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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Lassitude 33
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Girdle traverses can be very cool and fully engaging routes [e.g., Bob's route on Sentinel West Face, I Can't Believe Its A Girdle, etc.] Dissing them is pretty weak.
That Snickers North Face traverse looks pretty good.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Interesting. I've never considered roped traverses. It does open up a lot of possibilities. Kinda scary when you think about protection for both the leader and follower.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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I'm down with a good girdle.
I think the longest route at The Needles area is a traverse of Dome Rock done by Herb Laeger and Patrick Paul. Fatima and the Quivering Thigh. I've never done it, but I understand it has some "committing" bits for leader and follower.
Nice work there Dino.
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Greg Epperson
climber
Joshua Tree
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Hooray!, this thread has been hi-jacked. Hey Dino, why don't you change this thread title to "Best Traversing Routes in Joshua Tree". Here's a candidate...
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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I thought I Can't Believe Its a Girdle was quite entertaining.
Especially climbing in pile jackets and toques on a very windy day.
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Highdesertman
Trad climber
jtree ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2017 - 11:35am PT
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Thats a good idea greg except for this. Only about ten weeks ago my friend shawn and I had been going to this nice little canyon crag I found. Only ten minutes from the road. Seemingly mostly unclimbed place. We went to this nice pristine clean and quite crag three weeks in a row. Didn't drill any bolts and didn't intend to. When we showed up for the fourth and probably last time we would climb there we were stunned to see jinkus anchors and random bolts literally every where. And in really weird places. None of the anchors had rap rings and were all cobbled together with cut webbing and old biners. Some bolts had twenty feet of tattered webbing attached to them. Anchors were drilled right next to the gear we had used to get down the week before. Only inches away! Thirteen bolts total. A complete travesty. Vandelism at its finest.It took me a while to put it together but with this incident and the bolts in the wash I can call it a coincidence no longer. They ran out of ideas and are following me around. Like ticks on a dogs belly I cant seem to shake them. I don't like this invasion of my privacy it really creeps me out.so I struck back by doing this. In only a couple weeks twenty five to thirty bolts went into these wilderness slabs. To many to fast. So now I've hired some professionals to set up motion detector cameras that are also calibrated to respond to the sound of drills in the wilderness. They will be trained on all rocks 20 - 40 feet high so as to catch the culprits at their dirty work. I can only hope this will help to slow them down.
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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Aren't 90% of rocks in Joshua Tree 20 to 40 feet tall? Thats a lot of ground to cover.
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kev
climber
A pile of dirt.
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Dude(OP), you're either a great troll or a weird MF.
If you've got an issue with the bolts go chop the sh#t and STFU.
Don't go to the park service.
Don't put cameras in the park. Is that even legal? Seems like you've just abandoned garbage in a national park.
And if you're gonna do something like that STFU about it.
You speak of an "invasion of you privacy" - WTF your in a f*#king national park AND YOU POSTED ON FACEBOOK AND THE WEB? Are you a complete moron? Do you own the boulders in question?
Also great that you were able to 'put across' a 5 pitch route - not sure i'd call that putting up a 5 pitch route - what you did takes a whole lot less commitment than going up.
What's your problem with slab routes?
How the hell do you know if they were power drilled and not a hand drilled GUFA etc?
Have you considered Vagisil for your problem?
Stop spraying and go deal with your issues.
kev
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kev
climber
A pile of dirt.
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Hey DMT - I think I need some cameras for a home security setup!
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FreeCoffee
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, CA
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Nov 11, 2017 - 03:45pm PT
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This discussion is really important and it's good that it is happening within the climbing community.
2cents from the ranger:
For your reading pleasure, please click on the link below:
https://www.nps.gov/jotr/planyourvisit/fixed_anchors.htm
In summary, bolting with a hand drill (for some reason) is allowed anywhere in non-wilderness without a permit. Remember though, 95% of JTNP is in designated Wilderness - and the boundaries aren't always obvious. For example, even though you can see and hear a road from Bird of Fire, all of Isle in the Sky and the nearby formations are in the Wilderness. The first tier on Saddle Rock (Walk on the Wild Side) = non Wild. 2nd and 3rd tiers = Wild. Establishing new routes in Wilderness - even with a hand drill still requires a permit. Replacing bolts in Wilderness is OK with a hand drill. (There are maps on the park website)
Not sure what Wilderness with a capital 'W' means, then check out this site: http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/WhatIsWilderness
Yes, many many bolted routes have been put up in recent years. Remember this though, bolt holes are forever. They permanently alter the rock and rock is a non renewable resource. The purpose of the park managing power drills is an attempt to slow the proliferation of holes; and it gives the park an opportunity to check for rare plants, rock art, and sensitive wildlife in climbing areas. These are valuable resources, too.
Please if you establish a route that requires bolts (fixed anchors in park lingo) use the best hardware possible, to lessen the need of replacing these bolts again in our lifetimes. Mixed metals rust faster. It's scary to see what the rebolting crew has been pulling out - rusty bolts that don't look rusty on the outside - it happens. (3 bolts failed in the park recently on Father Figure, Jane's Addiction, and most recently Sexy Grandma (the fixed piece) - thankfully, no injuries - all have been replaced).
Joshua Tree National Park may have over 10,000 climbing routes - perhaps the greatest concentration in the world. I estimate there are probably over 30,000 bolts on climbing routes already. Last year, the replacement team was able to swap out about 400 of them - which the park highly encourages. Not everybody has the skills, abilities, or time to do this work themselves; but we all benefit from it. Think about supporting HARP and STP - these folks have devoted several hundreds of tedious hours upgrading the hardware in this park.
Our permit process isn't perfect, but it is getting better. Something like 17 permits allowing the use of power drills to replace and place new bolts were issued this past year. Most times it takes less than a month to turn these around.
Many people use this park for many things, climbers are just part of it. Please continue to be considerate about the way you choose to spend your time here and think about the impacts you are leaving behind.
And on a sidenote: Hidden Valley Campground will remain first-come first serve this season. Thanks to all the climbers who wrote letters to the superintendent last spring.
Keep the conversation going.
Bernadette
JT Climbing Ranger
bernadette_regan@nps.gov
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Psilocyborg
climber
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Nov 11, 2017 - 08:07pm PT
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Chopping bolts is a breeze. I usually just lower some dynamite down and blow them up.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Nov 11, 2017 - 10:36pm PT
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FreeCoffee-
A well written response.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Nov 12, 2017 - 12:14pm PT
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locker
climber
Nov 3, 2017 - 11:38am PT
"So now I've hired some professionals to set up motion detector cameras that are also calibrated to respond to the sound of drills in the wilderness."...
Dude, I fuking HOPE you're kidding...
GUD god man, get a fuking grip!!!...
WOW!!!...
LMfukingAO!!!...
EDITED:
To be totally honest...
people that whine a lot (instead of taking real action) make me want to go out and do even more sh!t just to get them whining even more
HA!
Edit; now THAT IS some laugh my ass off funny sh#t....! Almost funny as locker diss'n Dino!!!!
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ryankelly
climber
Bhumi
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Nov 12, 2017 - 01:24pm PT
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close to trails sucks
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Nov 13, 2017 - 06:40am PT
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Uh Oh^^^
It's the FEDS!
EVERYBODY HIDE!!
:)
Thanks for the great post Bernadette.
PS: That motion camera thing is a joke?
....Right???
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Nov 13, 2017 - 07:32am PT
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Love the response from Bernadette. Thanks for taking the time to make a thoughtful and meaningful post.
As for bolting boulder problems, no respect for those dudes.
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thirsty
climber
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Nov 13, 2017 - 09:05am PT
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Perhaps it is time to admit that self policing isn't a sustainable way to manage climbing areas. There are too many climbers in most areas for them to function as a community capable of responsible self policing. There is no longer a consensus about what constitutes legitimate development or use practices. 30 years ago I knew everyone who was a climber in my area. Now I don't even know anyone who who knows anything about who is developing some of the new areas. Sometimes development now seems to mean retrobolting traditional sport or mixed areas to bring them up to gym style cragging standards (a bolt every 6-8 feet) and adding perma-draws and chains to every bolt that is even minimally inconvenient to clip or clean or at least leaving draws on such bolts all season, abandoning any attempt at camouflaging hangars, aggressive tree cutting and so forth.
Face to face discussions and thoughtful debate were great when they used to happen. They don't seem possible in most areas anymore. My local climber's coalition does not want to even try to host or facilitate debates about use and development because the majority of people who are involved with the coalition are afraid that local land managers would see the climbing community as dysfunctional, at odds with itself and therefore, incapable of being trusted with self regulation. If the newer climbers are not exposed to debate, maybe they never come to understand that even if they don't do any bolting, they each have an ownership interest in how crags are developed and used in order to protect both access and the quality of the climbing experience. Gyms teach a person to follow rules set by other people, not the responsibility to participate in taking ownership over how crags are used and helping to determine the rules that should be followed.
Internet debate and discussion about particular areas is obviously problematic in that it calls unwanted attention to areas and quickly becomes dysfunctional because of the lack of respect that comes with face to face meetings. Going to the authorities is almost always a bad idea, for the reasons mentioned in earlier posts. There are a few land managers who are competent and willing to work with climbers in setting reasonable use rules, but they seem rare. It doesn't seem like it is reasonable to expect most of them to take over managing details of climbing area development or use like where bolts are OK or figuring out how to stop the proliferation of chains and other perma-draws. More likely they would close more areas. We have never expected (or wanted) a land manager like the Forest Service to get involved with implementing and enforcing rules about things such as specific bolt placements.
So, here is one idea for doing something about it: Maybe it would be possible for local climbing non-profits to obtain limited control over sets of crags (just the rock face, the base and a little on top) through long term leases similar to those that the ski area operators obtain. While a private non-profit holding long term leases to a given set of crags might not be able to pay for professional crag managers to police areas on a daily basis, the organization could authorize representatives who are out climbing anyway to check in with other climbers to see that their annual passes are paid for and explain the regulations such as no music, no draws left on routes, no bolts next to removable gear placements or no bolting of new routes without running it by the organization first, and so forth... Most importantly, such representatives would have the authority to expel and trespass violators from the property in the same way that a ski area can expel people who violate their rules. They would be able to request law enforcement assistance with removing a trespassers who have not bought a pass or violated the rules. Liability protection for the non-profits could be legislated.
That idea has some obvious problems, but it would be great to see some suggestions as to how something like that might be made workable rather than just the easy criticisms. Or, if someone has a better idea, lets hear about it.
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jeff constine
Trad climber
Ao Namao
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Nov 13, 2017 - 09:13am PT
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Put up some photo evidence otherwise it's a TROLL.
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