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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Topic Author's Reply - May 15, 2008 - 01:00pm PT
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Careful Atch, you're gonna have some takers!
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atchafalaya
climber
Babylon
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May 15, 2008 - 01:07pm PT
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haha, yea I know. I should stick to the photo threads...
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 15, 2008 - 01:12pm PT
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Jstan, sorry if I jumped down your throat a bit but It is not the first time a Gunkie has tried to tell me how climbing should be. I support the bolt ban at the Gunks. There is pleanty of good climbing there and you guys don't need bolts. Perfect. Now if you could do something about the car breakins, stolen packs, dog sh#t, trash, overflowing porta johns and crappy,noisy disgusting camping that would be nice.
Now if you had baned bolts at my local crag we would be without 50% of our limited supply of routs. It just is not fair to impose your rules on the rest of us.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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May 15, 2008 - 01:19pm PT
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Tradman wrote: There is pleanty of good climbing there and you guys don't need bolts. Perfect. Now if you could do something about the car breakins, stolen packs, dog sh#t, trash, overflowing porta johns and crappy,noisy disgusting camping that would be nice.
By Joe's reasoning it's sport climbers fault...even through it a trad-crag.
Edited
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 15, 2008 - 01:30pm PT
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Sorry, it's no one's and everyone's fault that there may sometimes be a mess at the Shawangunks. The cliffs are within weekend access of tens of millions of humans. There are probably thousands there every weekend. It's a suburban park, used by many more than climbers (of whatever sub-species), and there's no getting around it.
Population pressure almost always leads to more management. Sadly, all humans tend to make messes.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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May 15, 2008 - 01:40pm PT
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Atch-- If JStan is from "out of state," so is almost every other "Californian" posting on this site. He's been here longer than most of us.
And yes, "locals" are going to have to be the most active in dealing with (or suffering from) access issues wherever they may arise. Locals will be the ones actually placing bolts or pins or cleaning or doing most of the trail-building.
With National Parks and Forests, we reach a locale where the circle of invested "locals" is potentially much, much greater, and where land manager decisions have ramifications in a national context. And finally, whether we like it or not, we do have something like a national or even international membership. If you want to have anything like a democratic approach to climbing access, you will have to deal with all of those levels, from the most local and invested to the most abstract.
You don't have to agree with John, but he's one of the most important North American climbers of the last century, he's worked his ass off for the community and continues to, even though he could spend his time climbing and hiking and playing bagpipes. We don't need more hero worship. I don't like the abject groveling that follows each online appearance by Gill or JB, and the fact that Stannard was so much more important to climbing history than almost anyone else on this forum ever will be doesn't mean that you should all be worshipping his RDs, but he has earned some respect.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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May 15, 2008 - 01:44pm PT
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Anders...that has been my point from the start...it is a climbers issue and then it even goes beyond that.
Joe continues to try to make this a bolt/sport climber/gym climber issue and put fault squarely on their shoulders.
We are all at the core of it and need to band together to keep access and cliffs open to all climbing.
Jstan continues to use Facelift a example of good and what climbers can accomplished with a common goal...I agree...what he doesn't realize is that this type of behavior has been going on in areas across the US for the past 20-30 years on a daily basis. Grass roots activism is alive and well and and will continue to be that way as most climbers realized that that is proper path to take to take to insure success and not failure.
klk...though I respect John's efforts in the past, he by his own admission has been out of the loop for the past 25 years.
The Gunks was private climbing area managed by a trust. Public lands are much different as is the climbing population from 30 years ago. Bolts are not the issue as much as natural gear is the issue in Eldorado, the Gunks or Yosemite...it a people issue and how we deal we with other climbers, other users, land managers and our resources.
As to hero worship...you might want to read your post again.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 15, 2008 - 02:13pm PT
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Annother success story to be looked at is the Rumny Climbers Association. They experienced their own growing pains not the least of which was a spate of bolt chopping and an outright closure. The RCA worked with the forest service to address the issues and restore climbing privleges. Now Rumny is an official climbing park with decent bathrooms, trails and parking. Rumny is not perfect but it is pretty darn good considering how may users get to share the resorce. Some folks hate the fee system but personaly I don't mind the $20.00 a year if the money goes back into the park system and not the general fund?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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May 15, 2008 - 02:22pm PT
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Bob--
My judgment of Stannard's importance for climbing history is hardly unusual. His position rests partly on his technical contributions in what was then one of the most competitive arenas in North America, but also on his role in the Clean Climbing Revolution. For me, as a professional historian with a side interest in the internal history of climbing, what makes a particular moment or event or individual historically significant has little to do with who climbed what number when and more to do with moments in which changes in climbing overlap with other, bigger, and more conventionally "historical" moments. The example here is the convergence of technical rock climbing and the environmental movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. Stannard was one of the most visible of the many folks who were important at that crossroads.
And for both political and professional reasons, I am deeply suspicious of cults of personality. I've been friends with John for a long time now, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything he says. Nor do I have to agree with everything Tom Higgins says on here, but his lifetime investments in our stupid little sport, too, mean that I do read what he says fairly carefully even though I've never met him.
Maybe John's experience with clean climbing and land management issues in upstate New York don't translate well to Yosemite in the 21st century. Maybe he's way too optimistic about the possibilities of the Facelift. Maybe he's too generous in his insistence that we should try to create a community in which we have at least polite respect for the opinions even of the driveling bumblies and random anonymous avatars who people this god-forsaken corner of the tubes. And I'm sure that you and he have history that drives your exchanges in ways that aren't visible to the rest of us on the forum. But yes, I do weigh the opinions and judgments on this site differently, measuring them by my opinion of the speaker, by their investment, and by their ability to say something that has actual content even when I don't agree with it.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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May 15, 2008 - 02:35pm PT
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klk...John and I have very little history other than I admired what he climbed in the Gunks and repeated a number of his routes. We had several mutual friends in the Gunks in the 70's.
We took separate paths after that.
The clean climbing style took hold in the early 70's and was embraced by several leading climbers at the time...Jim Erickson, Roger Briggs, Pat Ament in Boulder, Jimmy Dunn and Earl Wiggins (and others) in Colorado Springs, Mike Roybal in NM (one of my early mentors), Doug Robinson, Robbins, Chouinard and many othesr in Yosemite, Steve Wunsch and John Bragg as cross country climbers, Henry Barber as a world traveler and other climbers across the nation who welcomed and embraced that style. It was a collective decision by many and not just the few.
Funny but I always considered the Gunks one of first first sport climbing areas as many of the older aids routes were freed with the aid of fixed protection.
Maybe if John traveled and saw the grass roots projects going on in the last 20-30 years at various climbing areas around the US he would realized that things are happening just the way he wants them too here on Supertopo.
Edit: Pointing fingers will get us nowhere...fast. What will get somewhere as it has been proven in many climbing areas across the country is getting off our asses and be proactive!
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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May 15, 2008 - 02:47pm PT
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Bob--
Yes, the clean climbing movement was a cultural phenomenon. I am delighted to see that you don't share the standard sense of history as the actions of a handful of Great Men. Great Man history remains the default narrative for the general public, even though it's been dead in my guild since the 19th century.
And the edit key-- I have trouble keeping up with your posts because you edit them as I'm typing. When you edit a post, can you simply add a note to the text (i.e., "EDIT"). I'm asking this not because I think it's cheating or a typographical analogue to rap-bolting, but simply because folks who read this thread hours later, after work or climbing, say, are more likely to get lost without understanding that the post was later revised.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Topic Author's Reply - May 15, 2008 - 02:57pm PT
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"typographical analog to rap-bolting"
Good one!
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Broken
climber
Texas
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May 15, 2008 - 03:07pm PT
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Difficult, this whole civilization thing.
On the one hand, I agree with Ed Abbey and his railing against the development of wild places.
Upthread somewhere, BobD said "joe are you against handicap access to trails and wilderness areas just because it make it easier for those folks to gain access to other wise not accessible terrain?
A simple yes or no please...."
Ed Abbey criticized roads that lead to the edge of the Grand Canyon and suggested that all roads stop one mile away and people be forced to walk that last mile. And he acknowledged that some old people wouldn't be able to make it. To this, he said (paraphrase) "they had their chance when they were young."
Seems heartless, eh?
And yet... part of this whole debate (land use, trad v sport, etc) involves this: Everything is not/should not be/cannot be for everyone.
And so my answer to BobD's question is both yes and no. There should be some handicap access, but that is not a priority. Wild lands are what they are and we are what we are. We should strive to minimize altering them to suit our own limitations.
And I speak as someone who had a bad accident a few years ago that limits where I can go on foot. There are plenty of places I would have gone if I'd not gotten hurt that I cannot go to now. That is ok. Everything is not for everyone.
Increased development equals increased traffic. Admittedly, different areas require different levels of management due to their position near population centers or the "drawing power" of certain "attractions".
I had this debate a few weeks ago with my sister, who works for the National Parks Conservation Association. We argued about conservation vs. public "enjoyment". I found myself closer to Abbey's position than not. But I wondered how realistic it was. I wondered if my position would limit the number of people who ventured into wild land too severely. Because if you shrink the base of users enough, then your advocacy is too weak to get anything done. You cannot preserve something if too few want it preserved.
So you compromise.
BUT - I wonder... if we strive to preserve, perhaps fewer people do utilize a given resource. But perhaps those are more passionate about it than the increased number who would use it if it were more developed. And so maybe the advocacy of those comparatively fewer voices can be just as powerful? For it is a very different experience to walk through a forest than to drive through a forest. Must we always cater to those who wish to drive?
I truly don't know.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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May 15, 2008 - 03:26pm PT
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Broken wrote: And so my answer to BobD's question is both yes and no. There should be some handicap access, but that is not a priority. Wild lands are what they are and we are what we are. We should strive to minimize altering them to suit our own limitations.
Good post.
I am not asking for every square yard of wilderness areas to access by everyone but that different people have a right to see and feel wild areas...handicapped or not.
Coz wrote: All you guys calling each other names, are missing the point. It's not how you climb it is how you respect the land. Sorry, but if we do not manage ourselves, the park service and land managers will.
Wow..funny coming from someone who called Sean and Doug rapist and other choice words.! You might want to lead by example.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 15, 2008 - 03:34pm PT
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One unique thing about the FaceLift, compared to other climbers' voluntarism. 90% or more of the volunteer days at the event are by non-climbers, and probably 99% (or 99.9%, or 99.99%) of the messes that are cleaned up are from non-climbers.
Yes, in the general sense, Yosemite is still our backyard. But the FaceLift is one of the relatively few climber-inspired events that primarily benefit non-climbers.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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May 15, 2008 - 03:54pm PT
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Coz wrote: Find the line where I called them rapist. I said I thought what they did was rape. Still do. Their actions Bob not who they are as humans, big difference.
I guess we are all human Bob, and you are perfect?
Well if they raped something and that was their actions then they and are rapist...wouldn't you agree?
No I'm perfect and would be the first to admit even through my wife beats me to the punch sometimes.
Later, Bob
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Topic Author's Reply - May 15, 2008 - 04:06pm PT
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Pay no attention to the weak wrist behind the bridge abutment.
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scuffy b
climber
watching the flytrap
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May 15, 2008 - 04:17pm PT
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Coz refers to GU as a power-drilled, rap route.
I assume this is a slip. I had not heard that
power drills were involved.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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May 15, 2008 - 04:21pm PT
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Coz...you are a little behind on the name calling...others on this thread try that earlier with me and I responded. So if you can't take the heat...get out of the kitchen.
I can take heat.
It like water off a duck back.
GU will have a little more impact for sure to the base of HD...but one would tend to believe at the grade of 13a trad...it would be the few and far between that make the effort...so there goes your theory on that one. The upper pitches are different animal and can be access by the masses by the cables routes...so the socially impaired who take that route will have little to no impact and a lot fun.
Coz wrote: Ya, just a slip, I am sure they drilled all those fat bolts in a couple days by hand, your right my bad.
There you go Coz...making bullshit statements....you have been told by FA party what happened (the drilling took most of the summer) and you continue to try undermine Sean's effort.
Who the weird Dude!!
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