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I climbed at Long Wall on Saturday and did Autumn, Mailbox, some sport route down the way and then TR'd B3. I wanted to do Rock Wars as well, but three groups had hung top ropes on that, Autumn, and the traverse in between and were doing laps all afternoon. We ended up having to push someone's rope aside in order to do Mailbox and then waiting until dusk for Autumn to free up.

Here's a question. We asked when we walked up if we could que up for one of the routes and they only said that they were "running laps" and it would be some hours. What's the deal with that? Is it acceptable to lock up three quality routes for an entire afternoon so that you get lots of pitches in in one day? I was kind of pissed.

For their sake, they were friendly to us and they did offer to let us run up one of their ropes, but I realy wanted to get the onsite on lead. Am I being selfish? Is it enough that they offered the TR? Should I have insisted that they pull one of the ropes after everyone had gone up once? Just curious what you all think.

Thanks.

I think these are classic selfish assholes. I don't understand their thinking. It's like they own the crag for the day.
It's cool that they offered. Maybe you should have explained that you wanted to get the route on lead and offered to trail their rope to set it back up when you were done.
We hit Torrent fairly early on Friday because I wanted to do Bandolier. There were 5 or 6 folks from Canada and they had ropes up on Waddcutter and Bandolier. A hommock strung out with a guy snoozing. No-one climbing Bandolier.
We set down the packs and hung out for a bit. Not a word. I ask one guy if anyone was going to climb the route and he said yeah, she is going to top rope it. They were cool about it and the girl got on it and cleaned it. I got my fix and we left.
Others are not so cool,and show up in groups of 6 or more with one leader. Arrrgggg.
The more I get to know people, the more I like my dog.

That is a major gray area. Diplomacy can go a long way in these situations, but so can a shotgun. Seriously though, I take the stance of "take what you can get". You should have explained to them about wanting to onsight the climb, then asked them if you could pull their rope and hang it for them again. They should have had no problem with that. However, I don't agree with them hogging 3 frikkin' routes all day. If they were on just one route all day, I would either TR on their rope or come back to it some other time. You do get into the whole "leading on other people's gear/rope" thing, but for me, that goes back to taking what I can get.

Mj

Generally, I will offer to let people TR, lead on my draws/rope, or whatever if I am going to be tying up a route for a little while. This is pretty common pratice for sport routes, trad gets a bit more of a gray area. Camping out on three routes all day is pretty rude. Asking if you can "play through" is about all you can do. Luckily the red has so many routes, you can go find something else to do. If you really want to see a cluster F*ck, go to eldo on a weekend and watch 5 teams trying to do Bastelle or wind ridge at the same time.

Wes

I would've pulled the rope myself and jumped on the route. If anyone gives you any shit for that just smack their ass with a #5.

Oh, and nothing will clear an area like 3+ muddy dogs fighting right on top of the offending parties rope and gear...

Wes

....or a bad case of gas.

Our party of three climbed Roadside Attraction early one morning. We had waited behind one party before getting on. At the top we decided to go over and rap down Andromeda Strain and top rope a few laps on it.

We hiked over and set up slings. As we were starting to lower the rope a couple of guys came walking up and asked what the climb was in the corner. We told them it was Andromeda Strain. They thumbed through their book to see what it was. One of them said, “We should lead this”. Then they asked if we could wait while they did their lead. We said, “We don’t want to do that”. They started to take off their packs as if to gear up. I then stated how bad I needed to urinate. They started packing up. I started rapping down.

They hung around long enough to give us some crap about it. As I was removing the old heavy wall #11 hex from over my shoulder the little guy turned back and stated that he had climbed at “hundreds of places” and that the top roper has always stepped aside to let the lead climber do his thing. I told him that was nice. His partner told me to “have a nice TOP rope” as they stormed off.

My partners rapped down. Two of us did a lap on the route. We were packed up and leaving about 20 minutes after getting on the route. Had they stuck around they would have had less of a wait then if we had led the climb. The only reason we top roped was for the speed and convenience of it.

The fact is that I have faced this situation while being in the position of the guy who wanted to lead something. I have always thought myself to be fortunate when the “top ropers” would allow us to lead. I have always thought it a courtesy. I have never expected someone to move just because I wanted to “lead” something. I have been disappointed at having to wait, but never angry at the other climbers for having wanted to finish their climbing session before we had our turn to do our thing. If we did not want to wait, we simply went and did something else. It’s the luck of the draw. You work with what you are dealt in the hand. Climbing is climbing whether your leading, top roping, soloing, or working. If someone allows you passage to lead while they are actively top roping a route it is a courtesy and not a rite. Its not rudeness to want to keep climbing the route that you invested time into rigging anchors for.

In the situation of a party having multiple ropes dropped on as many lines while working only one line at a time, I think the polite thing to do is to give up the line your not working and let other parties do it. I’ve approached this scene many times. In this case if the rude climbers do not give way and are active on other lines I go ahead and pull their rope to the side and do the lead anyway. They are being rude and you owe them no respect in my book. Had this experience many times at Devils Lake in Wisconsin. Almost every time it has involved members of the CMC (Chicago Mountaineering Club). Never really had a problem with this in the Gorge.

Ok, I'll chime in on this one too. If someone is top roping one climb and they want to do it one time, then that's pretty much the same as someone wanting to lead it, in my book. If someone shows up and wants to do the climb, they should be in the que.

The opposite is the "climbing club" from whatever school with 20 people top-roping the easy climbs for hours. I once had some words with a guy "guiding" his climbing club up and down and up and down Face up to the Crack and Mr. Bungle when I was with a friend who was new to climbing. He said the climbs were "reserved". What jerks.

That's biggest reason to start climbing 5.11. Forget the spray, it's all about the available routes!

i agree with scin pull ther f#@$!@# rope and do your lead then put there rope back and tell the thanks