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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Oct 23, 2015 - 07:32am PT
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Let's get back to some bolt chopping...
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overwatch
climber
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Oct 23, 2015 - 07:37am PT
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She obviously wants it bad
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Oct 23, 2015 - 07:50am PT
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That is the wrong power tool.
I made a concrete roto-hammer implement for my friend's ex-wife that was perfect.
True story.
His name was John FXstXr.
EDIT
I must be getting senile. It was a SAW-ZALL implement - concrete, old Saw-Zall blade, and a foot of 1.5" PVC pipe and a cap. The story was true, but I got confused about what power tool was involved.
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overwatch
climber
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Oct 23, 2015 - 07:55am PT
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Was she a contractor or....?
Pretty good one.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
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clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
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Oct 23, 2015 - 08:16am PT
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No, she was obviously marrying one. You know what they say about construction guys.
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j-tree
Big Wall climber
Typewriters and Ledges
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Oct 23, 2015 - 10:33am PT
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Big effing deal....only thing that gets "damaged" by bolts are Ego's......Rock actually can't be harmed or destroyed, only changed from one state to another (take a high school physics class if you don't believe me...).
I think this every time I'm in a rock quarry. Good thing nature is so constant and all the sand and dust and rubble is just as pristine for climbing as the pre-quarried state
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clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
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Oct 23, 2015 - 11:51am PT
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Sloan is making routes harder, Elcap Pirate?
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Oct 23, 2015 - 02:59pm PT
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The reason someone is up there in the first place is essentially to be sketched out. Nobody older than about 10 years goes to Disneyland, and gets on the Teacups baby ride. Similarly, nobody should go up on an El Capitan big wall, and find out that it's no longer Space Mountain - it's now that stupid Teacups baby ride.
The real issue isn't the quality of the bolt ladder, it is whether or not someone has the right to go up and dramatically change existing routes. The bolt ladders are invoked because they can readily be repaired to near-original condition rather easily. Retrobolting them with belay anchors is just one form of defacement that has been taking place up there.
If we don't talk about aid ladders being Nanooked today, we will be talking about popular free climbs being Nanooked tomorrow. It's already happening to some free pitches, right now.
If you want a bolt...add one
If you don't like a bolt...chop one.
As mentioned actions speak louder than words and bolts placed vs chopped will be the final decision on many particular climbs. However I hope there are always people that learn from discussions like these, like i have, and understand what climbing ethics and style are and why they are important. But there will also always be tone deaf people who can block out reasonable arguments so they can keep doing what they want and keep believing what they believe.
I don't believe that somebody should add a bolt to any route any time they feel like it. If a majority of climbers at an area want routes left in their current conditions. Fine, they should be. Or even if the majority want routes chopped and restored to the FA condition. On the other hand, if a clear majority truly want a baby Teacup ride (and there aren't any access issues with land managers) then I think the minority should respect that. Those that want to be sketched out can always find that if they want. Free solo, loose alpine routes, take up proximity flying, etc. Heavy use areas change over time. See SuperTopo guides vs the Roper guide.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Oct 23, 2015 - 03:34pm PT
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On the other hand, if a clear majority truly want a baby Teacup ride (and there aren't any access issues with land managers) then I think the minority should respect that. Those that want to be sketched out can always find that if they want.
Is is really "the minority" that doesn't want to see every Yosemite Valley route Nanooked down to Teacup ride status? I haven't seen more than few people posting here who advocate for that. Furthermore, real climbers, like Ammon McNeely and Eric Kohl, have said right here that they oppose retrobolting.
I don't give a rat's ass about Yosemite trade routes, like the Nose or Lurking Fear or Mescalito, TT, Zodiac or the Salathe. Those routes are obnoxious enough with so many people who leave their piss, poop and trash all over the place. Every time I have climbed El Cap, the worst parts were those few times the route shared pitches with a trade route.
Erik is nanooking even obscure, seldom-climbed routes. Who in their right f*#king mind thinks that the Great Slab Route needs to be commoditized, complete with bolt ladders bypassing piton cracks that a real climber, Layton Kor, used for the FA? The South Face and the Prow are right there, on the same wall, dumbed down for less-skilled climbers. Is the situation gotten so bad that modern climbers are so stupid, they might get lost on the Prow, wind up on the Great Slab Route, and need a bolt ladder to obviate a rescue by Werner's YOSAR crew? Good F*#king God! Stick with video games, you retarded little pussies!
If I go up to climb another obscure, non-trade route, I will probably find that it, too, has been totally Nanooked. Why? Why should every route be turned into the stupid Teacup baby ride? Because a Hell's legion of infantile, inconsiderate "progressive" shitheads have swarmed onto the climbing scene?
The idea that X is OK, therefore it can be extrapolated to Y, and then applied to the entire set of routes called "Yosemite Big Walls" is insane.
Not every Gumby is going to go up the Sheep Ranch, or Native Son, or Lost in America, or Continental Drift. But, even those routes are getting the Nanook-the-Kook retrobolt treatment.
Erik is making the routes better
Really? In what parallel universe?
Reality is a democratic process, and I see the votes being against him. Climbers who write books, who are widely respected, who have established new routes, and the majority of those who post here don't agree that retrobolting is acceptable. Maybe the situation is different in the Valley these days, with the "majority" now being those with no clue, no sense of history or tradition, no climbing skills, and no respect for other climbers.
This moronic, Drill-As-Fast-As-You-Can "modern" ethic is championed by the same type of idiots who spray painted all over the Mount Baldy Pipeline, and also spray painted the residential walls nearby. The cops came in and now the place is almost impossible to ride. The same thing happened at a concrete spillway on a ranch near my house - the owner was cool with us riding there, until some pre-Nanook kook sprayed LOCALS ONLY.
Do you young, modern, progressive climbers also go and sh#t in the public swimming pool? Or pour your oil-change pan all over the freeway? Or put broken glass in the sandbox? Just for the fun of it, do you chum with fish guts just outside the breakers at popular surf spots?
I wish that you young idiots would just stick to defacing your own bodies, and leave the rest of the world alone.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Oct 23, 2015 - 04:12pm PT
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A real climber is someone who can accomplish something new, or repeat someone else's accomplishment without resorting to drilling new holes to make it easier.
A real climber actually climbs a route. He doesn't drill new holes, to evade the route.
A real climber respects the rock and leaves it intact for other climbers.
A real climber understands the difference between the challenge of difficult climbing, and the non-challenge of drilling past difficult climbing.
A real climber values the experience of going up a route more than the experience of taking a summit selfie.
A REAL CLIMBER DOESN'T RETROBOLT EXISTING ROUTES TO MAKE THEM EASIER
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this just in
climber
Justin Ross from North Fork
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Oct 23, 2015 - 04:26pm PT
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^Obviously someone has never done a proper summit selfie.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Oct 23, 2015 - 04:44pm PT
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You're right. I've never taken a selfie, ever. And probably never will.
This photo was taken with a CAMERA (of all things) using a time-delayed shutter (WTF is a shutter?????)
Tom Randall, Pete Davies, Tom Kasper, Pete Zabrok
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Oct 23, 2015 - 05:25pm PT
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One thing that never changes, men get older and get more pissy and indignant, how dare they change things! Why when I was a young man, I used to climb El Cap with just a hammer and my nuts...
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Oct 23, 2015 - 05:35pm PT
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I'm miffed to not be included in Tom's list of "real climbers." I fit the established criteria, I think.
But, then again, I only think that I have hands. I'm not sure of very many things.
Except that retro-bolting is pussifying.
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The Hoosier
Big Wall climber
Bloomington, IN
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Oct 24, 2015 - 08:25pm PT
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*grabs popcorn*
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No Nickname Given
Social climber
Yosemite, CA
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Oct 24, 2015 - 09:38pm PT
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I haven't ever really spent much time on the boards, honestly being too busy climbing and hiking around Yosemite - internet is difficult to get around here! I'm also hesitant to add anything into a heated debate online because all I think this will get us is a load more NPS in our business. Oh have you all noticed those game cameras that have gone up on all the Yosemite climbing approach/descent trails?
That being said, I feel obliged to step in since everyone else Erik actually climbs and helps is like me and probably hasn't even seen this thread and I feel we should be represented. Full disclosure: I am also working on an updated free climbing select book with him. (A quick aside - God are we in it for the money! I know his big wall book is making him so much! And his website: raking in cash, it might just sell to Facebook. Sorry for sarcasm, I just thought that was one of the more egregious claims made on this thread is that a guidebook to rock climbing is some sort of pot of gold I think business 101 classes probably have a few things to say about the time spent versus fiscal return on that one.)
Anyways, I think Erik is a stand up guy (as do most who have actually met and carried on a conversation with him) and is generally as responsive in this thread as far as one can be with fifty or so opinions being bandied about with very little philosophic clarity or coherence. My contribution will be brief and speak to the points that I can specifically attest to in my first-hand interactions with the non-digital human Erik Sloan - again in contrast with most of this thread. I do this in hopes that it will clear a few misconceptions and rumors about what he has been teaching and advocating and also keep NPS from coming down on us as a community for the rumors being posted on a website.
First, Erik showed me how to hand place a bolt by demonstration and I can attest that it was terribly embarrassing to see how slowly my first hole went compared to the one that he made. I think those lobbing accusations about speed of drilling need to go out, drill a couple thousand and see how much quicker they go after practice.
Second, I can't say if he power drilled in the past, but he gave no indications that I should do anything like that or that he had.
Third, he showed me how and where bolts break, stressing that unusable old holes should be patched and new ones should be drilled- some were accusing him of leaving empty or poorly patched holes earlier in this massive thread? I know of very few people, climbers included, that care more about the Valley.
Fourth, he gave me some of his OWN bolts so that I could go up and replace some old anchors on the Apron. Anyone who climbs over there knows that there are some time bombs for sure.
So, the sum total of this disciple's instruction was relatively tame. No call to bolt up new faces or anything crazy.
Finally, I will add something that Erik said that perfectly captures what I like about him and his view of climbing. After I recently climbed the Nose for the first time, I was a bit dispirited about how long it took, how crowded it was, and the general malaise that hits you after a big wall. Erik told me not to stress. "You've started a relationship: you will come back to that route a hundred more times, you'll climb it with your wife, if you're lucky you can climb it with your kids." This is the attitude of someone who cares deeply about the Valley and climbs here, even if he differs from some of you all's specific feelings on ancient rivet ladders and bolts in the general.
I hope that Erik keeps his stoke in the face of internet vitriol and continues replacing those time-bombs, along with all you others who toil to replace bolts, ancient rivets, broken dowels. Your work is appreciated. Hope that everyone on this thread has a great time climbing at your local crags and come back to those Yosemite routes that you have developed a relationship with. Hell, if you think you remember the bolt count or placement of some dowels, rivets, or heads, come back and chop any extra bolts you see! Bring out the old topos. Not stirring anything up here, dead serious, do it. A call to arms, hammers, and aiders of the internet, come climb! We Valley locals truly love to see folks come back and climb after years away, even if it means a few bits of metal flying!
Send hard! (Especially all those nail-ups)
Cary
P.S. I probably won't be able to respond to any questions/comments/insults in the near future, as I will be out free climbing or working on the new guide. If anyone has any cool spots they've scoped free climbing that haven't been published and are fun, hit me or Erik up and we will totally come climb with you and put it in the book. Lets spread some good vibes up in the Valley and start climbing stuff!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Oct 24, 2015 - 10:03pm PT
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bandied about with very little philosophic clarity or coherence
The fact that you apparently don't "get it" is not a shortcoming of many posts on this thread that were both clear and coherent.
My contribution will be brief
Except that then it wasn't.
I don't personally take that to necessarily be a bad thing (LOL). But your non-brief post basically amounted to: "Erik has been really, really... really, ridiculously nice to me. So, he's a good, good man."
Sorry... that's not gonna get it! Being really, really nice to people as he trashes a wide spectrum of routes is neither an explanation nor an excuse for trashing a wide spectrum of routes.
As I argued above (with, I think, a fairly high level of "philosophic clarity"), retro-bolting routes is the antithesis of what CLIMBING actually is. It is non-climbing or anti-climbing. It guts the essence of WHY we climb in the first place.
However "nice" he is amounts to an utter irrelevancy to me in this context.
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couchmaster
climber
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Oct 25, 2015 - 06:11am PT
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Thanks Cary. Some of us do appreciate posts like yours that have a few facts in it. Erik has asked twice if anyone had climbed the route in question: ten days after, and I don't believe anyone who is bitching has since he did the bolt upgrade/replacement. That would weigh the most, much more than internet bitching.
Posts like your are why I like it here.
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Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
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Oct 25, 2015 - 06:45am PT
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couchmaster never end a sentence
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Let us know!