PDs at Lode

[lena_chita]

I will be at the lode within the week to remove the project draws from the undertow. Does anyone have a suggestion on a good place to leave them?

You are kind-of putting yourself in a no-win place, don't you think?

You took the draws off. People hung them back.

You will take the draws off again, yet until you do the draws are still hanging, like they have been before.

And when you do take them off you'll leave them in some agreed-on place, to avoid anyone calling you a draw thief. So what is the drawback for the guy who hung the draws and left them? He didn't have to clean them at the end of the day, you did the cleaning for him, and he'll get the draws back...

If I were the person who re-hung the draws, I'd be (hypothetically) saying: oh, no big deal! Next time I go to the Lode, I'll just stop at Miguel's first and ask, hey, are there draws labeled "taken off Ale8", b/c they are mine. And then I'd go and re-hang the draws, unless someone else hadn't done it already... And with luck they would be hanging there for a week or two, until you get around to taking them down again, but in the meantime I'll get a few days of climbing without having to hang the draws, whcih is all OI wanted in the first place... and if you take them down again, and leave them again at Miguel's (because you are not a thief, after all), I'll re-hang them again, in case I haven't sent yet, and really want to keep working on it...

... and the cycle will repeat itself, with the end result being-- what exactly? You didn't really force/inspire/shame me (hypothetical me in the example above) to clean my own draws, and it is not that big a deal for me to re-hang them and not take them down, if I really adamantly believe that the draws should be hanging, and want to be as stubborn about it as the draw-strippers, just to make a point.






And i wanted to add, I really do get the "let's do something to shake up the complacent people who are relying so much on fixed draws and make them think about how it got there, and whether it should be there in the first place". I do. I think the discussion needed to happen. But I think I would have respected the draw-stripping crew a LOT more if they/you had stripped the entire Lode. (AND Bob Marley. AND Darkside. AND Purgatory... but at the very least, if you started at the Lode, making it the entire Motherlode)

If the crew would have said publicly:"Look, we as climbers are currently working on these specific routes as our projects. These are overhanging routes, and a pain to clean. But we are committing to cleaning the draws off of them at the end of the day, every day we work on them. We are holding ourselves to this higher standard because we believe that the attitude at the Red has become unacceptably lax towards the project/fixed/abandoned/permanent draws, so we are committing ourselves to keeping the Lode free of draws, and that includes our own projects. And while we are at it, we will also clean the trash and the poop, and will make sure anyone who litters in our presence will not be allowed to get away with it" -- if this were the case, I think this debate would have shaped itself somewhat differently.

Instead there is this muddled reasoning that somehow cleaning draws half-way up the route, and PD's at the anchors are O.K., but not the entire route equipped with draws. If it really comes to that, WHY do we need cleaning draws or draws on the anchors? Why do we need all the draws hanging on really steep routes, even in the Madness cave? TR run at the end of the day will get them all. Who said that you have to clean while lowering? Surely it is only a small inconvenience to do a TR run at the end of the day?
If the problem is with people TRing through fixed draws and otherwise misusing fixed hardware, and these people are truly as prevalent at the Lode as some make it sound (even though I personally have not seen very many examples), then leaving a cleaning draw half-way up is pretty much a guarantee that this draw will become a dedicated "escape-without-leaving-gear" bail draw. And what's to stop "those" people from toproping through the fixed draws at the anchors after dogging their way up on their own draws, instead of perma-draws?

[Horatio Felacio]

my vote is to shit or get off the pot. i don't really care either way.

however, i am NOT in favor of a half-ass job, leaving permadraws up for convenience of lowering half way (i.e., how tuna town is now), hard clips, or the madness cave. if you're going to remove all permadraws, then remove ALL of them.

or if you want to put them back up, i'm fine with that too.

also, please remove all draws from the cave ASAP. i'd especially like it if you strip 40 ounces so that i can hear about gitta whipping someones ass.

[cletuswilcox]

Jason- I dont plan on waiting until I send to remove the draws from the darkside. I plan on waiting for the community to make the decision. That the community was not consulted does seem to be the biggest problem people had with the removal of the PDs at the lode. Hugh called a meeting to discuss this point and to discuss where we move from here. The meeting pretty much ended with Hugh and the Snyd saying they'd prefer people to take their draws down at the end of the day. Not a single person expressed dissent to that idea. If anyone had a differing opinion they should have been there. If the meeting was too short of notice for everyone to attend that wanted to call another one! I honestly don't know what will make people on this forum happy, after 23 pages! Some people say : the climbteks were bought by the community and should stay up somewhere as fixed draws. Well lets hang them in the cave because due to the physics of those routes they are the hardest to clean. Then people say: Strip the cave. Leaving them is hypocritical. Do those people want the climbteks to be thrown away? Other people say: Why didnt you consult the community? A community meeting was held to address these issues and those same people didnt attend. Others say: Lets leave no trace. But leaving the minimal amount of fixed gear at the undertow has everyone completely pissed. Then people say: Whose going to keep the undertow free of aluminum gear? I volunteer to do that and people hate that idea as well.
If people would like to use the fixed gear bought by the community lets hang them where there most needed. In my opinion that would be the cave (isnt your project in the cave Jason?) not because of the difficulty of those routes but because of the angle and length of those routes. The fact that the cave recieves less traffic than the undertow kind of guarantees that the fixed gear will last the longest there. People want fixed gear on the undertow? Its there. There's fixed cleaning draws on almost every route. Would the community prefer to assume responsability for replacing 10-12 pieces of fixed gear per route than two?
Of course people have hung their personal draws back on the undertow. You cannot go from a completely perma drawed crag to a "clean your gear when you leave" crag over night. As i said before, cleaning your gear at the end of the day was the end result of the meeting Sat. Changing to this ethic at the lode will take time. In the meantime I'll help to keep the undertow free of dangerous aluminum draws.
If someone would like to hold a meeting in Lexington to help boost attendance Im all for it.

[cletuswilcox]

Nasty- people were lowering off of the 5th bolt on tuna before the PD's were removed.

[caribe]

Instead there is this muddled reasoning . . .

bump

[Horatio Felacio]

yeah, i know. i'm just saying it should be all or nothing.

[cletuswilcox]

If its a question of all or nothing I vote for no PDs.

[Horatio Felacio]

i'm fine with that. i'm also fine with putting the PD's back up. i'm just saying my vote is for all or nothing.

[mcrib]

Since when do you vote?

[Horatio Felacio]

good point buddy. i guess my vote won't make a difference. cancel my ballot.