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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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426, good enough and point well made, but exceptions to the "rule" do not the rule make.
stevep: it sounds as if you are advocating "the ends justify the means". In a gentleperson's sport, "fair" is the basics for style and ethics.
And yes, the term is broad and undefinable, yet each one of us knows exactly what it means to us personally.
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Double D
climber
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Doug:
I’m thinking back, way back, to the time(s) I’ve met you in Tahoe. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but you were older than me then…so you gotta be older than me now. So I’m just saying in my feeble brain, I’m impressed that you’re still tooling around anywhere that involves that much hiking, rappelling and the kind!
It sounds like you and Sean put up a damn fine route. Many classic face climbs were put up off of bolt ladders, Golden Bars, The Calf, Piece de Resistance, Mr. Toads Wild Ride and the list goes on and on. The fact is, 1st ascents are a lot of work and to a degree do serve the future generations. I only wish that I was a good enough climber to even consider climbing a route of this caliper.
Thanks for a lifetime of inspiration (and mis-haps!) derived from your articles.
Dave Diegelman
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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I'd bet that Hank sees his accident as a result of his choices, not Coz's, but who the hell knows.
I thought your were talking about responsability for what happens to people on repeats of your route as well?
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Nice post DD...the ones who were there and not blinded by a certain dogma understand what did and didn't happens!
Trad-climbing has it's share of "demons in closet".
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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I'm no one to speak for DR, but there is a possibility that there exists a subset of the climbing population that actually wants to see people get hurt or killed on "their" route.
Not I...
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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"After much deliberation and consideration, I have discovered the goal of rock climbing to be:
1) To flash your hardest problems.
2) To have you miserably fail on mine.
3) To become the object of sexual desire to your girlfriends."
Paraphrased from TS & PP after the FFA of The Salathe.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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k-man,
You know, the best comedy is so funny because there's so much truth hidden in it.
Your post is very funny.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Would this be a good time to have a discussion about the 'Great Canadian Knife', a climb in the Cirque of the Unclimbables established by PP and TS, with help from GR? I believe it involved full-on rappel bolting and cleaning, possibly even with a power drill. It's just outside Nahanni National Park, and so perhaps not subject to whatever limitations apply in the park in terms of such things. But it's undoubtedly in a full on wilderness.
The route was established (if you like, developed) about ten years ago, and I saw a presentation on it. I believe TS and PP thought it was a sort of futuristic climb - one way in which climbing in such areas might go. They also felt it couldn't be climbed in any other way. I haven't heard of a second ascent, although several parties go to the Cirque each year.
Dead end or futuristic?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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"Nice post DD...the ones who were there and not blinded by a certain dogma understand what did and didn't happens!"
"Trad-climbing has it's share of "demons in closet"."
Just when we might be turning a corner - POW! - out comes the 'revisionist history' card once again in an attempt to insinuate the exceptions were the rule.
To be honest, it's always a bit trying and tiring to see this sort of thing. And for a guy who claims to not watch Fox News, you keep using their methods. What's the deal, is this a matter of you needing our collective history to support your personal one? I got the impression you were completely comfortable with and proud of your history and role as they stood without resorting to such tactics.
Again, we didn't leap from pitons to bolts in a single breath and no one is saying that every line got put up clean - far from it - but nothing about those exceptions in total in any way detracts from what was accomplished. And the notion posted much earlier in the thread that all great routes were / are essentially hack jobs to one degree or another is equally the stuff of malodorous fabrication.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Joe wrote: To be honest, it's always a bit trying and tiring to see this sort of thing. And for a guy who claims to not watch Fox News, you keep using their methods. What's the deal, is this a matter of you needing our collective history to support your personal one? I got the impression you were completely comfortable with and proud of your history and role as they stood without resorting to such tactics.
Joe... what is trying is your constant belittling of anything related to bolts and climbers who use them. I am not blinded by romantic daydream about trad-climbers and their lofty better-than-thou approach to climbing...most of us who were pushing hard (myself included) were bending the rules/style of the day.
That is a fact!
Joe wrote: exceptions were the rule.
I never said that...I said some "demons in the closet"
Fact again...and if your up to task...prove me wrong.
I was there and I knew what happened...I'm not degrading anyone but being honest with what when on behinds the scene.
No group (trad, aid, boulderer, sport) should be throwing stones...they all live in glass houses.
Joe wrote: And the notion posted much earlier in the thread that all great routes were / are essentially hack jobs to one degree or another is equally the stuff of malodorous fabrication.
Joe...that quote was from Jim Erickson...one of the purest and finest free-climbers of the 70's. What he was saying is that sometimes you have to change your way of thinking to do a route that demands thinking out side the box. Using means that would be considered "dubious"...by those that adhere to a strict style.
Think Genesis in Eldo...Supercrack in the Gunks...Bachar-Yerian...and so on.
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Loomis
climber
Lat/Lon: 35.64 -117.66
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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DR said, "Two, by leaving such a route behind, the karma would be on our heads for anyone who did try to follow it, and fell off, and came back down maimed or in a pine box."
Melissa said, "Serious?"
DR said, "Yeah, Melissa. Don't you feel at least some responsibility for the fallout from your actions?"
I have done plenty of FA's that are very dangerous. Like many here on ST it was the way we did it back in the day. Minimum impact, that and the fact that the rock dictates how you can protect it while climbing ground up.
To think that the FAist is somehow responsible is not a reasonable line of thinking.
I offer this up with regards to that, people have gotten hurt on two routes that I did the FA of and those were not the R/X ones, they were sport routes that were adequately protected. On one the rock exploded around a bolt many years after the FA (in Arkansas), and on the other a loose rock came off nearly 15 years after the FA (Hellgate, UT).
Now as a caring human being I may have felt bad for those folks, I really did. But I also knew that it was not my responsibility.
This burden of trying to protect other climbers that come after you is a nice thought, but in practice is not possible. It typically is not the scary dangerous routes that hurt people it is the safe ones where mistakes are made and or something bad happens.
If you Doug are really concerned with protecting the next party then I would offer up that you are out of luck, there is not a way to do that.
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Rokrover
Trad climber
SB, CA
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Climbing ethics are a human construct so never absolute but rather defined by a culture evolved through precedence. In this context GU does not fit the established culture of SF HD routes. My opinion is based on pioneering 5.10 routes in the 1960’s with Rick White who later made the first Australian ascent of the Nose and Salathe. We were strongly influenced by Chouinard, RR, Doug Scott then Henry Barber, and struggled with the ethical transition from pins to nuts then anti bolt. Later I absorbed the clean climbing ethic of the ‘Gunks under the tutelage of jstan.
From this old-timer’s perspective I do not view GU as a logical evolution of climbing but rather an aberrant exploitation of rock already hallowed by a unique culture from visionary pioneers. As Reinhold Messner said – technology can conquer the impossible. The way of doing is more important than the result. Yosemite is diverse enough to support the broadest spectrum of climbing cultures and surely the SF of HD should remain a special place and example to the future of what is possible through man’s mastery of himself, not technology.
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Jacko
Trad climber
Grass Valley Ca.
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This is Halfdome people.The greatest most beautiful Rock on the planet..This is the place where Line's should be drawn.It should be a no brainer not to Rap Bolt this wall.I can't believe these 2 or 3 great climber's(and good guy's) wouldn't have expected a ShitStorm to follow their actions.Well I'm with the Shitstormer's, great job on the bottom half of the climb and I guess you know how I feel about the top..Climbing, is from the ground up......Jacko
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Note to rokrover and jacko.
The south face of half dome shouldn't be seen as some sacrosanct temple where nothing bad ever happened. Prior to Growing Up, there were only a few routes there. Karma and Southern Belle appear to have been to ground up with minimal bolting and damage to the resource. The first route, while ground up, has loads of holes in it, and the topo of Cataclismic Megasheer shows what appear to be two pitches of bolt ladder. Shouldn't those parties have waited until they could do routes with less damage to the rock, or not done them at all? Or is all the we care about going ground up? In that case, all hail the Compressor Route on Cerro Torre, I think that was ground up.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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golsen, apples and oranges. The folks that got hurt were on sport routes and things happened that were more or less out of your control as the first ascentionists.
But...you said the rock around the bolt exploded. Didn't you ever think that maybe you placed the bolt in bad rock, and therefore were somewhat responsible for it exploding? I know that thought would cross my mind.
We cannot be responsible for those that climb the routes we "open" after we're done. However, I know I would not feel great if somebody took a header off something I had a hand in making. If you don't feel that, fine. But be aware, others can, and do, have those feelings.
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Cracko
Trad climber
Quartz Hill, California
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Stand down Jacko ya little pissant !! I can't believe you're siding with the dogmatic absolutists ! Then again, you are a republican! Please get prior approval from me before you post again!
Cracko
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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The greatest most beautiful Rock on the planet.
[ed: Nameless Tower is awfully beautiful too.]
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Wes Allen
Boulder climber
KY
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So, I don't really have a say in this whole deal, but thread like this always remind me of Loki's opening rant in the movie Dogma:
" Organized [climbing] religion destroys who we are by inhibiting our actions, by inhibiting our decisions, out of fear of some intangible parent figure, who shakes a finger at us from thousands [tens] of years ago and says "do it...do it and I'll f*#king spank you!""
But, then again, I am a rap bolting sport climber / bouldererer from KY...
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, Ca
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A few thoughts on ground up climbing…
One of the things which drew me into climbing years ago, and has kept me coming back for more ever since is the beautiful uncertainty of the enterprise. You make your very best effort and sometimes you really succeed, while other times you have to struggle to find some reward in failure.
One of my favorite ways to play that uncertain game is to climb a new route ground up without preview. This is the way I have chosen to climb, and while it means I have done many fewer routes than I could have otherwise, I have found it most rewarding. I strayed from my creed once. It was a route in Josh and we TR’d it first because it was a dicey thing in a prominent location so I did not want to drill holes until we knew it would go. I went on to do the climb ground up, but it became a technical exercise more than an adventure and so not as much fun as some others.
I have never “bolt laddered” either. Just not my thing, and it’s another way of narrowing my choice in routes.
About other people doing my routes? I try to do climbs I am proud of. Some people like them, but most are not for everybody. I think there is plenty of room for this in climbing. For the most part I climb these routes for my own reasons, not really thinking of the community as a whole, although I freely admit that it gives me pleasure and satisfaction when other climbers enjoy them.
A while ago I decided to quit worrying about how other folks did their climbing, but I would stick to my way for my routes. This thread got me to stray from that position, though. Why do I feel strongly about this route, when most of the time I could care less anymore? It is the double whammy of Doug Robinson, a statesman of our sport being involved, combined with the location of the route, which drew me out.
I do have to tip my hat to Sean and DR for being part of the discussion here. I disagree with your tactics up there but admire you for sticking to your guns and having it out with us. Time will tell if you have opened a Pandora’s box or it is all just part of the flow.
Peace, over and out.
Kris Solem
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