DRILLED POCKETS

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Messages 61 - 80 of total 80 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Feb 10, 2006 - 03:26pm PT
Isn't this what Jardine did on the nose traverse?

Adam Grosowsky bolted holds for a route at Smith which of course went over like turd in a punch bowl.
Blowboarder

Boulder climber
On the outside looking in.
Feb 10, 2006 - 04:36pm PT
Wow, interesting thread drift. Dishman Hills Recreation Area in Spokane, Washington has been the scene of a Nicholls-Level battle recently. Bolted on holds, bolted cracks, chopped bolts, rebolted, chipped edges, epoxied repairs, chopped bolts, rebolted....yadda yadda yadda.

And I take a fifteen minute walk back thru the woods and find untouched bolder problem after untouched bolder problem, while the "rope-people", as I like to call them, play their little destruction games out in plain view of the land managers.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Feb 10, 2006 - 04:41pm PT
Yep, Dishman was getting pretty damn ugly, good thing it finally calmed down.
Blowboarder

Boulder climber
On the outside looking in.
Feb 10, 2006 - 04:54pm PT
My suggestion that we use large quantities of explosives to render the entire area into a dedicated boldering field was not well received by the Access Fund mis-managers.

BTW, nice post up above. I was gonna post up some props but was too lazy/stoned/naked/insert favorite adjective here.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Feb 10, 2006 - 05:00pm PT
Blowboarder, thanks and I see we are of the same mind on Dishman. My suggestion that we ask that it be closed if the vandalism continued so as not to condone the behavior was similarly received.
Blowboarder

Boulder climber
On the outside looking in.
Feb 10, 2006 - 05:14pm PT
My only real problem with Dishman is that a few drainages back over from the Main Wall is this perfect 15-20 foot high, about a hundred foot long wall of really clean stone (obviously formed from water runoff while draining a big part of that hill that Dishman clefts into) with a big ass cave on one end.

Now, with the exception of all the garbage, crack pipes, diapers, half eaten chili, etc, etc...it was the best boldering I've found in Spokane (and I've looked, so much better than anything at Minny or the other areas I developed when I lived down there.) Clean, steep, edgy stone to a squarecut top and mantle.

BAM!!!!

Spent the afternoon cleaning and sending, cleaning and getting spanked, put in 5 quality lines out the cave, identified their harder bigger brothers, worked some tough linkups...basically right kicked my ass.

Went home, super stoked on the new area, planned a return trip the next day.

Show up in the morning to a homeless camp of probably 20 people living under that roof. Seems the Spokane Police make it habit to placate the local auto dealers by sweeping up the less fortunate and relocating them across town and dropping them off. They make their way back from wherever and resume their existance.

Under a sweetass roof adorned with climbable features: jugs, rails, incuts, V12 crimps, slopers... definately the most concentrated hard bouldering in Spokane County, like 5% developed.

Oh well, it keeps em dry.




I LOVE THREAD DRIFT!!!
handsome B

Gym climber
Saskatoon, Saskatchawan
Feb 10, 2006 - 05:35pm PT
I read an interview with Jardine in a climbing mag a while back. He was disheartened by

his craftsmanship on The Nose. He said that he had no idea it would look so ugly in the

end. The future, he claimed, would be long, moderate free routes with lines of bolt-on

holds to connect the dots through blank sections. He envisioned an epoxy which could

be removed cleanly so that as climbing standards increased the amount of holds could

be decreased. Sounds like a few others have tried to float this idea as well.

There seems to be a parallel here with the ViaFerrata in Europe. The ViaFerrata(sic) was

designed to spread out the masses of people in the mountains and lessen impact on

the resources. Ron seems to be saying the same sort of thing; get the hard work out

of the way early and we can enjoy a well-managed resource for longer.
mike hartley

climber
Feb 10, 2006 - 05:42pm PT
This debate reminds me of a group of prostitutes where one is loudly proclaiming that she’s not cheap. “I won’t do a trick for less than $500.00”; all the while forgetting that it still doesn’t change the fact that she’s a whore. Aid climbers are whores. It’s not like we’re up there with strip-miners but from an environmental standpoint we can only feel smug around high altitude expedition types. Ron’s “logic” exposes that our rules and arguments are twisted. Hardmen decry adding chicken-bolts yet proudly proclaim that you’d have to be stupid to risk breaking your back to do a pitch clean when a good pin will make it safe(er). Freeclimbing pin scars is fine but chipping is somehow different. Bolts and bathooks are OK but a drilled pocket is not. Etc, etc. We’re frigging nuts! Ron just forgets that he’s no more superior than the $500.00 hooker. “Leave no trace” Jim Erikson types can feel smug but the rest of us are just pigs in a pen making up weirdo rules so we can feel special. Few of us are willing to say that “I’ll either leave it unaltered or I won’t do it at all”. I know not, but then again I’m a whore.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Feb 10, 2006 - 05:49pm PT
Hey, get da f#ck offa my corner byatch...! Yo blowin' my special and I's gonna chisel yo eye out.
Jaybro

Social climber
The West
Feb 10, 2006 - 07:40pm PT
"A bolt ladder IS nothing more than prosthetic free climbing up drilled pockets to begin with. Its the same hubris only by mechanical proxy."

Although you have a point, I don't know that I really buy it. Among other things, a line of drilled pockets or bolt-ons is going to mean a lot more drilled holes than a bolt ladder.

Imagine the uproar when there is a helicopter rescue due to a spinner? yee-ha
WBraun

climber
Feb 10, 2006 - 07:43pm PT
Well if you need 3 bolts to get across a blank section, and instead place 3 bolt on handholds what's the difference?
Blowboarder

Boulder climber
On the outside looking in.
Feb 10, 2006 - 07:46pm PT
If the bolt on holds were giant prosthetic penis's, well, that would be different. Might keep down traffic on the trade routes. Or increase it?

WBraun

climber
Feb 10, 2006 - 07:49pm PT
Bolt on penis's?

You're outa line Blow, go to your room and sit in the corner and seriously think about this.
Blowboarder

Boulder climber
On the outside looking in.
Feb 10, 2006 - 07:52pm PT
Giant penis's Werner, like independant free hanging tufa systems. Harcore mantles, lots of double underclings....

Is this any more ridiculous than drilling holes in rock for the sole purpose of upward passage and the chance to spray about it online later?
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Feb 10, 2006 - 07:57pm PT
There is I suppose also the question of what role scale plays in such decisions. Is it one thing to say just walk past a three pitch route that needs six bolts/holds, but a different story when it's something like the Nose that just happens to need six bolts/holds? Some places only have 3/4 pitch climbing, so are they immediately out of luck?
Jaybro

Social climber
The West
Feb 10, 2006 - 08:17pm PT
Yeah, that's what I meant he had a point, Werner. On the long term I still think it would mean more holes, unless they were really big holds ... which takes us back to Blow's idea. You could sling 'em for pro! And think of the route names! nothing as mundane an as 'The Nose! The Tourniquet, rated X, maybe.
hobo

climber
PDX
Feb 10, 2006 - 08:19pm PT
Imagine the leaning tower with a line of plastic holds rather than bolts. Hole-ey scary man.

healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Feb 10, 2006 - 08:36pm PT
Isn't the first pitch of WFLT due for a retro? Penises or vaginas? That's what you call a real dilemma. The monkey in me wants to grip and swing my way up, the human wants to dig deep and thrust my way up. Oh, the humanity...!
Toker Villain

Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2006 - 08:54am PT
Thread drift is RIGHT!

Somehow I never thought I would go from the routes in Snow Canyon to having an image of healyje hanging from a giant penis seared into my brain.
I had failed to fully register the freudian implications of pockets and bolt-ons, but now realize that all I was doing was creating sandstone supertacos!


ahem,..(back to our story)
Then came the vigilantes.
Nature was right. The rock suffers.
Or at least the beauty did.

Seeing the area now is painful. Although the rock dam that was built has now successfully trapped sand to create a softer landing at the start everything above it is grafittied and scarred. The prime instigator was a climber called the Tiny One who had gotten so excited upon inspection of Black Massacre that he had ejaculated some kind of goo from a tube (don't get ahead of me here) he bought at the hardware store. I think it was silicone glue.
He didn't just goop up the artificial holds he simply coated the entire route and in his attempt to extract the first drilled angle he chiseled it out leaving a pocket far more conspicuous and ugly than anything there before.
He didn't act out of reverence for the rock. This was pure ego.

This same person had, nearby, placed 6 bolts next to a 75' .10b finger/hand crack and then had the temerity to suggest that I had somehow given him the go-ahead by saying that there wasn't as much to climb in that part of the canyon.

At the bottom of Pygmy Alien there is an upward oriented drilled angle that is next to useless for belay (but idiots still trust it anyway) because the Tiny One attempted to excavate it too.

Its all so absurd. Destroying in the name of preservation!
Why can't the critics simply upstage those they criticize with their performance on the rock actually climbing?

Its so much easier to build oneself up by simply tearing others down rather than lead by example.


The thing that gets me most of all is this;
We are blessed, TRULY blessed with an incredible abundance of great rocks here. While its not infinite it IS next to that.
So you would think that there might be room enough to engage in a variety of climbing types, but isn't there always a brat who, in the middle of a room piled with toys, wants the one the other kid is playing with.
Rhodo-Router

Trad climber
Otto, NC
Feb 12, 2006 - 11:25am PT
The simple fact is that chipping chiselling and pocket-drilling represent a bad road to start down. The restraint exercised by some will be ignored by others in the future, and pretty soon everything will have been dumbed down to somebody's level. Best to leave those pin-job experiments as monuments to an idea since abandoned.
Messages 61 - 80 of total 80 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
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