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I have clipped a few and have some at home, but haven't really wanted to carry a 2 lb hammer to the wall and set one.

megmay wrote:How ideologically linked are the concepts of drilled pockets for free climbing and pin placements on single or low pitch routes? It sounds like very few fixed pins remain in the Red, but has the drilled pocket / chipping debate yet touched the Red?

Now we are talking honestly. Hammering routes at the Red is analogous to drilling pockets.

You are right, the Red is highly featured and the need to drill out pockets isn't necessary. There are roughly the same amount of drilled pockets as there are pins. Not many. Our "chipping" or route altering comes in the form of prying off rock or reinforcing it with glue.

JR wrote:Now we are talking honestly. Hammering routes at the Red is analogous to drilling pockets.

'analogous', like, not the same?

megmay wrote:It sounds like very few fixed pins remain in the Red, but has the drilled pocket / chipping debate yet touched the Red? Im fairly ignorant of the high end sport scene here. Given the very generous featured nature of the rock here, I do find the idea of adding holds to be silly, guess I dont climb hard enough to understand.

I'd be interested in hearing how many moderates have been chipped for the sake of consistency. For example, a five star 5.9 may have started with a one move V5 boulder problem before being chipped. Understandably, such a route may be considered a one or two star route before being chipped, and then considered a five star route after being chipped (even just one foothold). Given the nature of the bottom band of the cliff at many areas around the Red, I wouldn't be too surprised.

I imagine if the start of Air Ride was much harder it may have been chipped (not necessarily by the FA!).

I'm not sure how common this is, and I'd be interested in hearing if anyone knows more about it...

I've never heard anyone suggest that the bottom of Air Ride Equipped is very hard to begin with. I mean, what about fuzzy undercling?? Inequity!?

I don't think there has been any significant precedence of chipping routes to make them go. Of course there are few exceptions to the 1000's of routes in the Red, but definitely not the accepted ethic.

I don't follow the RRG sport scene closely at all, but I have never heard of anyone nailing a cracks around here until the old pin placements turn into fingerlocks. That kind of stuff has never been part of the trad scene in the gorge and I doubt if it's been part of the sport scene either. I think it's pretty clear from this thread that pin placements have always been relatively rare in the gorge. A few were used for direct aid long, long ago and a few have been used for protection over the years. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if fewer pins have been driven at red river than possibly any other major climbing area in the U.S.. Same goes for chipping holds, no doubt it's been done but if it's at all common in the RRG it's been a well-kept secret.

LK Day wrote:But I have never heard of anyone nailing a cracks around here until the old pin placements turn into fingerlocks.

Is it ever the same person that nails the crack then uses the ensuing flaired fingerlocks???

It is my impression that hammering routes is shortsighted.

JR wrote:

LK Day wrote:But I have never heard of anyone nailing a cracks around here until the old pin placements turn into fingerlocks.

Is it ever the same person that nails the crack then uses the ensuing flaired fingerlocks???

It is my impression that hammering routes is shortsighted.

While I definitely agree with this in theory, in practice this is tilting at windmills... with the exception of a few harder aid routes on El Cap (many of which have been climbed clean by bolder parties or free by the likes of Tommy C or a handful of others) and a few walls in Zion, there is essentially no pin scarring actively occurring at any major climbing area in the US that I can think of. In fact, the only climbing area I can remember ever free climbing on pin scars is Yosemite, which is sort of an outlier in that aid and bigwall techniques were invented and refined there and several decades of pin-placing and removal by each individual party occurred before the clean and free climbing movements began in earnest... ironically, it is highly unlikely that the free routes on El Cap would have gone without the scars!

In the RRG, by contrast, I have never seen a pin scar and have actually seen very few pitons (maybe 3?), all placed and left behind by aid climbers on the FA, or else subsequently replaced by later parties (with the exception of one placed in a drilled hole on the Gift, the equivalent of a bolt). That said, in Zion there are some scars on classic routes like Moonlight Buttress and Spaceshot, and modern-day aid parties are strongly disparaged for using a hammer on routes now regularly climbed free or with clean aid... and rightly so.