Sporty sport lines allowed?

[pigsteak]

With the recent comments about "bad bolting jobs" I was wondering what all the chode chuffers on here thought. Is there room for sporty sport lines? Is it the job of the developer to make your experience stress free? We hate the perma police but then we demand that certain sport lines be fixed....

Do mixed lines also have to follow this protocol? If my bolts are perfectly placed but you suck at placing gear and deck, is that my fault?

Why not bring a bit of sauce back to the game? Climbers should always have the option of down climbing.

[ray]

When do you start working full time again?

[ynp1]

I think the FA/Equipper gets the right to bolt or not bolt the climb as they please...

BUT, I think it is kind of whack if a 5.12 climber puts up a 5.9 R/X sport climb... If you are asking others to push them selves, then you as the FA/equipped should also be pushing yourself...

My two cents...

[One-Fall]

Sporty does not mean dangerous in my book. Run outs to the chains on overhung terrain is one way to make a route safe and sporty. Run outs up high can be exhilarating. Run outs down low just mean we are going to have to end our climbing day early bc a newbie couldn't calculate the risk.

I understand that I'm in the minority, but I feel if it is a sport route, we need to play to the lowest common denominator because "they" are going to get on the route and its a bummer to see someone get hurt.

[dustonian]

Agreed. If you are bolting sport routes on rappel, dangerous runouts with ledge and/or groundfall potential are just botched rigging. That said, some of the best 5.10's in the Red are utterly bungled bolt-wise with multiple opportunities to fall and break something (Breakfast Burrito, for example). Still, you can never engineer out all the risk in climbing, and at the end of the day individuals hold ultimate responsibility their own safety.

On another note...deja vu... maybe you'll make it past 11 posts:
http://www.redriverclimbing.com/viewtop ... Rt#p260023

[pigsteak]

why do we allow trad r/x then...shouldnt a bolt be placed to also protect that dangerous section?

[dustonian]

Again, real "traditional" climbing means you are climbing from the ground up and don't have the advantages of placing bolts on rappel. The emphasis is on adventure, style, individual experience, and "getting to the top" over safety and athleticism. Still, I have sometimes gone back to add a bolt after the FA if there is truly dangerous section on harder ground; with our soft choss in the Red, "trad" climbs are often actually "gear" climbs, meaning that they were cleaned, inspected, and even toproped before the first lead. In that case the waters are murkier and there is more of an expectation on the FA to put in a bolt if a R/X-type fall is possible. That said, new bolts are illegal in the DBNF so that largely settles any debate at crags in those regions anyway.

There are very few actual R or X trad routes in the Red, really... especially those that went up in the last 10 or 15 years. The sport is getting more and more sanitized in that regard IMO... plus, modern tiny cams can get placements that were impossible even 15 years ago. I can only think of maybe 2 out of a couple hundred I've put up ever that were legitimately R or X. A lot of people's perception of "runout" is psychological IMO, or else "self-induced runouts" because of shitty belaying. Nevermore is a good example of this.

Anyway, I feel like we've had this same discussion at least 3 or 4 times in the past. Must be getting old, the senility is setting in.

[climb2core]

For Kipp it is pigsility.

[pigsteak]

c2c, I just found it funny that everyone is like"it is the climber's responsibility to always check the gear', but then when it comes to route development suddenly it is the bolters responsibility to make sure they stay safe...huh?

[climb2core]

c2c, I just found it funny that everyone is like"it is the climber's responsibility to always check the gear', but then when it comes to route development suddenly it is the bolters responsibility to make sure they stay safe...huh?

Ok, I'll bite.

First, your safety is your responsibility... Period. Don't go blaming anyone but yourself (except maybe your shitty belay partner) for anything that happens on the rock. Now that being said, we can discuss mitigating risk in the sport.

I would contend that anyone has a responsibility to not INTENTIONALLY make a route dangerous. So, for a developer that would mean not spacing bolts with obvious decking potential or knowingly placing bad bolts in the rock. Now carrying that concept to fixed gear... I believe it would be the equivalent of knowingly placing mank gear on a route. If you are going to intentionally abandon or "donate" something I believe you should at least make a reasonable effort to make sure that it is "safe".

Where I see the grey area is that you know that this donated or abandoned gear is going to become sharp at some point, so you are knowingly contributing to increasing risk. Unfortunately, it has become an accepted practice and if you don't leave it, someone else will. With that I will stop and not digress back in the fixed gear debate.