You call it like you see it and I'll call it like I see it. Whoever filmed that and continued to let it happen is just as lame as the guy chipping. 20 seconds of film would have been more than enough. Then you could walk up to the guy and tell him to stop. By not doing that you are lame.
Never met the guy. But haven't heard anything good. One question that comes to mind is is that a natural boulder or an overgrown old quarry. I know that there is a quarry near Kingston that the locals actually replicated the route Chouca by going to France, topoing the holds and then returning home to do the drilling. Crazy perhaps, but this is climbing. Over on MP they're calling it at the Gunks. If so then the rangers there should handle it. In the vid there's a reference to Kingston and text that reads "on public land". If that's the case, well I just don't know. The beatings being recommended over on the other site probably isn't the answer.
Whoever filmed that and continued to let it happen is just as lame as the guy chipping. 20 seconds of film would have been more than enough. Then you could walk up to the guy and tell him to stop. By not doing that you are lame.
Point taken, and I fully agree. I had it in my mind that the camera was one of those motion sensing wildlife rigs... which is clearly isn't and I should have known better.
You call it like you see it and I'll call it like I see it. Whoever filmed that and continued to let it happen is just as lame as the guy chipping.
How does that work? He may be lame but it's a totally different lameness from chipping. Plus, she may have had a realistic fear for his safety. Some people get freaked out when caught and no one should be forced to take physical action if they are not comfortable with that.
It sounds like they'd been looking to find out who the local chipper was for a long time, and wanted to nail him on video.
I wouldn't go confronting a big strong guy in the woods with a hammer in his hand. I think their tactic will ultimately be successful in showering opprobrium on the chipper, even if that boulder had to take a few extra hits.
Can't wait to hear the Duane Raleigh take: is this the right guy doing it the right way, or just an artless poser?
I can't tell whether it is Ivan or not. He normally wears glasses and it would seem a bit strange to take them off while banging on chisels.
Ivan is a really good boulderer and led the charge that brought the Gunks out of the bouldering doldrums it had languished in for a decade or more. It would be really sad if, after opening so many eyes to the possibilities all around, he would turn to manufacturing routes as he aged, and I for one hope it isn't true.
Werner has a good point. The hat IS the same. It does look like Ivan. Fishfinder is right: what if it WAS a woman filming? Or even someone who didn't want to get beat up and have their camera smashed or taken by an angry scofflaw?
I just went to his FB and pulled this off of it:
Credit: MisterE
I am seriously thinking it is Ivan, but draw your own conclusions.
That is messed up, IMO - but justify it however you wish.
When was that ever even the issue? The dude smashed the fuk out of a boulder problem... and probably more. It has nothing to do with anybody else being a saint or having an ego.
that chipper is a hipster moron. he totally could've drilled a nice two finger pocket right there. lol, what a rookie. he should take notes from a world class chipper like yaniro or a frenchman and see what true cutting-edge route manufacturing is all about. elegance in movement at the expense of the stone. gotta break some eggs to make an omlette and all that.
If you are going to show someone bouldering at Stoney and call them a pro, at least you could show them doing something 350 young hotshots haven't already done.
be nice guys... this isn't that big of a deal... just don't want to lose access or have future projects destroyed. Boulders are finite resources, and V18 will happen someday.
i just feel bad for that poor chipster. that granite looks rock hard. i'll bet his hands were super sore after that brutal round of "comfortizing". out here in the desert the sandstone is nice and soft. couple of sweeps of the hand and you got yourself a nice edge. you don't even need any hardware!
Why is the term douche always used in the negative? I for one think douche bags serve a valuable purpose. Let's take that term back and turn it to a positive.
Example: That douche makes a great creme brûlée.
kinda like bolts, you couldn't climb it without them.
You CAN climb something that would protect (only) with bolts without them..
1. Freesolo
2. Toprope
You CAN'T lead a line in that situation without bolts. Is it worth defacing the rock to be able to lead a line that you could just toprope? Debatable. I for one think it's fine (assuming you couldn't lead it on gear) as long as they are placed properly, in the proper locations, and not excessively (all subjective). Anyway, you CAN physically climb something without the bolts because the holds are still there. In this case, presumably THE HOLDS WERE NOT THERE! THE ASSHOLE CARVED THEM OUT! (at least, it lacked good enough holds for this guy to climb it). And no, I couldn't climb it either, with or without the chipping.
Bottom line, this dude was wrong doing this. For the person who wrote the guidebook for Gunks bouldering to be defacing rock in the region (or anywhere) is f***ed.
"Bottom line, this dude was wrong doing this. For the person who wrote the guidebook for Gunks bouldering to be defacing rock in the region (or anywhere) is f***ed. "
Agreed.
Haven't seen the book but I'd be interested in what he has to say about the local ethics with regards to chipping, manufacturing, etc... or maybe there isn't a section on that.
That dog knows it's tainted, you can see it in his eyes.
If this is NOT YOU *Ivan Greene* (linked name), then you should make a statement to that effect. Many of us (including myself) are starting to draw conclusions from various sources
1/2 hour later, there is no sign of my post.
Very interesting. He is still my FB friend, and when I go to his page there is no "you were mentioned in a post by..."
1) that was a human person in that video
2) Said Human person is most likely a climber
3) Said person has been identified by dozens of people
4) Said person has not been suggested to be anyone other than Ivan Greene
5) then there's the hat - same in the video as on the FB page
dude is totally busted and a a total douche.
And if anyone doubts that's chipping they have never held a hammer.
Haven't seen the book but I'd be interested in what he has to say about the local ethics with regards to chipping, manufacturing, etc... or maybe there isn't a section on that.
I happen to have the guidebook right here..
Bouldering in the Shawangunks 2nd edition, Ivan Greene & Marc Russo
"ETHICS AND UNDERSTANDINGS:
Keep it simple. Leave the rocks the way they are. No chipping, filling, sculpting, etc. of anything on the boulders.."
I can't tell whether it is Ivan or not. He normally wears glasses and it would seem a bit strange to take them off while banging on chisels.
Ivan is a really good boulderer and led the charge that brought the Gunks out of the bouldering doldrums it had languished in for a decade or more. It would be really sad if, after opening so many eyes to the possibilities all around, he would turn to manufacturing routes as he aged, and I for one hope it isn't true.
Dave Graham once stated, "It’s different in bouldering , I think no hold chipping is universally accepted, even if unfortunately there are some sad exceptions. The problem with hard lines is finding them."
Dave suggests that our boulders are a finite resource. There is only so much rock out there and creating new holds to make a problem easier erases the possibility that a more talented or driven climber could come along and climb the problem.
One such instance happened last year in the 'Gunks, a popular bouldering area in New York State. There was a boulder problem that had been a long-standing project for local climbers and had spit off all suitors since their first attempts as early as 1996. It was no secret, even being listed in the guidebook as a project. Many top-climbers had tried it, and it was estimated to be in the V13 range. One local climber was particularly invested in the project. "I'd been looking at that thing since I was 16," he said. "I tried it on and off for 12 years and much of the time I thought it probably didn't go, but after 15 years of climbing, I finally started to unlock some sequences."
Last spring, he finally did all the moves and had done it in two sections. A send of the problem seemed close until one day, he returned to the problem and found that an unknown person had altered the holds. "It was definitely different and easier. I have no doubt that someone carved out a thumb catch to make a hold better. I lost all motivation for it. It's not even that I'm upset that the problem was stolen from me; I'm more upset that it was taken from the climbing community. It was always a problem that I aspired to climb and it would always have been there for other climbers to aspire to."
Other local climbers began noticing that the project wasn't the only one that got chipped in the area. Another local stated, "We started to see these problems that were completely manufactured- like every hold. It was happening all over. We had suspicions about who it was, but there isn't exactly a police force in the boulders to prevent this stuff from happening."
Recently on a snowy day, the ring of hammer and chisel on stone rang out, and the climbers were able to film a person in the act of altering the rock. What, exactly, they caught on film is debatable. Sometimes, when establishing rock climbs, a dangerous flake is pried loose to prevent injuries to future climbers. Sometimes that loose flake is 'scored' with a chisel so that when it breaks, it leaves a handhold, and sometimes holds are blatantly created with the use of tools.
The local climbers presented the video to DPM with the request that they remain anonymous. "We don't want this to come off as a personal attack," they said. "We've tried speaking with the person and it obviously hasn't had an effect. Our intent isn't malicious, we just want this to stop happening to our boulders."
Most climbers will likely agree that the actions portrayed in the video cross the line. We spoke with the Access Fund to hear their stance on the issue and how it could affect the future of climbing. The Access Fund stated that they, "vehemently oppose intentional alteration of the rock by gluing or chipping for the purpose of creating or enhancing holds. We believe such actions degrade the climbing resource, eliminate challenges for future generations of climbers, and threaten access."
Comparing Gutzon Borglum to Ivan Greene is like comparing Banksy to GDavis.
yah! let's see ivan chisel a teddy roosevelt moustache into the crux hold. fricken rookie. say what you will about gutzon but that guy knew how to sculpt some choss.
The problem is that everyone knows that the sh#t is wrong to do, so what do you do when the line gets crossed? It probably comes about from creeping incrementalism where you need to pull off loose flakes, then you need to knock a few off that are wiggling but won't pull off by hand. Lets get him out here we'll set him to cleaning up this stuff to straighten him out.
Certainly having the guys sponsors put him on ignore would favor my tastes. Anyone confirm who it is?
healyje - as a friendly suggestion, ST has a neat photo-uploading feature that presents your photos in the thread at 600 pixels (wide or tall), and then when clicked will be enlarged to 1024 pixels (wide or tall), which would be more than adequate.
As you might have noticed, your humongous hot-linked photos have made the thread very difficult to read - It becomes a Scroll-a-Thon™. One of those pics is 1809 pixels wide!
Climbing routes You may have done and thought they were great often involve a portion of cleaning/ALTERING work. Now this seeming necessary work by naive totally natural standards would be a cardinal sin. Sedimentary rocks require more alternation even when they are on public land.
Hats off those who make routes out of rubble? If you need to chisel get an 18v Makita rotary percussion drill and put it in HAMMER MODE with a Bosch bit and call it HOLD ENHANCEMENT TECHNIQUES. And so you will create a sport area that many can enjoy.
You trad bastards have almost never done anything with the sedimentary rocks and when you do you leave a line of scars from your aid line.
If you going to make a route make it so you can get it by working it, make it safe of loose, make it dust free and minimize alteration to achieve these goals.
This is going to be the next 1000+ post thread. Hey if you want to see real chipping look what they did to the cliffs around Monterrey, the city near El Potrero Chico. Beautiful valley of rock cliffs, so they turn it into a mega- quarry.
We would like to state unequivocally that EDELRID does not support the practice of chipping. It is our belief that the challenge, and the pleasure of climbing, lies in rock formations, as they occur naturally.
With this in mind we can state that we find the recent behaviour of Ivan Greene to be completely unacceptable, and we would like to take this opportunity to clarify that he is no longer an EDELRID sponsored athlete, and in actuality has not been supported by the brand for over 12 months.
We will be removing all references to Ivan Greene from the EDELRID website with immediate effect.
"We would like to state unequivocally that EDELRID does not support the practice of chipping. It is our belief that the challenge, and the pleasure of climbing, lies in rock formations, as they occur naturally.
With this in mind we can state that we find the recent behaviour of Ivan Greene to be completely unacceptable, and we would like to take this opportunity to clarify that he is no longer an EDELRID sponsored athlete, and in actuality has not been supported by the brand for over 12 months.
We will be removing all references to Ivan Greene from the EDELRID website with immediate effect."
I fired off an email to Edelrid as soon as I saw that.
Every thing I've ever seen or heard of Ivan just spells complete tool.
He and I have several mutual friends on FB and one day my wife asks me who Ivan Greene is, she just received a friend request from some weird looking guy. Pathetically searching through second- hand Facebook friends for females you've never met? Classy....
1) Holds were being manufactured, and it was not simply cleaning off friable choss or loose flakes / junk that would be pulled off at the wrong time if left as is.
2) It isn't being done in his backyard, on private land with the owner's permission or in a quarry.
3) It is in fact Ivan Greene
Ahem....
What an absolute f**kwad.
I remember this clown from some bouldering vids from back in the late 90's (IIRC). Came off like a complete tool. That stupid ass tattoo on his back tells me all I need to know. It is very similar to what a lot of the posers in the MMA (mixed martial arts) scene have done, along with wearing stupid Affliction style tshirts heavily laden with skulls, pitbulls and barbed wire to try and look like a bad ass. This is a lot easier than actually learning to be a badass through training and hard work.
There is (usually) an inverse relationship between talent / ability and ego / need for validation.
Also, the idea that the person filming is culpable for not running down there to confront him is ludicrous. Putting yourself into what would certainly be a heated exchange with someone holding items capable of easily killing you is the milieu of people with poor critical thinking skills, or as we observe in this thread, keyboard warrior badasses who greatly overestimate themselves.
Finally, the idea of a "slippery slope" from other practices like putting in bolts or the use of non-clean aid to this atrocity is tenuous at best.
He will be sent to the Cali central valley to hand pick sh!t out of the fields for 108 days with only water and gruel for punishment
Hey, don't dis honest work, Werner. I earned the money for my first rope, 'biners and pro (well, OK, pitons, so I'm guilty, too) by picking grapes.
I have a hard time judging whether someone is a good or bad person, since I have so many faults myself. I have an easier time judging whether chipping is acceptable or unacceptable. It is not and should not be. When we gained an alternative to widening pin scars, we stopped using pins, by and large. We have always had an alternative to chipping on boulders. Last I checked, there is still no shortage of unknown bouldering territory.
I posted a link to that on EDELRID's Facebook page and got this response:
Hi David, we've de-listed this page from our main athletes page, but the webmaster informs us it will take some time still to remove the page completely. It seems like you can still find it via Google. Please bear with us.
-as for this hilariously funny quote:
He says he was cleaning up after someone else's mess. He will have his lawyer release a statement shortly I think.
Couch: It probably comes about from creeping incrementalism where you need to pull off loose flakes, then you need to knock a few off that are wiggling but won't pull off by hand.
That's some serious incrementalism when it includes about 300 pounds of rock and explicitly targets chiseling out whole swaths of non-loose crack and dihederal on an existing pitch variation which results in lowering its difficulty a grade. And that's before any retrobolts. Even more 'incrementalist' is the stunningly boldface claim it absolutely, positively did not happen, but then such is the extent of some folks' personal and collective reality distortion field - just like the one seen enveloping Ivan Greene in the video. [Creeping (and creepy)] 'incrementalism' is when you cut the top half off of beautiful little trees that aren't even in the way of any thing just because you can't restrain the urge.
It's just a boulder, there's millions of them everywhere. Let the guy glue his hold and call it a V13. It's like taking a moral position about people killing ants.
Next thing, you'll tell me Timy Fairfield is chipping.
Lol,
I confonted him in the 90's over a cup of coffee. I was returning his gas powered ryobi drill that I "found" in a wilderness area in the Sandias in NM. He was bolting a red Camalot sized crack with it. The route went on to become turbo trad a short bolted climb in the Sandias.
Over coffee I asked him about his gluing and chipping practices in Box Canyon and at the Enchanted tower. His most recent accomplishment then was a high number glue up named Child of the Light. (Child of the glue is a more apt name).
His take on it was hey go ahead and write your letter to the mags. I will even pose for a photo with a chisel. He was unashamed and stated that all publicity is good publicity. There was no curing him. Another friend at the time found a stash of Timmy's chisels at box canyon and de-sharpened them on a bench grinder and returned them to Timmy.
Timmy went on to glue up and dig out some limestone Choss in the sandias again in wilderness. I hope he has quit manufacturing routes, but do not have much faith that he has.
While talking to me he gave a critique of his work and said his peers thought his routes weren't altered enough.
Big egos lead to big heads and small actions for even smaller gains. Hopefully with this Ivan incident the world of chipping will be forced to consider their actions more carefully.
It looked like he could have been removing loose flakes in order to try a new roof problem. If it was an unestablished boulder problem that he was going to establish then I imagine it would be wise to remove the stuff that was likely to breakoff. I always thought of chipping as establishing new handholds where they don't exist. He (may) not be quite as quilty as it initially looks.
This kind of behavior is just unacceptable in the climbing community.
I thought we learned that from decades past. I naively thought this was at last something that all ST posters could agree on.
Justifying Ivan Greene's behavior by stating that pins have been hammered on El Cap is completely missing the point, and is not relevant to this discussion.
Brushing aside this transgression b/c its not as serious as drone strikes on innocent people, once again, completely misses the point.
I'm sorry that some posters on here are OK with this simply b/c its a boulder and there are millions of them. Besides the obvious ethical problems raised by this chipping, landowners can can (and have) limited access to climbing areas in light of behavior like this.
Climbers have a chance to step up to the plate and show the powers that be that we CAN self-police; and that this is NOT tolerated. NOT at the Gunks or Upstate NY, not in JT, not anywhere.
-
As for the cameraman....well I don't blame him for staying quiet and just filming. Would you risk provoking or incensing someone who is wielding a hammer??
All the comparative arguments (and photos) used in this and other threads are just weak beyond measure. I mean, just how bad is chipping and retro bolting compared to war, acts of god, and Bhopal?
I just reread the article the Rgold linked on page three. I'll emphasize some words that make it appear that there was more than one person videoing the act. Even if I was alone I would have no problem confronting someone in that situation. It's a pretty rash jump to assume someone who would chip would also attack someone for being called out on it. Either way I'm glad they got proof of who it was.
Recently on a snowy day, the ring of hammer and chisel on stone rang out, and the climbers were able to film a person in the act of altering the rock. What, exactly, they caught on film is debatable. Sometimes, when establishing rock climbs, a dangerous flake is pried loose to prevent injuries to future climbers. Sometimes that loose flake is 'scored' with a chisel so that when it breaks, it leaves a handhold, and sometimes holds are blatantly created with the use of tools.
The local climbers presented the video to DPM with the request that they remain anonymous. "We don't want this to come off as a personal attack," they said. "We've tried speaking with the person and it obviously hasn't had an effect. Our intent isn't malicious, we just want this to stop happening to our boulders."
As for the cameraman....well I don't blame him for staying quiet and just filming. Would you risk provoking or incensing someone who is wielding a hammer??
The way he was swinging it I doubt A) that he could even hit me and B) if he did, it wouldn't even welt.
Confronting and spraying is just so much internet hearsay compared to the outright effectiveness of the video. Tell Edelrid Ivan is chipping and nothing happens, show them a video of him chipping and sh#t happens.
Put up some routes and let's know what you have learned other than what goes on in the gym.
I've put up far more bp's than routes... upwards of 400 in the last decade. I never had the need or desire to put up spurt routes... I grew up in SLC, plenty of skilled and motivated people willing to do the work. "Putting up" easy trad is just a matter of wandering around stuffing cams in cracks and not killing my gf with loose rock... and I find that boring as sh#t.
I know what it takes to clean up a bp, and I know it don't take a hammer and chisel... EVER.
The force a hammer and chisel puts on a hold is what, a few dozen times the weight of a fat climber? I could apply the same force he was using to a hundred old school classics at josh and bust off most bomber flakes. Think of funking...
Wes, do you have one of those fancy rigs with a cliffhanger hook on the end of a telescoping pole w/a fatty brush? Typicall all i've seen to bust off fragile edges up high, a taped aid hook.
I'm new to the chipping scene, can someone explain to me:
What's the glue for?
Also, I'm appalled that the gloves have only gotten 4-5 posts. I think we should start another thread so that violation doesn't get lost in this chipping mayhem.
central park rocks are about 40% epoxy at this point. not from chipping but from things breaking off under "normal wear and tear". however now that yuki isn't around my guess is that if it breaks off it stays off these days. unless someone else has taken over the task.
Huh? I've met Ivan Greene. He's a really strong boulderer. Strange that with all of the climbing he can do, he would choose to chip. Climbing rocks is so much more fun than construction.
Glue is to preserve critical holds that make the route what it is, and which legions of gym trained monkees don't know how to pull on, as they lack the finesse which comes from climbing virgin natural rock. My personal opinion is that holds which are usable for the FA w/o glue can be justifiably reinforced by the FAist to retain the character, and difficulty of the route, to prevent overtrained lunks with poor footwork from ripping them off the wall.
Glueing should be rare, legal, and done with the utmost craftsmanship.
Other than that, it can be anywhere from an eyesore to an abomination.
Ya'll aren't even taking this seriously anymore. Everyone knows that a good old fashioned Swedish Poonjammer is the only acceptable tool for a job like this. Runs on hope and magic. Keep it well lubricated for maximum effect.
"It's just a boulder, there's millions of them everywhere. "
if thats the case then he wouldn't have a problem moving on to one he can climb!--furthermore IMO-he had plans to chip/manufacture alot more holds --why else would he stash all those tools---EVERYONE has made mistakes-but this is clearly past that-what a self centered little glory whore!!
OK... I propose we ban all rock climbing. We should probably start a petition on whitehouse.gov.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/create
I'd put it under 'Environment'... but you could probably make a case for putting the petition under 'Firearms', 'Homeland Security and Disaster Relief', or 'Women's Issues'.
Because I have actually written in defense of a limited form of chipping, many people have asked me what I think about this video. So here are my thoughts.
One of the main points I tried to make in my earlier essay is this: most climbers think there is a morally significant difference between the removal of loose rock/vegetation to make something climbable, and the removable of solid rock to make something climbable. And my main point was that I don’t see a sound justification for treating these two things as ethically different. There are not different from the standpoint of ecology or environmental concerns. A principled environmentalism would make no distinction between, on the one hand, scrubbing off lichen, weeds, flaky or crumbly rock, prying off a loose block with a crowbar, or removing rocks or bushes or even trees to improve a landing on the one hand, and chipping a hold to make something climbable on the other hand. If anything, a serious environmentalist might frown more on the former because it includes the killing of a living part of nature. So I find it bizarre that many climbers strongly condemn the latter activity and yet often actually praise the former activity, all the while insisting on a strong commitment to environmentalism.
Now since climbing is akin to a sport, climbers can make up whatever ethical rules they want. The can decree that it is unethical to do a FA on a Tuesday, but OK to do one on a Wednesday. They can stipulate that it is wrong to scrub off bat guano, bur acceptable to scrub off pigeon guano. And they can stipulate that it is wrong it chip a hold, but OK to significantly modify the natural terrain in a lot of other ways to make something go. That is up to us. My point was simply that the last case is similar to the former cases in that there does not seem to be a sound reason for making such a normative distinction.
Having said that, I think there are a whole bunch of legitimate reasons to think that what is going on in the video may be quite wrong. For example, if an area has rules put in place by land managers that stipulate rocks, vegetation and other aspects of the natural terrain should not be altered, then those rules should be followed. But notice that adherence to such rules would preclude scrubbing off lichen and loose rock. There was also somewhere the suggestion that some of the chipping involved altering established problems. If something is an established climb, there are a lot of very good reasons to leave it exactly as it is, and not modify it in any way. Also, in my earlier essay I argued that a natural climb is generally far superior to a manufactured climb, and so I restricted my defense of chipping to sections of rock that are literally impossible in their current form (no matter how good future climbers are). Now if what is being chipped in the video is doable (even if doable in the V-19 range) then I think it should be left alone for that future climber.
Suppose that what was in fact being chipped was not possible, ever. Then what may result from the chipping is a (probably) crappy little boulder problem. But there are lots of crappy little boulder problems around the country that people nonetheless get some enjoyment out of doing. What is odd is the following: Suppose the video showed someone doing a lot of the “legitimate” work that often goes into establishing a problem – someone scrubbing lichen, prying off loose blocks with a crowbar, scraping off dirt and flaky rock, excavating underlying boulders to make a better landing and so on. And suppose the video was presented as a tribute to all the hard work that sometimes goes into a making a quality boulder problem. Then people would actually be celebrating the person in the video, thanking him for his diligence in “doing what it takes” to make a great boulder problem others can enjoy. What is interesting is that such a video might actually depict a much greater modification of the natural terrain than what is shown in the DPM video. If it makes sense to treat that acceptable sort of alteration as praiseworthy and wonderful, then it really doesn’t make sense to treat the chipping as absolutely monstrous. It certainly doesn’t make sense to do so on purely environmental grounds, which is what seems to driving a lot of the anger.
Comically, I just noticed in the November Climbing magazine, on the very first page there is an ad for some alliance between Jeep and the Access Fund, featuring something called the “Conservation Team”. It shows two individuals engaged in what appears to be some significant alteration of a rocky landscape, using a giant pry-bar. Apparently these are the Good Guys, promoting conservation and environmental awareness! Am I the only one who finds all of this a little odd?
"Suppose the video showed someone doing a lot of the “legitimate” work that often goes into establishing a problem – someone scrubbing lichen, prying off loose blocks with a crowbar, scraping off dirt and flaky rock, excavating underlying boulders to make a better landing and so on. And suppose the video was presented as a tribute to all the hard work that sometimes goes into a making a quality boulder problem. Then people would actually be celebrating the person in the video, thanking him for his diligence in “doing what it takes” to make a great boulder problem others can enjoy. What is interesting is that such a video might actually depict a much greater modification of the natural terrain than what is shown in the DPM video. If it makes sense to treat that acceptable sort of alteration as praiseworthy and wonderful, then it really doesn’t make sense to treat the chipping as absolutely monstrous. It certainly doesn’t make sense to do so on purely environmental grounds, which is what seems to driving a lot of the anger."
Something to consider. But I don't find Jeep and the Access fund paired up odd at all.
Clearly there are similarities between scrubbing and cleaning a route and chipping a route. Imop mostly if you are cut from the same DNA of say Charlie sheen, Lindsy Lowhan, Dick Cheney, John Barnard Wyah the 2nd, Lance Armstrong or any other selfish one way dick head that can talk them self into whatever it is that suits their selfish need for the given moment.
I think good old basic common sense coupled with strong ethical core may be going by the wayside in lue of the all so noble and evolved Kardashian mentality.
Funny.. Here in 2012 I currently have no idea who Ivan Greene is. I had totally forgotten about him. Evidently I'm not a very good groupie. LOL
Seriously.. I *try* (don't always succeed) to not pass judgement on people I have never met in person, or routes I haven't seen or touched, so I got nothin' on Ivan Green. He's got plenty of people on his case already.
Has it been established that it is Ivan, in the film?
Has it been established that he wasn't just knocking off a loose flake.
I've seen Bachar use a small pry bar and hammer in JT.
In fact, most routes we all enjoy need some cleaning and yes screw driver and chisels are often used to make the climb something that can be climbed. Desert Shield in JT, was an overhanging wall of frosty, grainy flakes that took me four and a half days to clean. It would have been impossible without the cleaning effort.
Very hard climbs that are extremely hold critical, and said holds must withstand a ton of force.
Seems like people are being hateful and judgmental without all the facts. Ivan is not a bad guy, so what if he promotes himself and tries to make a living with his passion.
I wonder how many climber slamming him would ever even attempt a climb of this difficulty.
Aggressive cleaning and deliberate chipping is a very thin line and certainly not one that can be defined by a fuzzy video.
I've only met Bill a couple times, and we have enough mutual friends that I consider him good people, but he is wrong here...
A principled environmentalism would make no distinction between, on the one hand, scrubbing off lichen, weeds, flaky or crumbly rock, prying off a loose block with a crowbar, or removing rocks or bushes or even trees to improve a landing on the one hand, and chipping a hold to make something climbable on the other hand. If anything, a serious environmentalist might frown more on the former because it includes the killing of a living part of nature. So I find it bizarre that many climbers strongly condemn the latter activity and yet often actually praise the former activity, all the while insisting on a strong commitment to environmentalism.
The biggest distinction is that rocks don't grow back, ever. Lichens typically reoccupy the cleaned holds within a decade. Plus, they reproduce by asexual fragmentation... so scrubbing lichen is really just an interspecies fukfest.
Trees grow back too, but it is usually illegal to cut down trees on FS land without a permit. If you "need" one cut, may I recommend getting a Christmas Tree permit next December.
Trying to establish an ecological basis for the outrage is silly. Anyone who can't see the ecological impacts of trails, landings, etc is blind. Not to mention the petroleum based foam pads, ropes, cars, etc.
Basically, it boils down to: tread lightly or you jeopardize future access for everyone else... hammers and chisels are not treading lightly. Besides, CREATING holds on a rock you can't climb is weak.
Spare us the "fine line between cleaning and chipping" crap coz. I've developed plenty of areas and it never once crossed my mind to pull out a hammer and chisels. HUGE difference between pulling off a loose flake and repeatedly pounding a chisel into the rock with a sledge hammer.
Just talked to another Gunks guy that has seen Ivan do this in person. Yeah, it's him, and it has been known about for years. Only now did someone think to video the guy to remove all doubt.
In fact, most routes we all enjoy need some cleaning and yes screw driver and chisels are often used to make the climb something that can be climbed. Desert Shield in JT, was an overhanging wall of frosty, grainy flakes that took me four and a half days to clean. It would have been impossible without the cleaning effort.
Says you mi American dog amigo so nunca come chip and glue in Espania and or see how big and macho man make chipping girls and American glue dogs cry. Viva Espania!
Interesting, there is also a Power of the Choss Compels You thread for people who like to climb on shattered and broken rock for the added challenge ....
It ain't rocket science, there are no extenuating circumstances, comparative rationales dom't hold a drop of water - the dude boulders with a chalk bag and a sledge as normal accoutrements. Anyone who can't figure out that's just flat out f*#king wrong has almost as many issues as Ivan.
It's no different with ten-gallons-of-epoxy Fairfield - they both no doubt consider themselves artists and the stone their personal canvas. It's more a matter of spending way to much time in front of a mirror and reading their own blogs than something as simple as ethics. Unfortunately, it's most likely an incurable condition.
Well, I'd have to say I only climbed at the Gunk's, maybe a hand full of times and really enjoyed it.
I thought the grades were quite soft, however, since I on sighted a 13, that probably would have been 12b in JT.
That said, the rock didn't seem like it needed to be chiseled, but there was certainly the crusty calcification, that I could see some wanting to chip away at.
But, whatever not my problem, just a little sensitive about the hold chipper label. If you really haven't established climbs, then maybe you're not qualified to judge.
Not defending Ivan, but no, you really can't tell what's going on for sure, in that video.
I think the line for me is when someone picks up a power drill and creates a pocket.
I remember I freed a line in the Valley and Bachar could not do the move, he beat on the grainy pocket with the end of his tooth brush till he could get the hold to work. When I ran a lap after I found the move much easier and was truly pissed off. My friends all told me it was OK to chisel with a tooth brush.
It's a fine line, and the hammer and chisel do look bad...
If you really haven't established climbs, then maybe you're not qualified to judge.
I've developed plenty... and what is in that video is FAR BEYOND ACCEPTABLE. You can talk all you want about the "fine line" but the fact is, he was nowhere near it.
Coz. I have developed pleanty of routs and am a fair hand with a pry bar. this looks totaly diffent to me than trundeling the big scary stuff and trenching the crumbly crap.
I was there for the strip and streak for peace. Put my camera right the f down. He needs no more publicity I thought. What a tool. I have to admit though i did photograph him and a friend climbing the bank in salt lake with the world map on it. Cool photos I never did anything with.
I feel shame for loosely participating in his attention whoring. Maybe that is one of the reasons I am so pissed about the chipping besides the fact that he is chipping. I hate chipping.
i did photograph him and a friend climbing the bank in salt lake with the world map on it.
Mugs did that in the 80's (?). I wish I still had that picture... got it from a friend... I think it was in a magazine. If anyone has a copy (of Mugs) I'd be psyched to see it again.
Says you mi American dog amigo so nunca come chip and glue in Espania and or see how big and macho man make chipping girls and American glue dogs cry. Viva Espania!
i am glad Pelut is back, i've missed him.
Hey Coz, how come us low grade middling talent climbers aren't allowed to sit in judgement of the guy like everyone else? Hell i know chipping and manufacturing when i see it too!
When you allow only the elite to hold opinions it kind of gives you that one percent-er look.
why do some people try to manufacture middle ground on this BS!?
are some of you so FUGGIN PC that you can abide by this!!the ridge is HUGE!!he can choose between thousands of boulders and crags!!there is no excuse!!NONE!!should he face a fireing squad??NO!!run out of the preserve--you bet!!
Bamboo I don't know jack sh#t about where who he is, where he was or any of the climbing. Nothing. Any outrage on my part would be 100% assumed. Why invest moral outrage in such a meaningless gesture, a great sound and fury?
Because I have actually written in defense of a limited form of chipping, many people have asked me what I think about this video. So here are my thoughts.
One of the main points I tried to make in my earlier essay is this: most climbers think there is a morally significant difference between the removal of loose rock/vegetation to make something climbable, and the removable of solid rock to make something climbable. And my main point was that I don’t see a sound justification for treating these two things as ethically different. There are not different from the standpoint of ecology or environmental concerns. A principled environmentalism would make no distinction between, on the one hand, scrubbing off lichen, weeds, flaky or crumbly rock, prying off a loose block with a crowbar, or removing rocks or bushes or even trees to improve a landing on the one hand, and chipping a hold to make something climbable on the other hand. If anything, a serious environmentalist might frown more on the former because it includes the killing of a living part of nature. So I find it bizarre that many climbers strongly condemn the latter activity and yet often actually praise the former activity, all the while insisting on a strong commitment to environmentalism.
Now since climbing is akin to a sport, climbers can make up whatever ethical rules they want. The can decree that it is unethical to do a FA on a Tuesday, but OK to do one on a Wednesday. They can stipulate that it is wrong to scrub off bat guano, bur acceptable to scrub off pigeon guano. And they can stipulate that it is wrong it chip a hold, but OK to significantly modify the natural terrain in a lot of other ways to make something go. That is up to us. My point was simply that the last case is similar to the former cases in that there does not seem to be a sound reason for making such a normative distinction.
Having said that, I think there are a whole bunch of legitimate reasons to think that what is going on in the video may be quite wrong. For example, if an area has rules put in place by land managers that stipulate rocks, vegetation and other aspects of the natural terrain should not be altered, then those rules should be followed. But notice that adherence to such rules would preclude scrubbing off lichen and loose rock. There was also somewhere the suggestion that some of the chipping involved altering established problems. If something is an established climb, there are a lot of very good reasons to leave it exactly as it is, and not modify it in any way. Also, in my earlier essay I argued that a natural climb is generally far superior to a manufactured climb, and so I restricted my defense of chipping to sections of rock that are literally impossible in their current form (no matter how good future climbers are). Now if what is being chipped in the video is doable (even if doable in the V-19 range) then I think it should be left alone for that future climber.
Suppose that what was in fact being chipped was not possible, ever. Then what may result from the chipping is a (probably) crappy little boulder problem. But there are lots of crappy little boulder problems around the country that people nonetheless get some enjoyment out of doing. What is odd is the following: Suppose the video showed someone doing a lot of the “legitimate” work that often goes into establishing a problem – someone scrubbing lichen, prying off loose blocks with a crowbar, scraping off dirt and flaky rock, excavating underlying boulders to make a better landing and so on. And suppose the video was presented as a tribute to all the hard work that sometimes goes into a making a quality boulder problem. Then people would actually be celebrating the person in the video, thanking him for his diligence in “doing what it takes” to make a great boulder problem others can enjoy. What is interesting is that such a video might actually depict a much greater modification of the natural terrain than what is shown in the DPM video. If it makes sense to treat that acceptable sort of alteration as praiseworthy and wonderful, then it really doesn’t make sense to treat the chipping as absolutely monstrous. It certainly doesn’t make sense to do so on purely environmental grounds, which is what seems to driving a lot of the anger.
No, no, no!
I recall reading Bill Ramsey’s essay in Climbing: Philosophy for Everyone, defending, on much the same grounds, "limited" chipping.
It annoyed me then and it annoys me now to see this cleverly argued opinion (but maybe he's playing devil’s advocate, trolling, if so, you got me pretty good there, Bill!).
What the argument is missing is the motivation of the person wielding a hammer.
1. When a climber is removing lichen or loose flakes on a new route then that climber is trying to get at the “climb” that is there, to reveal it, find it, expose it. By “climb” in this sense I mean the natural challenge of the rock face. A climber “cleaning” is creating a path, a route, up the rock face that will be unencumbered by unpleasant and possibly dangerous hazards and impediments. This is a creative act.
2. An aid climber hammering pitons is doing the same, creating a new (or following an existing) route. Again, this is taking on the natural challenge of the rock face. The style (pitons) may be flawed, but still, damage to the rock is accidental, incidental, much as hiker’s feet cannot help but trample vegetation and soil.
3. Someone “chipping” is deliberately altering the rock face itself. The rock face is there; either climbable, not currently climbable, always cool to see, to admire, the product of eons of erosion, history, a connection with nature. Chipping destroys the challenge of the rock face. It destroys the esthetic value of the rock face. It steals from all of us. The “unclimbable, ever” problem of today might be tomorrow's V17. It’s a destructive act, much like vandalism or graffiti, denying our connection with the natural world.
This is grossly simplified. There's all kinds of shades of gray. There are places where cleaning any vegetation or pounding any pins would be totally inappropriate. There are even places where chipping IS appropriate.
Bill Ramsey: Having said that, I think there are a whole bunch of legitimate reasons to think that what is going on in the video may be quite wrong. For example, if an area has rules put in place by land managers...
Aside from his essay being just a fundamentally tepid and weak overall defense of chipping, this excerpt is especially troubling. Why? Because this kind of manufacturing and altering of rock has been very much on the rise as the climbing demographic has grown over the years and if climbers can't police themselves, and instead require "rules put in place by land managers", then we are more or less doomed by outliers like Greene and Fairfield who will continue to cause the imposition of more and more rules on the sport over time.
It only takes a few guys like these and incidents like Delicate Arch to cause serious access issues, use constraints, and tighter oversight of the sport. Because of that, I see the recording and widespread condemnation of Ivan's activities as a very good thing indeed.
Your counter points are entirely from a climber's perspective, and therefore don't counter Ramsey's points at all. His points are mainly about the perspective of non-climbers.
Look a the other 'ethical' thread of cleaning massive amounts of greenery off cliffs in Squamish. The OP is pointing out that this is questionable from the non-climbing community perspective. You can look up from your mimi-van at the rock and see the difference from a long way away. Chipped rock under a roof, not so much.
The 'ethics' against chipping are entirely something generated by climbers themselves to police our ranks on the slippery-slope idea to protect ourselves from having our own routes and grades altered after they have been established, protect the future of blank sections for harder ascents, etc. This has nothing to do with a broader concept of environmentalism.
“Crunch, Your counter points are entirely from a climber's perspective, and therefore don't counter Ramsey's points at all. His points are mainly about the perspective of non-climbers.”
In the case of the alleged chipping shown in the video and referred to in posts on this thread, few or no non-climbers will notice. Nor, if if the damage is pointed out to them, will they care. The "climbers' perspective" is the only one that is relevant in this particular case.
This jogged my memory of those days.....which isn't an easy thing to do considering the excessive amounts of high grade marijuana I was burning through at the time.
I remember I freed a line in the Valley and Bachar could not do the move, he beat on the grainy pocket with the end of his tooth brush till he could get the hold to work.
I believe it was on a route at Reeds if I'm not mistaken. i never was on the route so I can only say what I remember hearing, but wasn't the hold you speak of more of a pain tolerance thing? One pad splitting Pirahna tooth crystal in the interior of the pocket. I'm not saying that this makes what John did acceptable, (especially if it changed the grade) because even comfortizing can be a slippery slope, but if what John did with his toothbrush was chipping, then what Ivan is doing in the video is chipping times a hundred.
Kenny,
JB's not here to defend himself, so I'd say that the hold in question was solid and clean. He did pound on it for a good five minutes until it was much larger. It made the move much easier.
He only used a tooth brush handle like a chisel. So obviously it wasn't anything like what Ivan is accused of.
But it did really piss me off at the time, and it was just an example that any cleaning is a form of hold enhancement. It's all about where you draw the line.
I think after a route has been climbed it should be left alone.
The old school JT folks used an ice ax to clean and chisel out the now famous Gun Smoke.
I had a couple ground up locals glue holds and drill pockets on a TR I did at Gaint Rock.
I'm sure they won't chime in here and risk exposure, but Ivan is not the only guy out there doing shady stuff.
So obviously it wasn't anything like what Ivan is accused of.
Dude, wake up! Accused of?!?! Stop obfuscating the issue... watch the fuqin video again. It don't matter who done it or when, it is blatant chipping and not even close to "cleaning."
"Some climbers use the wording Ethical in an attempt to control others by calling their actions unethical.
Ethics is an unresolved topic in philosophy. Yet some climbers are foolish enough to suggest their behavior is ethical."
Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure that ethics isn't quite as ambiguous as you say. It refers to the *ethos* governing the behavior of a particular community. Which makes this pretty cut-and-dried. If chipping, or whatever, is contrary to the prevailing spirit of the community it is by definition unethical.
Morality is a trickier concept, but not what we're talking about here.
So yes, this is unethical.
edit: how do you make the little box-thing to indicate someone else's quote?
Oh yes, people have their systems of ethics or religions if you Will and you can study them. But should you study some philosophy on ethics you will find two things:
1. None of them are consistent.
2. There are no ethical "oughts" or said in another way "...from purely a priori grounds" i.e. you have to choose as to how you want to the world to act.
For an easy but long winded take on this CF: Questions of Value Patrick Grimm, The Teaching Company.
Yes, superficially the one system you like seems good to you but all have serious failings. And this allows you to say that those not doing things the way you think is ethical is unethical. Ethics is CRAP.
To edit in quotes use an item (tool) from the blue line above the text entering box.
Maybe you can set me straight... teach me something...
But I'm pretty sure killing others for personal benefit is universally considered immoral.
As is damaging/stealing the property of others for personal benefit.
Funny because I remember a party where I jokingly said "there is no wrong, there is no right... only pleasure and pain" quoting Jane's Addiction... which set Prof. Ramsey into a 30+ min lecture that included female genital mutilation and rape. I was pretty drunk and my dad was busy kicking the bucket 5 hours away, but I'm pretty sure he was arguing that there is in fact a distinction between wrong and right.
I'm pretty sure he was arguing that there is in fact a distinction between wrong and right.
There is. Society creates them. We climbers create our values. As climbers we think chipping is wrong(at least most of us). So there is a wrong and there is a right. In this case Ivan is plain wrong. If it was even close to a 40/60 percent way of thinking then you could use other arguements to bolster that it might have been right. Fact is that in most climbers eyes it's not right. So the debating that needs to be done here isn't whether it's acceptable or unacceptable. We just need to figure out the punishment for said crime. I'm pretty sure the public humiliation will suffice is this case. I wonder if his lawyer is gonna release that statement this year? LOL
"ethics" may be too strong a word but its the word we use. Don't damage anything, because it doesnt belong to you and other people have the right to enjoy it without all your bolts, chisel scars and glue. It's not like you're going up Mt Everest walking by all these dying people, that's real ethics, but you're still damaging something that's been in a natural state for millions of years. It's a good ethic but nothing compared to blasting away the side of a mountain to put in a highway, or for that matter, whoever built highway 120 damaged a lot of pristine wilderness and then opened the floodgates to tourism. I think you probably have a bigger impact on the environment in other ways, ie from the products you buy, garbage you make etc.
But I'm pretty sure killing others for personal benefit is universally considered immoral.
Unless you are cheney and Halliburton, then you can do it with taxpayer funding.
Dingus McGee,
Don't try to explain relativism and reason to this crowd, These are types that pound pitons with a hammers on desert vertical towers while tourists at the base while complaining about a random chossy boulder in the woods in NY. They do the Nose, but ignore the fact that it would go if it hadn't been chipped.
But hey, all climbing 'ethics' are local, right? Unless it is a crappy video, released by a half-rate mag tying to claw it's way up by being the new People magazine of the climbing world (Ivan EXPOSED), then then we can make universal assumptions and start flinging virtual interweb poo.
Learn the difference between morality and ethics. Morality has to do with when to kill, an entirely different matter than when to chisel.
patrick compton gets it right when he says, "... ethics are local." Climbing eithixs tries to regulate the almost intangibles yet ignores the obvious shades of its ingnorance.
GET THIS STRAIGHT: The filmed chiseler has climbing ethics BUT they are different than what some of you rant about.
you live in bubble, but you are just beginning to feel it's boundaries of the confined narrow world view you entertain.,
View Ivan work as heavy hold enhancement techniques whereas light hold enhancement techniques would be using a stiff wire brush.
And OR some people do boulder with a wire brush while some climbers climb with a hammer but to you and a few others cannot let Ivan boulder with a sledge.
Hey old man take a look at Your Life.... yours is a lot like mine
Don, this is a digital creation of backhoes trenching out the Great White Book on Stately Pleasure Dome above Tenaya Lake. You could call it a fictive chipping incident, yes. A Reductio ad Absurdum, if you will. Once the principle is established for chipping and gymnification of natural rock, let's get off the pot and get real and just do it right; let's just trench away for christ's sake. Let's bring together those petroglyph thieves from the East Side with modern excavating techniques. Then we will really have something.
A number of posts back Kevin (The Warbler) posted a very valid question if anyone knew of a climbing area that has been closed as a result of chipping. While I am not aware of any such closure, I can state with certainty that many land managers/owners specifically consider this type of activity (rock alteration) to be totally inappropriate, so there is always a risk of such a closure. I surely would hate to have an area where I want to climb to be closed for this reason in the future. The video talks of the boulder being chipped as being on "public land" in New York. Climbers from this region are, or should be, well aware of the very difficult,long-lasting, and on-going efforts to expand climbing opportunities in New York state parks---places like Minnewaska State Park, adjacent to the Mohonk Preserve in the Gunks, and Thacher State Park outside of Albany, for example. There is no doubt that incidents such as this, if they become known to the responsible state officials, would very negatively effect our chances of success in these efforts.
yes, yess I am member I can only hope I am in the group of these A-holes for if i pleased everyone I surely could not please myself except when I masterbated in private or with the locker.
Learn the difference between morality and ethics. Morality has to do with when to kill, an entirely different matter than when to chisel.
Emphasis YOURS.
Dingus, learn to stop making up your own definitions. You can't just change the meaning of words to fit your needs and then claim others don't know what they mean... that's immoral.
Moral: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior
Ironically, all the fuss and publicity that internet discussions like this bring make it far more likely that land managers will take notice of hold alteration and take action, if they ever do at all, and as far as that goes, nobody posting here knows of that ever happening.
So the effort to shame the perpetrator into desisting, which his critics are enthusiastically attempting to do here, actually increases the likelihood that their liberties, which they fear he is threatening, will actually be taken away.
its always a lot of fun to manufacture outrage over morally ambiguous sh#t
I know!
Like that time I added bolts to B-Y. It isn't like I even changed any of the holds. Or that time I couldn't get my fingers under the Great Roof. A couple swings of the hammer and BAM... 5.7 traverse that anyone can do. You are welcome.
Ironically, all the fuss and publicity that internet discussions like this bring make it far more likely that land managers will take notice of hold alteration and take action, if they ever do at all, and as far as that goes, nobody posting here knows of that ever happening.
So the effort to shame the perpetrator into desisting, which his critics are enthusiastically attempting to do here, actually increases the likelihood that their liberties, which they fear he is threatening, will actually be taken away.
Hmmmm....
That argument can be turned on its head, Warbler. If such behavior is ignored it will lead to more chipping, by more people, in more places.
Given the level of anger and condemnation that always ensues, I'm amazed that any climbers would think it's okay to do what's going on in the video. Yet, once a decade or so, this kind of controversy erupts.
To ignore it is to encourage more climbers to act the same way. Eventually something will be noticed by non-climbers. And what's our response then, with widespread chipping all over our crags and boulders?
Or else some well-meaning but misguided person, encouraged by the lack of condemnation, carves a couple jugs on some iconic boulder problem, like, say, Midnight Lightning. You expect climbers to keep quiet then? What does the Access Fund, our representatives, for better or worse, say then?
Climbing ethics or rules or guidelines or morals, call 'em what you will, are flawed and imperfect but they are all we have for negotiating our access.
Unpleasant though the whole ordeal is for Ivan Greene (who I've never met, is being somewhat scapegoated here, and is probably a fine person in real life), and though this fuss does potentially attract land managers' attention, I think the community's condemnation to the video is appropriate.
Never attempt a route that is beyond your ability.
Now by ability I mean your skill at camouflaging.
Ivan was caught red handed? A movie in court is not as strong as the testimony of a witness saying you seen him do it. You have to show the movie is valid. None of us have done that here.
Bouldering in the Shawangunks 2nd edition, Ivan Greene & Marc Russo
"ETHICS AND UNDERSTANDINGS:
Keep it simple. Leave the rocks the way they are. No chipping, filling, sculpting, etc. of anything on the boulders.."
He states what constitutes ethical conduct in a guidebook. I have to assume that reflects his own moral beliefs because I don't have enough evidence (or desire) to call him a blatant liar. He then violates those ethics, not once but several times, not openly but secretly. And you are claiming that doesn't fall under "immoral behavior?"
Fuking philosophers!
edit: If his lawyer releases a statement that says he believes he did nothing wrong, I will concede. Until then, consider the evidence.
I just realized this was at the Gunks. It's totally unacceptable, since that area is always at risk and the best part, skytop, is closed to climbing. This is from the second link in the OP:
One such instance happened last year in the 'Gunks, a popular bouldering area in New York State. ... Other local climbers began noticing that the project wasn't the only one that got chipped in the area. Another local stated, "We started to see these problems that were completely manufactured- like every hold. It was happening all over. We had suspicions about who it was, but there isn't exactly a police force in the boulders to prevent this stuff from happening."
So Dingus McGee, you're defending his actions?
Sorry, don't have time to read the thread.
Looks clear "cut" to me, but I've only been at this for 36 years, so what do I know?
Not true Dingus. The video would be admissible against Ivan Greene and could be authenticated by anyone who could identify those boulders. They don't have to have seen the chipping, just the boulders. That's how authentication of photos and videos works under the federal rules of evidence.
* For example, its common to take a picture of a traffic intersection, then someone testifies that this is an accurate photo of it, but that person didn't actually see the accident that occurred there. If there were skid marks on the pavement, he could authenticate them too, if he saw them.
hahahaaaaa... now the issue is whether it is admissible evidence.... pathetic.
This isn't a court of law and even if it were, I'm guessing it would still be admissible evidence. This is a community discussing the IMMORAL behavior of someone caught on video damaging a shared resource. You don't even have to be a climber to know that what he did was wrong. And you have to be pretty dense or in a state of perpetual confusion to pretend it was not a moral transgression.
Whoa, they can say this looks like the boulders in such and such a place.
But they fail when ask whether they know the movie took place when the boulder chipping took place. i.e. you need to establish that in fact the closeup of the chiseling was on these boulders at this time. A movie does not establish such coherence.
But then in fact when they say they seen all this we have way more than a movie, we have the testimony!! And that is what I said in the first place.
While I understand Warbler's concern, I totally agree with Crunch's evaluation. While there is risk in exposing our dirty laundry, there is a greater risk in not acting to stop it---and public exposure within the community is the best--legal--way of doing this.
In response to Dingus, while this matter shouldn't be "thread-drifted" into an evidence seminar, evidentiary issues do happen to be a topic I know something about. Don is correct, the video, ideally authenticated by the person who shot it, would definitely be admissible evidence in a court proceeding.
I can hardly resist saying it's not chiseling, hoping you will spin out of control; grew up in Salt Lake, that explains quite a bit, right there.
You're as bad as me...LOL
Kevin's correct, this forum is read by land manager and could have severe repercussions beyond the damage Ivan did.
Having reinforced a hold with glue, on Desert Shield in JT, BITD. I put myself in the hot seat and Rock and Ice Magazine was so pissed off, they publish a photo of a similar hold.
I received a call from my Mother (my biggest fan and a tree hugger to the core),who just receive the offending Mag in the mail.
"Honey, are... you really gluing holds on the rock?" She said scoldingly to me.
I tried to back my way out of it, like the first time she found weed in my pocket to no avail.
A heated argument between me, and the then R and I editor at a Vegas trade show, assured I would no longer get any press of any kind.
Bottom line, (please sit and hold on to your beanie, Chris)... Is that we have no solid proof and yes, that is why we have courts. It sure seems to me, Ivan took a hammer and chisel and created holds, but I still feel this should be policed by his peers, not on a public forum. As Dingus said, it's all hearsay.... Yes I believe and feel he chiseled holds, but sorry that's not proof.
This thread is quite funny, but what's not so funny, is the people reading it. I hope the local everyday climbers of the Gunks, will not suffer access issue, because some pebble wrestlers, are getting their panties in a bunch, over the next V13.
The comments here are pretty tame compared to the ones on the video and article in the OP. Ivan Greene made things worse with his response, which is the top listed comment on the video:
Just because it is his name doesn't mean its him... that poster even spelled it wrong, probably just someone trolling for drama.
You guys condemn this guy for chiseling? How unappropiate. A camo job goes unnoticed. It is sort of work in vain. You never get those gracious compliments just sore lips. "Bite your Lip" Could some of you protesters bit your lips to land managers?
Ivan deserves condemnation for a lousy camo job, not chipping.
That was also signed "Ivan Green" so either he does not know how to spell his last name, he made a typo, or it weren't him.
I have yet to see anything official from Ivan.
coz, reenforcing a hold for preservation purposes is different than chipping holds into the rock. It is usually ugly and definitely unnecessary. I lost all psyche for one of the raddest caves in Utah when a friend got super motivated and put up tons of new lines... with a shocking number of the grips consisting almost entirely of glue. I like to think the fumes got to him because he really is a super nice guy and I've never heard a bad word said about him. But in my opinion those routes are not worth my time.
BUT, reinforcing Maple choss is entirely different than making holds in solid grainite with a chisel and hammer, especially when the guidebook you helped to write clearly says it is inappropriate.
And STFU with the cammo bullsh#t. Chipping holds is for pussies who don't know how to climb... simple as that.
Apologies, I think the quote I posted was mis-attributed to Ivan Greene so I deleted it. It's at the very top of the comments and lots of people responding but I agree it's probably fake. I wouldn't want to be him now anyway.
I don't need to read it again you wuss. You can't do the new move AND it seems you cannot state how it is definitely necessary without admission of that inadequacy you feel when now fail to do a climb missing a hand hold.
blah blah blah
Another fine example of your baby sh#t rationale again.
Having reinforced a hold with glue, on Desert Shield in JT, BITD.
Coz, you need to git yer ass over there and finish gluing. Might be about 20 yrs late, but still...that pile has great climbing on shitty rock. It's had stuff breaking off ever since it went up.
I'm not big on glue, but you didn't go nearly far enough with the glue on that one (if the intention was for a sustainable, repeatable route).
i get it you are reinforcing holds while Ivan is doing hold enhancement.
Both methods sound like hold enhancement techniques to me.
And to make my point I don't care if you do this but I find it amusing that you have made the assumption of standing on the morally high ground to justify condemning what Ivan has done. You fu*king hypocrite.
Nope, you don't get it. I am not reinforcing holds and I make it a point to avoid reinforced, glued, or chipped holds.
Seriously man, you need to learn to read if you are going to play here on the interwebs.
I never ONCE condoned gluing. I never once said it was "necessary." I said it was "UNNECESSARY." Here, does this help...
I DO NOT CONDONE GLUING OR CHIPPING. AND NEVER SAID I DO.
I find it amusing that you made all that up in your head and just roll with it. Feel free to delete your obvious misunderstanding to save face, I don't mind.
It is entirely different. One is gluing, one is chipping. It doesn't mean I condone either. They are both disgusting and I have never indicated otherwise.
And if that was your premise, why did you misquote my other statement?
You see, Kenny, it's much more fun to view life in black and whites rather than the reality of the grey it is.
It is either ALL TERRIBLE and worthy of death, or it is common practice and should be done every day. Often, people cannot live unless rules are set out plain and simple for everyone to follow.
Glue on El Cap is like glue at new jack city is like glue at a quarry.
or at least, these are the arguments of people that don't actually do any rock climbing.
kind of reminds me of being 15 and talking to my friends about girls. Everyone is an expert in something they know nothing about :)
you have been against the chiseling the whole time as unnecessary. You then post the line "...entirely different...".reinforcement [about gluing]?.. go figure.. I presume that reinforcement at Maple involves some gluing.
And it just so happens that they are not so entirely different. In fact they both fall into the category of hold enhancement techniques.
Its obvious to me here that not everyone here is an expert in camo. But what is the analogy here that caused you to loose your coffee? What are we not experts in now that makes it like the thought of being girl experts at 15?
MOK, the cammo thing is lame. Is it ok to steal from the elderly if you are stealthy and do it in a way they don't recognize? Did you rape your dates in college after spiking their drinks with ruffees? I mean really, your dates wouldn't know. Ruffees make for good cammo, no?
Except for you are damaging someone elses property, or public property, and jeopardizing access for the rest of us. And so the rest of us may reap what you sow.
How so if it is undetectable?
---------------------------
Because you are here online telling property owners and land managers that boulderers, and maybe other climbers too, can't be trusted to be respectful of land management policies. That they need to be watched at every moment or they will violate policy and permanently alter rock, and they will be willfully deceptive about it.
In short, you are a poster child for why climbers should be denied access.
Do think land managers give a fu*k? if i believed IN your victimhood you could bait me, but your hypotheticals are like drawing against an unarmed man.
I never drive over the speed limit. In fact a lot of times I'll try to block other people to stop them from speeding. Same things goes for cutting into the line. Public safety, with no TOOLS required.
MOK:
again please tell me how you detect the undetectable?
I know what a good camo job can hide and how to make them look natural.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Who needs to detect anything? You are brazenly displaying your lack of respect for private and public property right here and now, and your words will be searchable for a very long time.
If climbers like you are out there, why would any property owner, or land manager, want to allow climbers anywhere near their land?
what have you been at for 36 years? chipping, looking for chipping. Please give me a clue.
Climbing boulders, cliffs, walls and mountains, among other things.
I never found any need to manufacture holds. Of course, I only climbed 5.12 and had no sponsors, so I didn't feel the need to manufacture a career either.
As far as whether he was "cleaning" or "manufacturing", it sounded to me as though those hammer/chisel blows were directed against solid stone, not hollow or loose flakes. Those were serious and expensive tools he was employing. Cleaning my ass....
Whatever MOK. You have no idea how landowners and land managers in NY feel about this or how they would, or will, respond, especially seeing that you live out in Cheneyland.
The bottom line is a glaring deficit of imagination and creativity.
"His best climbs are monuments to the human spirit, pivotal ascents that reorient and redefine the game. Because of this, he's a symbolic ambassador for everyone who owns a rope and a pair of boots. "
-John Long
The opposite also holds true.
...............................
Bravo and many thanks to the dude(s) that took the video. You did right by bringing this public instead of trying to reason with an (immature?) offender lost inside a bad ego trip or conversely escalating into fisticuffs.
This sort of egregious chipping and sculpting degrades and diminishes the vibe of climbing, it degrades and diminishes our natural environment, it charts a dangerous trajectory with land managers, and it sets a bad example (let's hope Mr. Greene's behavior does not influence crews of gym-bred teenagers armed with packs full of sledge hammers and cold chisels thinking that it's quite alright to hack away with abandon at the rock).
Mr. Greene has accomplished nothing so much as to degrade Nature by reducing it to a projection of his own unremarkable limitations. The result is a permanent monument to his own shortcomings: his lack of imagination, lack of creativity, lack of skill, and lack of vision. Nothing noteworthy entrains from casually degrading wild and unpredictable Nature until it mirrors a version of one's familiar over-determined indoor playpens.
We learn and grow as much from our failures as from our successes: there is never anything close to futile about climbing if approached with honesty and consciousness. This of course assumes one comes to the rock with a receptive mind, a spirit of discovery, and something to learn, rather than coming to the rock with something to prove and a desire to take regardless of the price or consequences.
You don't have to 'go big, or go home': you simply have to be for real.
This is a terrible embarrassment.
I hope Mr. Greene learns something from this unfortunate episode. Rather than live in denial … and painful as it may be for him, I do hope that he summons the courage to man up and admit that he made a mistake so that there's something positive and productive for both himself and the climbing community to gain from this.
Master of Kludge- wow, are u saying that u condone chipping? I just don't get your angle here, help us out? What's all this stupid camo talk? You are kinda coming off like a bit of a weirdo here dragging this thing along with all of your not so subtle statements glamorizing a coward's act. Maybe you're just trolling or maybe you are truly this douchebag character that you portray here on this thread? Maybe both, either way I mostly agree with Wes here.
Chipping holds is for pussies who don't know how to climb... simple as that.
now a coward wouldn't fess up, but yes I do condone a well done camo job.
Okay, simple as that I don't know how to climb.
But I sure have fun on overhanging stuff not weighting the gear. Even when some of the holds have had my hold enhancements techniques used to the minimum. Now unlike you I live with this knowing who provides my type of fun and I just don't get validity from you or Wes. Wes can go F himself and I could care less.
Don't worry I hear most of Squamism is slabs and cracks. Not my turf.
MOK, thanks for the response. I'm still not convinced on your justification but I also don't see the world thru your eyes, maybe u drill pockets in some quarry heap? Maybe u wreck holds on existing routes because you can't do them? I am not privy to your motives or what you have done. Thru my eyes I cant seem to understand why u think your affinity for cheating would be worth mentioning on here? Are you hoping for some sort of "chipper's unite!" to take place?? Haha Good luck!!
All seems a little strange to me. As to would a coward confess?? I don't know, but I think rather than chipping or confessing you'd be better off making yourself strong enough to do the climbs you want to do in the state that they're in. That is exactly what a coward would not do- leave the project for someone better.Your "confessing" appears to be more for attention than anything else anyways, sorry- far from heroic. I also don't think anyone is trying to give you validity, only suggesting that what you are doing is little kid toy sh#t & that you need to get with the program. That's what I'm telling you at least but you seem pretty happy about the way things are & I guess for you that's all that matters so party on!
There's heaps of chipped routes out there, relics from a bygone era. Canvases from selfish artists who didn't actually know how to paint without numbers.
These days do we really need more??
And as for you thinking about a road chip up here, yes ur right- super low angle everywhere here & everything worth chipping has already been chipped.
At least climbing isn't getting totally normalized by the mainstream.
Kludge Master is painting little spots with his oil paints and what not, diddling away at some remote, defenseless crag in Wyoming that know one knows about. At some level, he'd like to see more people climb his routes.
Ivan wears elbow length gloves, alternating between missing the end of the chisel and beating the crap out of the rock with his mini sledge. Stashing his Harbor Freight tools here and there, he engages in xtra-normal battles with others in his community.
Everyone's got their style, but at some point it's just poor form that isn't justified by some personal or professional philosophy. It's relative to the rock quality, the sensibilities of the community, and land management.
If the rock is good, and you have no control in the moment, best to limit yourself to the toothbrush.
When I first saw this thread, I thought the question was, is bouldering climbing and do boulderers have to obey rock climbing rules? I was willing to say, boulders are not the same kind of valuable resource as rock climbing routes, and it really doesn't bother me what people do to them. Clear out all the underbrush, chip and glue holds wherever you want them to be, cover the rock with chalk patterns, and hang out smoking dope with your boom box and radical clothing. Actually that's all fine with me, as long as the property owner doesn't care. But if this guy's doing this at the Gunks, someone should send the video to the mohonk trustees, explain that climbers TOOK the video because they're trying to help protect the preserve, and hopefully they'll bust this guy for trespassing and vandalism.
It probably didn't have a whole lot to do with his views on chipping but rather had to do with MOK telling someone if they said STFU to his face they might lose their life.
My experience with the Mohonk Preserve ( then called Mohonk Trust) when managed by Dan Smiley was that they felt very strongly that problems were best solved by the climbers. If at all possible.
Now listen to me. Whenever it became apparent this was not in the cards, The Preserve was not at all afraid to solve the problem using all necessary means.
All necessary means.
They are not the National Park Service.
The Preserve has almost a 150 year history acting as a most gracious host.
Climbers need to solve this problem.
Edit:
Public humiliation comes to mind if one considers that a weapon they themselves would use. If one does not consider that to be appropriate, there are other better approaches.
In 1970 on another much bigger problem I was advised to use public humiliation. I did not.
That's probably all he has to do is promise to stop doing it, otherwise the result could be quite negative as John Stannard warns. (forget what I wrote before about involving trustees, that was a bad idea) I think he's lost so much credibility that he has to do this anyway. He's not going to impress anyone with his chipped problems so why keep doing it?
I think a heartfelt "I fuked up BAD" from Ivan would be a good start.
Oh, like a politician would? Great idea, and maybe DPM could have contacted him ahead of time and given him the chance to do that without releasing the video... like one would do for a public figure.
Nope, a lot more fun to promote the hype and try to get more readership for your little mag
John, the problem is Ivan won't listen to others. Unfortunately he will have to be dealt with as Ken Nichols was, meaning arrest and prosecution and a restraining order. Only then might he change his ways.
The preserve needs to call a meeting about this as soon as possible, and we need to call them and express our concern so that they realize that we care about it and call such a meeting. There has to be some laws for this kind of thing. The Preserve has banned people from the Gunks before. I think they should have a meeting with people like this, find out who else knows about it, and who else is doing it, and ban all of them from the Gunks for at least three years so they can think about it, after which they can put up a bond for $1000.00. And then after 10 years, then perhaps the bond could be reduced to a lesser amount. If we do nothing the clipping will continue, it seems that it is an unstoppable habit now, like some kind of addiction.
In the past I have seen people using hooks and aid climbing, chipping off holds at the Uberfall, I told the ranger about it sitting not far off, he said there was no policy to enforce. I picked up a rock and told them that I was going to knock them out if they did not get off the rock. This is why there is a part of the hold missing on one of the Gill problems.
But I am not perfect either, but I can say that I have learned the hard way. As far as I know I was the *first* to have chipped holds. In the middle of the Near Trapps I pried a rotten piece of rock out of a crack with the end of a Chouinard hammer so I could place a small friend. This written up in a climbing magazine, [Pox in Vulgaria -- The Profit of Impurism A Commentary by Mark Robinson. This article was featured in Climbing Magazine in 1977.] where I was rightly publicly humiliated and ostracized by the climbing community. And I am very sorry about it, even to this day. Thankfully, I have been forgiven.
So, having been forced to do a lot of soul searching and thinking about the subject back in the 70's, I can say that I came to realize that, this is not the right thing to do. Sculpting rock the same way people do in a climbing gym is wrong, even if it means only using a crow bar, even if it is on Twilight Zone. If it is OK to chip in one place, it is OK to chip in another, and then there is no end to it. The reason we come up to the Gunks is to get away from this kind of stuff, isn't it? So I hope we are going to try and put a stop to this now.
Donald is this the post you mean? Apparently the Mohonk Trustees are already involved. As a follow up post said, they've been in touch with Mr. Greene.
No ... could you deal with the argument on Gunks.com? I don't want to repost the thread here, or argue out of context with the thread. After all, it is a Gunks problem, there are a lot of old timers on it who should not be without your argument. What do you think?
I think Donald is refering to this post, basically the last one on page 7:
Because Ivan is at least making his own climbs, not taking down other peoples routes using hooks and chipping off holds because he is aiding free climbs. Like those two bumbling fools I yelled at on Uberfall boulder problems who put up a fight.
The time to voice an opinion actually was a long time ago, but you guys said nothing. Can we really complain now?, this kind of behavior has been grandfathered in. Ivan is a result of the environment you created. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged , yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him: But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God."
Who thinks it's a good idea to go back up on Twilight Zone and put back a stone in that hole they chiseled out and make it as it was before? No bucket, just a little crack big enough to get a vertical edge.
The argument is that someone should have stopped him sooner? Or that the Bible says its too late to complain? I don't think he's "grandfathered in", whatever that means. I dont think the ethics at the Gunks could change like that overnight.
Jstan wrote:
My experience with the Mohonk Preserve ( then called Mohonk Trust) when managed by Dan Smiley was that they felt very strongly that problems were best solved by the climbers. If at all possible.
Now listen to me. Whenever it became apparent this was not in the cards, The Preserve was not at all afraid to solve the problem using all necessary means.
All necessary means.
Now things get more interesting ... and potentially more real.
My favorite post in that entire gunks.com thread is the very first reply to the OP. It was all downhill after that.
That said, I also want to know WTF Donald is trying so obliquely to point out about the gunks.com thread. What's the question dude?
Donald's EGO.
(Please look at me, please respond to me ... me, me, me, ME! Please stop posting on Supertopo and post on MY very own thread. Please make the thread I started longer!)
There's nothing more, no issues, insights, or anything specifically pertinent to the situation at hand (excepting of course the defective ego issue that it shares with Ivan Greene, but without the negative social impact of the latter). If that's your cup of tea, than by all means indulge yourself; otherwise you'd do best to head the advice hinted at earlier on this thread... and just ignore it.
Let's just let Donalds presence here drift away. PLEASE. Do not open that channel. If you look at all of his postings from the site that he linked to you'll see why.
So with that said can we tar and feather Ivan even more now?
Before someone trundles a rock on Mr. Ivan Greene, or before someone else does thinking that perhaps it might be a good idea after reading one of your posts I think you should consider a few things.
Let me say that, when I first started climbing I approached it much the same way as it is today. Hanging on a rope. Back then, you really could not get away with that and expect to get your climb in a guide book. My climbs could get in there only under other people’s names. If you did that, if you hung around on a rope, whatever it is you were doing with aid, it was not considered climbing. But this is the way everyone climbs today. It’s accepted, as long as you finish it once.
Now, I will assume that none of us here are bouldering all winter long, with space heaters and such. I never thought of that idea, or imagined that people would be doing that. Maybe I should buy one of those things, not sure.
Anyway, I would like to know first of all where this rock is, exactly, and who took the video, and why. And where else potentially Ivan Greene has been said to be chipping climbs. I think this information is important to really understand what is going on. I am assuming it was on state land, fine, where? How do I get there?
I also climb in an area outside of the Gunks, where the rock can be rotten. I do not resort to chipping rock, that was something I understood to stay away from. I have also had some of my routes bolted later on by other people where there was no need for bolts. However, if I was climbing as often as Ivan Greene, and making a carrier out of it, looking for new routes where there was none, I might start thinking about habitual bolting or the use of hammers.
Why? Well first of all, when you are 30’ in the air and holds break as you go, where high ball boulder problems are you cup of tee, I can imagine it’s not a lot of fun after a while. That’s something you just can’t allow to happen, if you want to make a career out it. There's no rope you know. Eventually you will find the need to test out what there really is and isn't before you climb, you may not want to be making a potential human sacrifice every time you post an icon. Eventually you will have kids, and who wants to go to the hospital only because of some ethic. You have responsibly, now you have to provide for a family. It’s not very smart to say the least. So, you lower down, you find some loose stuff, and you pull it off first. I am sure land owners are not going to want to hear fire trucks and ambulances any more than they are going to want to hear someone hammering in their woods, but which is worse? And in NY the property owners pay, it’s not the same as California. Now, in the process things can happen, the rock can break any number of ways. For example, in that video I noticed whoever it was, hammering on something, it was hollow. Would you suggest getting up on there first and falling off with the block? After a while you are going to learn to remove it first. And if it breaks off the wrong way when you are hanging on it, with a bad edge because you pulled on it the wrong way, then it would in fact have been better off if you had cracking it off short with a hammer to begin with. So what I am saying is this, that it is just this kind of environment that can lend itself to hammers and chisels in our day and age.
Why? This kind of stuff has already been going on for a long time and no one has complained that much about it before. In fact it is encouraged. Take twilight Zone for example.
From the TS Guide book: While this rout's crux is on Twilight Zone, the majority of the climb is an independent line. A tremendous amount of work went into this including "improving" holds and the placement of a bolt Starting on the GT ledge. … The second pitch is called The French Connection (aka Jackhammered). From the belay, traverse straight right … then over the roof at a fingerlock (crux, fingerlock chiseled out to "improve" it) to the top (5.12+G). It’s the locals who decide what’s up, and here the thing goes in the guide.
So, I agree Ivan Greene needs to communicate, and there has to be some agreement here on how these new climbs go up. But I don’t think he should be expected to do something no one else is doing. In other words, what do the locals think who are likewise putting up new routes over loose and soon to be broken rock, whether it be by hanging on it, or by hammer? I think for Ivan to be banging away happily like this with a hammer one of two things has to be happening. Either he does not care what anyone thinks, or there has been a shift it the way hard boulder problems have been going up over the years. Find me a post where someone is complaining about Twilight Zone going up with a hammer if you think what I am saying is exaggerated. The only post you will find in the past is my own, and there is no response to it.
Below is a photo of Ivan Greene. You can see where the hold was removed, in the hole if you look to the left you can see it was actually part of the rock. I actually tried to remove this myself back it the 70’s, but I used my hands and only kicked at it with my boot. The locals did not like me on there, and complained about it, so Burlingame and myself left and went to work on projects in Millbrook instead.
Why? Well first of all, when you are 30’ in the air and holds break as you go, I can imagine it’s not a lot of fun after a while. That’s something you just can’t allow to happen, if you want to make a career out it. Eventually you will find the need to test out what there is before you climb, you may not want to be making a potential human sacrifice every time you climb. Eventually you will have kids, and who wants to go to the hospital only because of some ethic. You have responsibly, now you have to provide for a family. It’s not very smart to say the least. So, you lower down, you find some loose stuff, and you pull it off first. I am sure land owners are not going to want to hear fire trucks and ambulances any more than they are going to want to hear someone hammering in their woods, but which is worse? And in NY the property owners pay, it’s not the same as California. Now, in the process things can happen, the rock can break any number of ways. For example, in that video I noticed whoever it was, hammering on something, it was hollow. Would you suggest getting up on there first and falling off with the block? After a while you are going to learn to remove it first. And if it breaks off the wrong way when you are hanging on it, with a bad edge because you pulled on it the wrong way, then it would in fact have been better off if you had cracking it off short with a hammer to begin with. So what I am saying is this, that it is just this kind of environment that lends itself to hammers and chisels in our day and age.
Complete and utter rationalistic tripe - especially this:
That’s something you just can’t allow to happen, if you want to make a career out it.
(Please look at me, please respond to me ... me, me, me, ME! Please stop posting on Supertopo and post on MY very own thread. Please make the thread I started longer!)
In response to "That’s something you just can’t allow to happen, if you want to make a career out it." You wrote: “Complete and utter rationalistic tripe - especially this:”
I cannot understand what you are saying. In context, you are admitting that it’s a good idea to fall off high ball boulder problems if your over 50. Could you explain.
Know matter what any one tells you the Bee Gees will never be cool. But that made me laugh. Twice actually. Once from seeing the post and twice when I clicked on the vid. Thanks bro.
You wrote: "What would be the pont." in respose to a request to make your post clear.
From Don: I don't know yet, I am still trying to figure that out. That's why I asked you to clarify. Look, if you guys don't want to deal seriously with the topic that's fine. But I thought this was a serious subject. Did I make a mistake?
i saw the video; never been out that way but what he is doing is silly as he is not cleaning loose dangerous crap, but enhancing.
In the Rockies, more importantly to this thread The Chossies, people remove loose debris and rock all the time creating routes, very common, or most sport routes here would be uber-suicidal. We clean pebbles out of cracks all the time, its not enhancing, it is making the route better and less dangerous.
However, mixed ice climbing is different and apparently enhancing, as opposed to simple cleaning, has become a also a common practice here with drilled holes.
There is a big difference, but this guy is obviously enhancing as he beat on that same spot forever and it was not loose....
Or he is a chicken poop head.
I bet you have some stories to tell. Did the readership at gunks.com finally bore you to tears? That site sucks. Always has always will. So welcome to the fold.
mixed ice climbing is different and apparently enhancing, as opposed to simple cleaning, has become a also a common practice here with drilled holes.
Weird. You mean they drill holes in rock so that their ice tool placements are more secure? Sounds like enhancing hook moves on aid, and ^^^ not valid.
Donald Perry writes:
Eventually you will have kids, and who wants to go to the hospital only because of some ethic. You have responsibly, now you have to provide for a family.
and
I cannot understand what you are saying. In context, you are admitting that it’s a good idea to fall off high ball boulder problems if you’re over 50. Could you explain.
So then the aging climber wants to continue to make a career out of his climbing - which by all accounts is an inherently risky activity. Perhaps the aging career climbers who have acquired a family, kids, and other responsibilities (mortgage, children's' college tuition fund, retirement savings, automobile payments, investments, etc.) should be granted a special dispensation whereby they are allowed to chip the new climbing projects that they undertake, insofar as it increases their own safety so they will not experience any conflicts or setbacks as breadwinner.
This special dispensation can also be extended to these same aging career climbers when they attempt other climbers' projects which might present an unacceptable risk to themselves: they can be allowed to chip or chop sections of the climb so as to ensure their own safety and/or for the sake of their families. Furthermore, there are numerous established climbs, classic climbs, even world class climbs that may present an unacceptable risk to these aging career climbers: this special dispensation can be extended to allow them to permanently alter these established routes by selectively chopping or chipping them and adding bolts so that they do not have to endure any undue risks.
For the aging career climber who, a.) Is losing testosterone and cannot replace it quickly enough with supplements, b.) Due to life and family commitments no longer has the free time to scout out acceptable rock for new projects that will potentially buoy up a sagging and moribund career, c.) Understandably no longer has the physical strength or stamina to compete at the highest cutting edge gymnastic level, and/or d.) Doesn’t posses the vision of a new generation of young, hungry, talented climbers, then this special dispensation can be extended to them so as to allow artificial chipping and chopping to whatever degree they deem necessary to maintain their career, and thus responsibly support their family, even if this entails chopping out extensive rest areas on another's climb so as to provide a reasonable opportunity to regain their strength, endurance, and composure.
This special dispensation can be modeled on the widespread institutionalization of handicapped parking permits and handicapped parking spaces, special senior citizen discounts (for example reduced cost of public transportation and reduced entrance fees to National Parks), and various other forms of special dispensation which the Great Society and the Welfare State has had the foresight to enact. Maybe the chipping tools can be sold to them at a discount or offered free through special sponsorship so as not to further overburden them financially.
Let's be clear here: at root is ageism pure and simple. Why should an aging career climber be expected to compete on a level playing field, in the arena of new route development - with climbers in their teens, twenties, or thirties?
First off I don't ever mix-ice climb but yes apparently they chip/drill rock to have the pick sit better than not at all.
Second, many sport climbs in the Rockies of Canada are cleaned as this is crap limestone and some even use crowbars to pry off loose blocks, and this is not enhancing a hold this is ridding the cliff of many death blocks. Sorry it ain't granite.
Although you certainly can write, I think you are missing Donald's point.
It isn't about black and white, this or that. Ivan did a thing, and there may some motivations behind it that are not understood. Until there is more evidence, blanket assumptions and accusations may be premature.
patrick compton wrote:
It isn't about black and white, this or that. Ivan did a thing, and there may some motivations behind it that are not understood. Until there is more evidence, blanket assumptions and accusations may be premature.
Cosmic has got that base covered, there's no need for me intercede.
He's asked for reasons that chipping is justified and he's fielding them as they appear, as well as considering potential novel situations. Harder, easier, safer, riskier ....
We may never now why Ivan Greene did what he did. We're not his psychiatrist. Ivan himself may not know all the reasons behind his own behavior (at least according to someone like Freud).
I got to rap-clean a great boulder problem in Bishop once.. R/X (though no one will ever fall off this thing).
