RRC Archives

dustonian wrote:

climb2core wrote:What was this thread about?

Just an excuse for pathetic old men to flap their lips, sort of like when my grandfather used to wake up at the crack of dawn to go gab with the "good ol' boys" down at the coffee shop... except we have the privilege of doing it while at work.

Word. Kind of like Koops without the cigarette smoke

pigsteak wrote:and of course larry is misconstruing what I have said regarding bolted lines....

one last time. can someone please explain to me why we bolt gear protectable faces here at the red without a sniffle of indignation from the moldy oldies, but bolting gear protectable cracks is the sign of satan? rock is rock is rock.....people bury there heads and say "bolting cracks is bad, bolting faces is good"......why???????

dustin has the best answer in that we have way more face climbing opportunities than crack lines at the red.

(as an aside, why does no one ever chop "head and shoulders" if they are so offended?)

get your panties out of your crack mr. day, and listen closely. the only reason cracks are sacred is because there was no technology to safely climb the faces 30 years ago. once bolting became the norm then the vast majority of climbing has taken place with the aid of some sort of fixed protection....surely we trad climbers are not so smug to deny that. how many hundreds (thousands) of bolts line the faces of yosemite? how many gear climbs have bolts protecting blank expanses, and gasp belay stations (the outrage!) seems the black/white party line answer is used only when convenient.

from pin scars to ripped copperheads and dead rap trees, gear climbers have done their share of damage to the environment over the years, so there is no holy high ground from which to preach.

so what is my position....respect the vision of the first ascensionist. honor the tradition of a locale. period.

So much historical ignorance on display here that it's kind of hard to know where to start. But here goes.
From very early in the game, climbers decided to minimize their impact on the routes they climbed. This was primarily an aesthetic consideration, but there were other factors like preserving the challenge for future generations of climbers. Anchors ran the gamut from lowest to highest impact with a knotted sling near the low end and bolts at the top. I shouldn't have to point out the obvious that a sling can be removed from a horn or a flake without leaving a trace whereas a bolt is relatively permanent. Pitons were considered to be somewhere in the middle as they could be removed leaving the route "as it was found". Beyond aesthetic considerations, it became immediately obvious that, with a simple bolt ladder, climbers could "murder the impossible" and thus destroy the challenge. Because of this climbers have almost always tried to minimize their use of bolts, even while recognizing that they are necessary.

What climbers in the RRG call "gear" has been used from quite early in the game. "Gear" started out as stones or knotted slings jammed in a crack, evolved to include slung machine nuts, then purpose-built "chocks" and, ultimately, spring loaded cams. As it became obvious that pitons did great damage to the cracks they were placed in chocks became the anchor of choice during the Clean Climbing Revolution of the late '60s. Until quite recently there was virtually universal agreement that bolt placements should always be minimized, that they were the anchor of last resort and that they should never be used to protect a section of rock protectible by any other means. For reasons of convenience some sport climbers decided to ignore the old consensus and started bolting faces protectible by conventional means and even cracks. For the traditionalists this is not acceptable for two major reasons. It places a permanent anchor where one is not necessary and it removes some of the challenge of climbing. Legitimate concern about erosion has lead to the novel use of bolted anchors just below the top of even trad lines in the RRG. I don't think anyone is complaining much about that.

But nobody is saying "bolted faces - good, bolted cracks - bad". Advocates of a more aesthetic and adventurous approach to rock climbing say "the use of bolts should always be minimized".

See the difference?

And finally, you said. "so what is my position....respect the vision of the first ascensionist. honor the tradition of a locale. period." Nothing controversial about this. The only bitch is when the first ascentionist decides to dishonor the "tradition of the locale" and bolt a perfectly protectible crack simply for convenience. Still not acceptable in the RRG.

Larry does have a point -- it's not like bolts were miraculously invented in 1992 when Porter decided to visit the Red. Climbers in Yosemite were placing bolts in the 50s and 60s, in Boulder in the 40s, and in Europe, even earlier. Climbers of that era (and even some today) just chose to eschew excessive bolting and preferred to climb by what they deemed to be "fair means"--permanent protection and anchors as a last resort only. I personally feel responsible bolting practices, such as using long-lasting and low visual impact stainless steel glue-ins, in addition to going ground up whenever possible, avoiding squeeze jobs, and only rap bolting the very best unprotectable lines is a good compromise between the two extremes. A good example of this is replacing ratty tatt nests on fragile, erosion-prone topouts on popular traditional routes with long-lasting and discretely positioned stainless steel anchors.

Yes.

If only our political views were so harmonious.

pigsteak wrote:honor the tradition of a locale. period.

Whose tradition? That of Larry, Martin Hackworth, Jeff Koenig, Tom Souders, John Bronaugh, even Grant Stephens (gasp), et al.? Or yours? And don't say Porter's, because he is one helluva trad climber who put up bad ass traditional routes all over the southeast and would rather eat dog dookie than bolt a naturally protectable line. It is the rap bolters amongst us (myself included) who need to strive to honor the actual traditions of the RRG as best we can.

why not honor all of those? (except mine of course) I can not think of a single example where my plethora of "sport" lines have broken any old musty pure version of someone's vision. you seen much of my stuff, dustin, can you think of an example? not saying it isnt out there, just that it was never intentional.

and larry, while i appreciate the history lesson (of which I could have recited for you), history doesnt just stop at some point in time...each generation is adding their own layer to the puzzle. you old farts had to have your disagreements about pins, cams, sticky rubber, nylon ropes, ground up, bolts, etc...we got perma draws here;)

but this still hasnt answered my original question, unless larry is round about saying it....larry, are you saying that the aggressive sport climbing development at the rrg has been a sorry development in the area? that more care should have been taken to make mixed lines when available?

dustin, would you agree that easily 25-50% of all of today's sport could have been "mixed" lines at the very least?

pigsteak wrote: dustin, would you agree that easily 25-50% of all of today's sport could have been "mixed" lines at the very least?

In the Red you mean? I would guesstimate more like 10-15% would be good mixed-protection lines, with an additional 10% being crappy ones. However, this 10-15% would cut down significantly on the lame "grid-bolted" look of many modern sport crags, and in my opinion the bolted protectable lines are usually inferior to the more "sporty" ones anyway. If it's going to be less than 1/3 naturally protected (ie. more than 2/3 of the route requires bolts), I typically lean towards bolting the whole thing--or more often than not, I'll just abandon the route to avoid any regrets. An exception is on granite, where I typically go ground-up and only put bolts where absolutely necessary (hand-drilling sucks).

Piggie - No, to your first question, yes to the second.

To be more specific as to your second question:

A route that protects reasonably well with gear should have no bolts, with the exception of rap anchors.
Crack or face makes no difference.

A minimal use of bolts approach will produce at least some of what you guys call "mixed" routes.

A pitch that has 15 bolts and one tiny wire sounds more than a little silly. Use common sense in the decision making process.

I thought finding a wall to "grid" bolt was the wet dream of bolters at the RRG???? Don't tell me Pigsteak didn't have a huge boner (well, at least a decent boner) when he saw the "grid" potential at Midnight Surf....