To bolt or not to bolt: That is the question
which is why rjackson and myself are taking it upon ourselves to close the entire southern region this wekeend so we can , er glue, chip, or manufacture the right sequence of holds to make the seam a thing of beauty. have patience folks..these things take time.rjackson wrote:Seam in question is certainly no Goodstone...
Positive vibes brah...positive vibes.
read the full post and banter here:modbolter1 from supertopo wrote:Perhaps it is possible to have a discussion without personalities and specific route-bashing at this point. I find the notion of "artificial difficult" profoundly interesting and also opaque. Here's how it seems to me.
FIRST:
Let's agree with the undeniable (and, I think, obvious) fact that ANY climbing besides stark-naked free-soloing is a function of "artificial difficulty." Add a pair of shoes, and you've just crossed the threshold! Add a pair of shorts (to keep your little wee wee from getting caught on or in something), and you've magnified "comfort" at the expense of "natural." Give the naked free-soloist ANYTHING, and you've turned the game into just a continuum of tactics where any "difficulty" that remains is purely arbitrary and hence "artificial."
SECOND:
Let's agree with the less obvious but still undeniable fact that once you are on the continuum of tactics, "less impact" or "more natural" fail to explicate. Free climbing is "more natural" than aid climbing, but, from a "low impact" point of view is often much, much worse (a huge spectrum of free climbs demand bolt protection). The counterexamples are endless!
...
EVERY aspect of that pitch was "artificial difficulty," but I well remember how it struck me then, and continues to do so today, that THAT pitch provided everything mentally for me that climbing is "supposed" to. Everything beyond that mental game (which is a whole thread in itself) is just engineering tactics; and to single some tactics out as "artificial" instead of other tactics has no objective foundation. ALL of climbing (except for stark-naked free-soloing) is nothing but tactics for scaring ourselves in various ways to see how we cope with it.
When we have literally risked life and limb for a particular set of tactics, it is natural to magnify that style into an "ethic" and presume that others should "advance" to our style (the one context in which we are GREAT). But, perhaps we would be more tolerant and humble if we regularly reminded ourselves that only the nude free-soloist is really STYLIN, and all the rest of us are just posers employing tactics of artificial difficulty.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/threa ... _id=959067
"But, perhaps we would be more tolerant and humble if we regularly reminded ourselves that only the nude free-soloist is really STYLIN, and all the rest of us are just posers employing tactics of artificial difficulty."
take that!
buy the Ticket take the Ride
i'd argue the error in the argument lies in the initial displacement of terms wherein a climb is understood to be 'artificially' difficult when what has changed is the climbers- with shoes, pants, chalk...bolts?
after the first paragraph, it's pretty fuzzy rhetoric.
the last about 'ethics'..the idea of continuums recognize the inadequacy of easy black and white distinctions for ethical decisions, but don't necessarily obviate the need for them to be made.
i may be missing the point.
after the first paragraph, it's pretty fuzzy rhetoric.
the last about 'ethics'..the idea of continuums recognize the inadequacy of easy black and white distinctions for ethical decisions, but don't necessarily obviate the need for them to be made.
i may be missing the point.