautiful slab/face climbs in history under a wonderful ethos. One where he used his skill not to one up his fellow climber but to push his personal limits for adventure and, at the same time, respecting the rock. He covered these aspects in his nicely written OP. And TM holds this style of climbing above all else. It's why I go back year after year.
I think the Chicken is unique and is being singled out because the first two pitches offer safe accessibility to the many while the top two pitches do not. There are not that many climbs in TM of this nature although there are certainly numerous 5.7x pitches. The top out of Black Bart (ya, the one where it says "4th class"), the first pitch of Rawl Drive now that the added retro bolt has been removed and many others. But those climbs are never done because all of the parts are serious. And tell me of a like Rick Accommazzo route with an ease equal to any of the Chicken in TM? Guardians of the Galaxy surely is not it! Climbed also with Jim Wilson. So the Chicken maybe unique to him and I can see why it's hard not to open up the whole thing. To let others not up to the original intent, experience some of that genius......and ethos. But there in lies the rub.....for to bolt it would erase all that.
He is as large a reason as any as to why I still play that lovely game he helped create and why I hope he doesn't change the Chicken.
As to less talk: I'm surprised to learn that old bolts still exist? Ed? One of my favorite past times was to lead then replace old climbs that weren't easily accessible. Stopped due to wanting my own adventures. But not much work if the original line stays. If there's still old bolts because they're hard, for whatever reason, to get to (surprised Clint and the gang hasn't gone there. Maybe they're waiting on a final decision?), I'd be happy to replace with ASCA gear. They would supply only replacement bolts and not retro.
Edit: I've never climbed it so, if the old line stays, I'd be happy to re-bolt. But If RA wants to retro, I'll never climb it. Skipping bolts is not the same.......
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I don't recall if the p3 anchors are "new" bolts, I'm pretty sure they weren't 1970s vintage, and I thought Greg said that he had replaced those bolts on some ASCA expedition up there.
I certainly left the bolt kit in the car on that outing...
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Karin Wuhrmann and I replaced the third pitch anchor in 2003, I'd replaced the first pitch in '99 with a guy from an AAC gathering with an ancient rack (although I think there was one good/modern bolt at the anchor already? I'd have to go check my notes - the pro bolt was definitely a sketchy 1/4" with a spinning homemade hanger).
We approached from above after replacing Chicken Little (so not super far above, you can wander around up in those upper pitches pretty easily). We actually climbed the first two pitches of Super Chicken then cut left to the ledge which is even with the start of the third pitch (maybe 20' up then left), that's how we fixed the line to work on Chicken Little.
After we replaced that 3rd pitch anchor we continued up, I remember a super fun jug haul knob pitch up high up there, but it was optional, not the easiest path (e.g. 5.7 jug knobs instead of taking 5.0 crack/ramp)...the cracks up there tend to be a bit vegetated.
The upper pitches of Chicken Little (off that ledge) were kind of sketchy, not steep but a fair bit of laybacking with not much pro and a lot of lichen.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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I have some FA's in Yosemite from the 70's that I would dearly love to see you styling in the FA character.....read, no cams.
It's tragic seeing you on the wrong side of this, being intentionally obtuse, just because you're miffed to have been called out on your elitism. Pity. You're in with strange bedfellows now!
You know the argument I'm making, and you've done climbs that I'm sure you don't think should be made ADA-compliant. But, because I pissed you off, you now just want to fight in the most ridiculous way.
You KNOW that cams vs. no-cams is entirely irrelevant to a discussion regarding the PERMANENT alteration of an existing route to dumb it down to some arbitrary level of "fun" or "accessibility."
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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What about non-clean aid climbing?
Is that acceptable? How many once proud A5s are now lowly A2s?
Now, to my mind, THIS is a much more substantive consideration.
I do believe that we've got a consensus that clean is better wherever possible, as it halts the progress of permanent rock-alteration. As technology allows a given section to be done clean, it is better to do it clean.
Our present example, however, would be more like an aid route that originally went clean, has been repeatedly climbed clean, and then a significant proportion of the climbing community start moaning and wringing its hands: "It's too dangerous clean! People can get hurt or even killed doing it clean. It needs pitons and maybe bolts as well."
That's a better analogy in the aid realm.
Furthermore, A5 classics like, say, the Sea of Dreams, did not get dumbed down via more and more pitons. The Sea got dumbed down via flat-out drilling!
I led the Hook or Book pitch the fifth time it was ever done, and it was gripping. The middle portion of the pitch had a single #2 head in a shallow, NATURAL seam. I hated the sight of it. But I clipped it and moved on.
During Ring of Fire, Mark and I fixed ropes for a couple of pitches above Continental Shelf and our lines ran right over that exact spot. Several times rapping and jugging I marveled at how festooned in CRAP that spot was by then!
Instead of ONE natural head, there were at least half-a-dozen, all deeply and hugely trenched. So, Hook or Book got taken (by people that clearly had NO business being ON that pitch) from a real heads-up pitch to what amounts to several bolts worth of hardware drilled into it at a crucial spot.
The people doing all that trenching had NO business there. The minute you're pulling out the drill to make that FIRST trench where there was none before, you HAVE to realize that you have failed. So, now, having failed, what do you do?
IMO, you have ONE legitimate non-drilling option: You lower back to the Shelf from that upper rivet, and you pull your rope through your gear, calling that gear a sacrifice for not dying and NEITHER dumbing a route of that magnitude down to your level. Either stand on the one natural head, or get out of there. What you DON'T do is trench a new protection head.
But, obviously, multiple losers couldn't be content with even one HUGE trenched head! They had to add more. And more.
When you're on A5, you should be prepared to die. That's what A5 implies. If you find at the crucial moment that you don't have the huevos, you get out of there by any means that doesn't permanently alter the route.
But, really, there's nothing more to talk about on this thread. Too many here have adopted the pansy-a55ed, nanny-state mentality: Make it safe. Give me a safety net. NOBODY should have to endure the consequences of their decisions. We'll just dumb it down to the lowest common denominator and call everybody a "winner."
And when the likes of Jim Donini are in bed with this pathetic mentality, I'm just too discouraged to keep up the fight.
Alllllllrighty then. Bye bye now.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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high dudgeon on a thread about a ~100' 5.7X pitch..
maybe a bit of perspective?
it's sort of why I decided I'd go give it a spin, there are still very few posters here who have been up there and done the route. So whether or not it should be re-equipped is speculation for most of the posters here.
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wstmrnclmr
Trad climber
Bolinas, CA
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Aww Greg! I should have guessed! You've been gone and I forget all the great hard work you've done! The Chicken was/has always been popular so never really interested me but if the rock's as good as the few say.....We miss you in TM....
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WBraun
climber
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The minute you're trenching heads means there's nothing there anymore and you've crossed the line.
Of course, everyone's line is moved at will all over the place.
The more you trench heads on a pitch the more the line is not giving.
When the line stops giving and one starts trenching heads you've entered stooopid ......
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Mar 10, 2017 - 01:40am PT
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I have some FA's in Yosemite from the 70's that I would dearly love to see you styling in the FA character.....read, no cams.
I've been arguing for years that we need to enact a 'National Cam-Free Day' so kids can get 'hands-on' insights and understanding into their history, heritage and the evolution of their sport. Hell, it's fun! It's easy! Just leave those cams at home for a day and go climb a classic line or two at your nearest crag. Think about it! History is right there in your grasp for the taking!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 10, 2017 - 08:35am PT
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people have the right to be disrespectful
Thank you for the post.
Yes, they have the right. But when they exercise it, it's not worthy of respect or emulation.
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