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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Mar 10, 2017 - 08:59am PT
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Ideologues only have the power of their voice. If you chose not to listen their walls of text are meaningless. Every person who ever climbs that route gets to decide anew, once more, just as the FA did... to bolt or not.
More skeptical commentary from our other staunchly post-modernist ST'er.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 10, 2017 - 09:25am PT
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Remember Kev, we are only beating this mule because they both at one time or another have considered adding some bolts to this pitch in question themselves.
Not true. That's how this thread started. But it quickly turned into a discussion of retro-bolting in general, with you yourself making sweeping statements about making routes safe and accessible.
For my part, I'm arguing against such general assertions, because I don't want to see Woot-boy's perspectives get the SLIGHTEST respect or affirmation.
If the FA team decides to retro-bolt their own route (which implies an "ownership" that most here don't agree with), that's a pity, imo. But even that's a FAR cry for the sort of sweeping encouragements of retro-bolting that you yourself have offered. And if the FA team doesn't "own" the route, then even they should not get a pass to retro-bolt it.
Don't worry. I sleep just fine. But I'll also devote some time now and then to decry the endless dumbing-down, "everybody's a winner" crap.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 10, 2017 - 10:23am PT
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Who knew you two were flip-sides of the same coin?
Now, that's a LOW blow and unjustified. LOL
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 10, 2017 - 11:44am PT
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Well now, that is something for you to think about, isn't it?
No, actually it's not. It's absurd and obviously so.
I find "arguing" with you tedious and worthless. I won't acknowledge you in the future. You just love to argue, and your "arguments" are always moving targets. Just a waste of time.
There's a simple principle here: Don't make permanent alterations to the character of existing routes to make the "safe" or "accessible." It's been a respected and acknowledged principle for too many decades to count, and that's because it preserves the core value that motivates climbing itself.
However, there's a growing body of "climbers" that don't acknowledge or outright deny either the core value nor the principle that preserves it. You yourself have repeatedly and on multiple threads advocated for this "safety" and dumbing down.
I'm not going to allow the Woot-boys of the climbing community to believe that they enjoy sweeping respect and approbation, because their perspective is neither respectable nor worthy of respect. And there are MANY of us that see this "movement" for what it is.
I have NO interest in "enforcing" anything. People are going to do whatever they wish, and there's no "law" about it. I personally don't care what happens to "my" FAs at this point. But, neither am I going to applaud the Woot-boy movement; instead, I will decry it as lame, weak, pathetic, and not worthy of any respect.
You remain: Often wrong; never uncertain. I'm done with you.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 10, 2017 - 07:56pm PT
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I tried....
I've tried too.
I've said that I don't give a rip what happens to WoS or any other route in the specific. That's not what my perspective is about.
But when you start equating my perspective with that of "persecutor" or equate what I'm saying here with slander in the face of piles of objective evidence, you've totally lost me, and I don't see "trying" in that sort of absurdity.
What Grossman and I do have in common is a genuine belief in some core principles that we believe define what climbing is. Now, you'll immediately say, "Well, yes, for YOU," thereby relativizing the statement. I'll return to that in a moment.
Where Grossman and I part company is, I believe, not regarding the principles themselves but upon his (at least past) perspectives about how to "prosecute" those that he thinks are not abiding by them.
I have zero interest in "punishing" the likes of Woot-boy. I have publicly decried and tried to dissuade those who have strongly advocated for kicking his a55 until he stops! I have NEVER defamed him. I have referred directly to his OWN statements on threads he himself has frequented, and I have told him that I disrespect the tactics HE HIMSELF has said that he employs and the principles by which he decides to employ them. If you can equate that approach in ANY way with the sort of tactics employed by Grossman regarding WoS, then that is flatly absurd.
Same thing with "Look Out! Weak Sauce!" I went there. I did the route. I reported on what I found. I reduced the total hole-count by about 2/3. And I decried the tactics employed by the FA team and the obviously sponsorship-motivated hype surrounding that botch job. Here's why....
If the FA team had said to the world, "Hey, we just put a bashie ladder all the way up the Titan. We drilled a big bashie hole every eighteen inches, because we didn't want to leave the third or fourth step of our aiders. We then jerked most of our bashies back out, blowing open the holes into almost useless flairs. We don't even rate the route because it's almost entirely one drilled hole after another. But, if you're into redrilling hundreds of holes to do your own bashie ladder, it's a 'fun' route!" Hey, in that event, I'd just shake my head and think TO MYSELF, "Wow. Okay. To each his own, I guess. But I don't think it's 'climbing,' and I don't respect it."
But, no. They claim an A6+ rating, hype it as the hardest thing ever done in the world, and claim that they set an entirely new standard of what "climbing" even means. THEN when the observed and documented truth comes THAT wildly apart from the hype, yes, I've publicly expressed my disappointment and even disdain for the hype and ridiculousness of the whole enterprise. Again, that bears zero correlation with what happened surrounding WoS.
So, I would say that as far as I can tell, I totally agree with Grossman's ideas regarding what "climbing" really means. But I part company regarding tactics of "enforcement" and the willingness to ignore evidence or even do the route to which I'm referring.
Yes, you lost me at the point of your superficial comparison. And my angst about Woot-boy and his tactics (that are more and more accepted and even applauded) has exactly zero to do with "What will become of my routes?" I honestly don't care about that. I don't need idols there in perpetuity to make me feel "awesome" or anything like that. I've got a good life, a wonderful, beautiful wife who loves me, and I sleep well at night.
That said, I do believe in some objectivity regarding what "climbing" implies, so I do bridle at this perpetual relativization.
You can DO whatever you want, and you can CALL it "climbing" all you want, in the same way that modern artists can draw a single broken line on a white canvas, entitle that "masterpiece" something like "Dead Snake On Road," and call it "art," as if they are doing "the same thing" in principle as, say, Rembrandt. But there is an objectivity to art as well: Some is "better," and some is "worse." Some "efforts" don't even rise to the level of being "art" at all. There is more to art than "making a statement." And there is more to "climbing" than "moving upward."
I don't expect to convince any of you in that brief paragraph. It would take its own WoT to even START the arguments needed, and most of you would doze off. In that sense, these "discussions" are futile, because they cannot really be rigorous.
But it's the fashionable relativism about "climbing" that I keep kicking back against. Again, DO whatever you wish, and CALL it whatever you wish. But I won't/can't agree that just anything (including the Wootification of existing routes) is respectable or even, in some cases, "climbing" at all.
Another WoT. Couldn't help myself.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 10, 2017 - 10:36pm PT
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Frankly, I find you entirely baffling. It is basically impossible for me to engage with you, despite what I sometimes take as your sincere desire to do so, because I find no consistency in either content or tone.
You say things like, "Try assuming the best of others and it will go further I think you will find." But that sentiment is surround by sarcasm and your own misreading of me, such as: "Jeez, Richard, that is a lot of hyper-ventilating over a 110' of 5.7, isn't it?" And: "I think Western Civilization can withstand the assault." And more.
You are confident to "assess" my perspectives with (ridiculous) lines like, "What you share with Grossman is assuming the worst of some...." Ironically, you don't see that you are doing the same thing with that very sentence.
So, we can argue 'till the cows come home about who is doing what to whom, or who is "like" whom. It's all moot. Communication in general (not just written) is tenuous business at best. And for it to have ANY hope requires mutual belief in good faith. I haven't found that in your posts that "engage" with me.
I've reread all of your posts on this thread, and I remain unable to find a clear theme other than that the FA team should do whatever they think best. But that (pretty unhelpful) idea is surrounded in talk about routes being like languages, needing to be used to be live, and that a 5.7x isn't a route that's going to be "used" much, which strongly "encourages" retro-bolting. And you do quite clearly encourage the FA team to add some bolts, because they'll "probably" enjoy more "satisfaction" if the route was being "used."
I've argued that retro-bolting is retro-bolting, regardless of who does it. And many here have argued that the FA team doesn't "own" a route; they are no more entitled to retro-bolt a route than anybody else. You've not responded to any of that that I can see.
You decry Sloan for "erasing history," but then you encourage this particular FA team to (years later) do the same thing. I see no principles and no consistency.
The totality of what I can interpret is that you applaud some retro-bolting by somebody, provided that the FA team does... what? On that point things get VERY murky!
For retro-bolting to be legit, does the FA team have to DO the retro-bolting? Do they have to simply agree that it be done? Do they have to merely not disagree? If they don't come to any decision for... well, how long?... THEN it can be made a "living route" again, by somebody (apparently not Sloan)? How "finished" does the "painting" have to be before even the FA team shouldn't be messing with it? Are some routes just not worthy of this sort of consideration, so pretty much anybody can do anything to them later? Such routes are really not "history" enough to "protect" from "abominations" like what Sloan would do to "fix" them up?
Frankly, I have genuinely tried to interpret you with charity, and I can't find anything but a moving target. Your statement that Sloan is engaging in abominations is the first clear statement of that sort I've seen. But, as you see just above, the implications of that phrase are still wide open.
And, really, "abominations"? Aren't you now as "over the top" as me? What a wild and woolly term! WILL Western Civilization survive after all? (I hope you see my point here.)
You see, I find it frustrating trying to engage with you because you engage in unwarranted (to my mind) sarcasm and apparently intentional hyperbole to straw-man MY perspectives. But then you employ phrases like "abominations" that are apparently okay only if YOU use them.
Don't, then, say that I'm being like Grossman by "assuming the worst of some." I have sincerely tried to read you with charity, but I can't make heads or tails out of what you really believe, other than that in various threads you seem quick to disdain my perspectives.
Worse, to my mind, is that you choose Grossman quite apparently as a way to get my goat, but what you apparently don't realize is that I don't see Grossman as the "great Satan" you must think I do. I respect his climbing resume, and I believe that I share his core passion and principles in general. (I'm sure we could debate endlessly about the details.) I think that Grossman went to the "dark side" regarding "punishment" and his still, to my mind, strange inability to assess the evidence regarding one route. But I can see how in another life we might even have been friends, and I do NOT see him as some exemplar of evil!
And so, yet again, what you really mean to say strikes me as opaque, and I can't benefit from any of your "advice" because its premises seem so murky or wrong-headed to me.
The line that "this written medium is very imperfect for communicating how we feel" doesn't go far enough. The situation is far worse than that. This entire forum venue encourages snippy, little, snide, drive-by-shootings of "comments" that often convey little or no propositional content and that are rife with potential for misinterpretation.
If you want to live by your own admonitions, quit straw-manning me with lines like "I think Western Civilization can withstand the assault." I don't take you to be seriously trying to engage and be charitable when I've observed your repeated posts on various threads to be of that sort. When you "engage" at that level, you're begging me to not take you seriously.
I've responded seriously to your latest post. If there's any common ground regarding retro-bolting, great! But I honestly don't know how to interpret you, which is not for lack of trying.
I'll sum up by saying that I honestly do see retro-bolting as an attack on what climbing IS. Because I care about climbing, deeply!, I care to decry any even oblique encouragement of that practice that I see. However, what I've said just now, in that past couple of sentences, is as far as I'm going to go! I'll have no part in "punishment" or defamation. To the extent that a retro-bolter doesn't care about respect, s/he can't be touched by an expression of lack of respect. In that case, nothing more can be said or done, imo. And my preference would be to leave even a one-pitch 5.7x with the "risky" character established by the FA.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Mar 11, 2017 - 05:47am PT
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In recognition for outstanding achievement in elite level WOTing.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 11, 2017 - 07:48am PT
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And as far as erasing one's own history by such movement of fixed protection I think it is entirely up to the FA, and well within their prerogative, to do so. Its their own history. That is very different from Sloan power drilling bolt ladders around an A4 traverse on a Kor/Schmidtz/Madsen route (ie Great Slab) that I feel is yes, an abomination, in the same sense that adding bolts to Southern Belle or the BY would be, ie dishonoring the life's work of friends/historical figures that have passed on for Sloan's own edification.
I think that we're closer that it initially appeared. I'm not looking for "black and white answers." I believe that the principles involved are better thought of as resulting in a spectrum.
We're apparently agreed that Woot-boy is at one end of that spectrum. At the other end is ALL parties leaving the character of an FA alone. Somewhere near that end would be the FA team recently after an FA doing some "fix up work". And I do lean toward the idea that a route is much like a painting.
Taking that idea a bit further, imagine a famous artist donating a painting to a public art museum. Now she no longer "owns" the painting in ANY sense. It is neither "owned" by the art museum; if anything, the museum holds the piece in trust, ensuring that it can be enjoyed by the public, who more "own" it than any other entity. But the museum does "hold" and "protect" it for the enjoyment of the public.
Imagine now that the artist approaches the museum a few days after the donation (the paint is barely dry) and says, "I've thought about one section quite a lot, and I was never really satisfied with it. Could I have a couple of hours with the painting to redo that one section? Then I can call it 'finished' and be content."
Surely the museum will grant this.
By contrast, if years later the artist approaches the museum with the same request, they would (I believe rightly) decline that same request. As time passes, "what" that painting "is" becomes more and more fixed. And as that happens, even the artist loses the "right" to modify "what" the painting "is".
And, at ANY point, the museum would not grant to just some other artist (or person off the street) any access to modify the painting.
I think of "the climbing community" as much like the museum. "We all" sort of "own" a route once it becomes "publicly granted." And we all lose something of significance when even "less important" paintings are later modified, particularly when modified in such a way as to make them "more accessible." We NEED paintings that might not be "master works" but that nevertheless cause us to stand and stare, grappling with the meaning and implications, as we try to understand our own natures.
Woot boy runs roughshod through our museum, vandalizing our collective possessions, and we are justifiably angered by the loss. By contrast, the FA team (even perhaps years later) seems to us like the "better" candidate to "fix up" the original. Although, as I say, the more time that passes, the less likely I am to want to see even that. And I am most deeply suspicious of modifications that "make accessible" the harder paintings.
I hope that this sort of scenario can somewhat capture what my intuitions are regarding the "ownership" of a route and the "rights" that ANYBODY has to modify its character later.
Thanks for your post.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Mar 11, 2017 - 04:22pm PT
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Reading comprehension issues again. I don't think that I have to defend the bold nature of some of my FA's. I have always believed that bold leads should be respected.....the B/Y is a sterling example. The hypothetical that I presented was that a 5.7 unprotected lead by an elite climber is NOT in any way a bold lead for that person. Does that mean that the pitch should be left unprotected so that it is now out of reach for the very climbers who would appreciate it most? Think about it. I am talking hypothetically here and not addressing any particular climb.
It has been stated on this thread that the STYLE of the FA should always be respected. In 1974 I did an FA sans cams (they didn't exist) which required a 40 plus ft. runout on difficult ground. Dale Bard tried it a week later and took a 70 ft. fall. That climb,Overhang Overpass, had only one repeat (by John Bachar) until cams were available and the runout was tacken out of the equation. Does the style of the FA mean that all subsequent parties should leave their cams behind?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 11, 2017 - 04:54pm PT
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Does the style of the FA mean that all subsequent parties should leave their cams behind?
You're the one with the reading-comprehension issues.
I, for one, have repeatedly said that a route should not be ALTERED, that its character should not be DRILLED-DOWN to some arbitrary level. We've gone all over this ground, including a discussion about how pitons can permanently alter the character of a route.
There is no ALTERATION of a route in what sort of CLEAN protection a climber does or does not use. The ROUTE remains exactly the same regardless of whether a particular ascent uses cams, nuts, or nothing at all.
This thread has nothing to do with your cams/nuts scenario. The issue WE are discussing concerns permanent alterations to the ROUTE, not some "style" of this or that ascent that leaves behind no alteration of the route itself. We're talking about changing the route itself, not the style of some particular ascent.
Is this REALLY so hard for you to comprehend? Seriously.
I'm boggled that you are still whipping this entirely irrelevant point. Nothing about your (yet again, conveniently, "I was a bad-a55 back in the 70's") scenario has anything whatsoever to do with PERMANENTLY altering a route.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Mar 11, 2017 - 05:22pm PT
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Get a life.....maybe even go climbing.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Mar 11, 2017 - 05:47pm PT
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Not that it matters, or all the discussion here, but I agree with Donini over all the walls of text. Bolt that puppy so everyone can enjoy it. Its not like an intentional testpeice.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 11, 2017 - 06:07pm PT
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I agree with Donini over all the walls of text. Bolt that puppy so everyone can enjoy it.
More reading comprehension issues.
Donini is not advocating "bolting the puppy."
And, while you're making it so that "everybody can enjoy it," why stop at bolts? Put an escalator up the puppy. Those in a wheelchair shouldn't be denied the "enjoyment." It's not like the route matters. Right?
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Mar 11, 2017 - 06:32pm PT
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Right!
Without humans to climb it and communicate their impression their exists no routes on a piece of rock or mountain. Why not add a few bolts so average 5.9 climbers can enjoy it without streaking it in red and providing more labors for Werner.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Mar 11, 2017 - 07:11pm PT
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Why not add a few bolts so average 5.9 climbers can enjoy it without streaking it in red and providing more labors for Werner.
Simply because there's countless others just like it except for the risk-factor. And on this route, but with added bolts, they wouldn't be giving their impression of THIS route. They'd be giving their impression of one of the countless similar routes.
Why not leave THIS route with the unique character it does have? WHY do all routes of a grade need to attain a common-denominator?
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