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:
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!
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..."
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.
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!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
That's a good one! I especially like the "until there is more evidence" bit.
If chipping is condoned, then what's to stop people from going out to chip
someones v hard climb down to a V easy so they can climb it?
And all other arguments aside, that's what it really comes down to. If it's OK for Ivan to chip a project so that he can send it, why is it then wrong for any climber to alter any climb so that he can do it?
In response to my letter you wrote: “Perhaps the aging career climbers … should be … allowed to chip the new climbing projects that they undertake …”
First, I am sorry you did not read my letter very carefully before you attempted to respond to it. You have yet to address its argument.
The "ethic" in view first of all is in the fact that as the high baller gets older he is starting from the top rather than the bottom. Not that he is starting out chipping holds into the rock so he makes it up every climb now without falling. You are reading my letter ass-backwards. As life goes on, he naturally gravitates to make the most of pre-cleaning his climbs, and breaks off the stuff that was going to pop of anyway, and in a better way and place had it broken off naturally by someone climbing on it. He thinks about the rock first, rather than his style. I don't think anyone should have a problem with that at this point. It's not cool to drop sh#t on your spotters or your belayers and destroy an otherwise, what could be a perfect climb. Another thing that pushes him in this direction is that he starts to think about the value of sacrificing ethics for safety. Now I am talking about the ethic of pre-viewing climbs rather then onsighting. And at this point and it this case that it does not hurt the rock either.
Secondly, I am talking about the history of how we got here or how he may have got there. Notice I mention my own feelings and the environment we find ourselves in today. The point of the letter was not to justify chipping, but to try and understand what’s going on here in the Gunks. I think it is actually more complex that it may first appear on the surface. For example, I don’t think these people have set out to destroy the rock, not at all, I trust that they are actually intending to put in some good lines. But the pressure is on to scoop up the last big problems, and the rock doesn’t change. Things just may have gotten out of hand at some point, where what was very exceptional started to become too normal, and gravitated to something no one originally intended. And if this is the case, and I think it is, then this thinking needs to be reversed to something clear.
And yeah, we need more evidence. I want a DNA test. I want witness testimony. But most of all, I want to see if those awesome camouflage glove actually fit on his pudgy little hands. That's really the only way we can be sure he did what we all THINK he MIGHT have POSSIBLY done... or not done... or something.
...I trust that they are actually intending to put in some good lines. But the pressure is on to scoop up the last big problems, and the rock doesn’t change.
Do you actual read any of this while you're writing it? Here, let me fix that for you:
...I trust that they are actually intending to chisel some good lines. But the pressure is on to manufacture big problems given the rock doesn’t change on its own.
If it's OK for Ivan to chip a project so that he can send it, why is it then wrong for any climber to alter any climb so that he can do it?
Definitely, a worst case scenario would be if people started doing this on sacred ground like el Cap. Still, if this happened in the gunks that's well known for both trad ethics and access issues. Some observations about the case:
Greene wrote a guidebook to the Gunks and people may see him as some kind of community leader.
anyone who's been to the Gunks knows there are issues with access to the area, and that it's on land that's in the backyard of a hotel for millionaires.
(apparently) many other climbs have asked him to stop chipping holds, and made this video because he wouldn't stop.
Greene appears to have bought professional tools for this purpose and keeps them at his project sites
if you look at the expressions on his face and body language in the video, he looks guilty as sh#t, as if he's worried someone is going to catch him.
he has apparently not responded to the video and took down his facebook page. My guess: either the Preserve or the police did something or threatened to.
To me the situation seems almost a little on the pathetic side, that these boulder problems were so important to him. If his goal was to be respected in the climbing community, he's blown it big time.
Ok internet guys, you win on all accounts without question or gray area. Climbing area development is, and shall always be, black and white. Burn the heretic. Hillary 2016.
From Cosmo: "As life goes on, he naturally gravitates to make the most of pre-cleaning his climbs, and breaks off the stuff that was going to pop of anyway, and in a better way and place had it broken off naturally by someone climbing on it. He thinks about the rock first, rather than his style. I don't think anyone should have a problem with that at this point."
I have a problem with the above statement. In more ways than one.
Does anyone else see the problem?
From Don: We are talking about special instances someone will run into if they climb full time. If you have so many problems, could you name just one? The stuff is going to break off anyway, where and when it breaks off should be more important than having it break off while your trying to do a first accent in good style. And a wrong move by someone who does not know what they are doing on fragile rock can just make the rock worse.
Another option is to come up with a rule that loose and cavitated rock should be forever off limits to climbing because climbing may make future climbing impossible on some climbs because there is no logical solution yet. This sounds like something some bureaucracy at a park could suggest. Is this what you are suggesting?
“Do you actual read any of this while you're writing it? Here, let me fix that for you: ...I trust that they are actually intending to chisel some good lines. But the pressure is on to manufacture big problems given the rock doesn’t change on its own.” "
You are talking about the video with the guy chipping. I am talking about what their intentions where, are, or should be, and how they may have come to this point. You are talking about chipping to climb. I am talking about climbing, and how it can progress to chipping. Your reading my intended meanings in my letter backwards.
I will give an example. Why is there fluoride in your drinking water, it is in so many towns and cities, and why is it mandated by government. It is a poison and you probably brush your teeth with it. A lot of it ends up in your brain. You probably think it’s good for you. See the doctors on youtube. Or, why are hospitals and doctors by in large more concerned with medication and pharmaceutical sales than what’s wrong with the American diet or heavy metals in your teeth for example? Why be more concerned with the symptoms rather than the initial cause? Things did not just start out with, "lets drink poison". They gravitated this way because the system is based formost on money rather then health.
So lets try my sentence here:
...I trust that they are actually intending to put in some good intentions with the patents. But the pressure is on to pay off the college loans, as the economy just gets worse. As a result, eventually there was naturally a gravitation toward money and sales rather than health. But it did not start out this way.
Your reading things out of my letters I never wrote.
"If I owned property with climbing on it, I'd never allow climbers onto it."
It would be OK if you knew who they were and what they were doing, and if they could keep an eye on it to protect it. In fact this is what is now happening at Skytop.
You guys are missing the obvious, which is to do the route in visible way, maybe get a camera crew in there, THEN you break off the holds to keep the noobs away.
WOW! What an inspired concept. Don't wait for the climber who is good enough to do the route properly, just make it as you like it now. Then publish yourself in a guide book on all your new "test pieces". This revelation has enlightened me. I am now gearing up for a trip to the Black Canyon this spring. I am going to rap the North Chasm Wall with a construction crew. We will create a new, fully cleaned, chipped, carved and bolted 5.8c/d route between the Cruise and the Scenic Cruise. It will be sooooo bitchin'. Who could possibly have a problem with that? And I will be so famous. Of course we will with also have to install the sled ramp down the Cruise Gully so getting to the base will be as quick and easy as the climb will be. If this goes as well as I am sure it will plans are already in the works to do the full extension of the Jardine Traverse. Wow this New World Disorder is the bomb.
All Hale Ian Green the profit of a new way. 'Cause the old way is history and everybody knows nobody cares about history.
Anyone know where I can get a pair of those sexy camo gloves and a bitchin' beanie like his? I wouldn't want to be "out of style".
Dear Cosmo, you wrote: "After looking at that video again of Ivan, One thing comes to mind. He sure had to POUND long and HARD on that rock to get off the LOOSE rock!!"
I see he is banging with upward vertical blows. I think that has nothing to do with what was going to happen when you load the flake vertically downward. It was a flake not fully attached, you can see that at 2:58. Sometimes there are flakes under boulders that just fall off pretty easily. I have pulled off things like that in the talus and on cliffs, were there are often bugs living in them. Sometimes there is actually cockroaches living in them!, I have no idea how they got here, I thought they only lived in NYC.
He is also banging sidways with a fuking sledge and a gawdamn chisel.
Why do some people go to such lengths to defend what is obviously blatant chipping and hold manufacturing? Are they attempting to justify their own past transgressions? Give it up. Manufacturing holds with a fuking chisel and sledge is just wrong. Pretty f*#king simple.
"Why do some people go to such lengths to defend what is obviously blatant chipping and hold manufacturing?"
I am not talking about hold manufacturing you are, I am trying to understand what the video is about. It looks to me like he could have just pulled it off under body weight. What do you think? Are you a climber?
Don't question the supertopo internets gods. They know everything about this issue from this video. Ivan is guilty as charged, no discussion necesary. There is no gray area.
Well if it was only creative cleaning, then I think we could talk about it. But it's gone beyond that, as what is the case on Twilight Zone.
Why is there no plans to try and put things back the way they were? That would demonstrate something, wouldn’t it? But instead what we have is silence for 3O years. This is just the first time it’s on video. When it was in the guide book no one complained, they even called it JACKHAMMERING!
I am not talking about hold manufacturing you are, I am trying to understand what the video is about. It looks to me like he could have just pulled it off under body weight. What do you think? Are you a climber?
It doesn't take several minutes with a sledge and fuking chisel to remove a flake that would come off under body weight. The end result is a sculpted grip. It is absolutely 100% hold manufacturing.
What do I think? I think you are quite daft actually.
I've helped developed hundreds of boulder problems in dozens of areas. Nobody on our crew has ever resorted to pounding on anything that hard with those kind of tools. It is despicable. As is trying desperately to obfuscate what is clearly hold manufacturing.
Why is there no plans to try and put things back the way they were?
That is one of the many reasons chipping is so grotesque. You cannot put it back the way it was without making it look even worse. The ONLY solution is to not chip in the first place.
Donald if you're serious everyone will deal with you but I have the feeling you're not. Your argument seems to be that this kind of thing is normal at the Gunks and that Ivan Greene is being singled out unfairly for what everyone does. But there's lots of people on this forum who've climbed at the gunks for 30 years or more and know that's not true.
Patrick, I'd love to get you on a jury in one of my cases. They could show you a video of the guy committing the crime and you still wouldn't believe it. You'd need proof!
WBraun "Then he would not have needed to smash and chisel forever as was evident in the video."
I am sorry we don't agree. I own a demolition company, beat on stuff all day long, and I am not convinced. I think there is no way for us to tell how much weight the flake would have held from a video. But I can tell you that after these things fall off, sometimes it is a real mystery to try and imagine what was holding them on in the first place.
If his intention was simply to remove the flake he could have hammered the chisel between the rock and the flake.
DonPaul "Donald if you're serious everyone will deal with you but I have the feeling you're not. Your argument seems to be that this kind of thing is normal at the Gunks and that Ivan Greene is being singled out unfairly for what everyone does. But there's lots of people on this forum who've climbed at the gunks for 30 years or more and know that's not true."
From Don Perry: What do you think of the French Connection? What year was that put up? Do you know anyone who complained about it? Do you see anything written about it from a negitive point of view?
I never said I didn't believe what is being done in the video. My questions surround why it was filmed, the motivations behind releasing the video, and the fallout.
Apparently, others in the industry have similiar concerns:
Mechrist “That is one of the many reasons chipping is so grotesque. You cannot put it back the way it was without making it look even worse. The ONLY solution is to not chip in the first place.”
How familiar are you with the artificial rock industry? Nothing is impossible these days, and I am not talking about building a rocket. Obviously you are not Jesus Christ, you have no faith, and you are an anti-christ.
2 John 1:7 "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist."
Donald---many people were in fact very upset with the French Connection and feared the precedent it might set in the Gunks (and elsewhere). There was no internet, no Taco, Mountainproject, etc back then, so the disgust was expressed verbally, but expressed it was.
Does everybody get the irony of the concept that Kludge was busted for a paraphrase from a novel about a cowboy on a ranch near Medicine Bow Wyoming? A place adjacent to the Laramie range and new climbing areas? A serious wit, that Kludge! Hats off to him!
Donald---many people were in fact very upset with the French Connection and feared the precedent it might set in the Gunks (and elsewhere). There was no internet, no Taco, Mountainproject, etc back then, so the disgust was expressed verbally, but expressed it was.
Yep. I'm not sure why Donald keeps bring up that incident as an analogy--there was quite a bit of criticism at the time from what I remember.
Thats my guess. People found the tools, then hid there waiting like any good detective, knowing the perp would come back. It became too much trouble for Ivan Greene to bring the tools every time so he just left them. * OR, maybe he didn't want to be caught with them at the uberfalls or wherever and it was better to keep them stashed somewhere. Reminds me of drug dealers, they do so many deals they start getting lazy about precautions and then BAM - they sell a kilo directly to a cop and you can't believe they were so casual.
Compton: I never said I didn't believe what is being done in the video. My questions surround why it was filmed, the motivations behind releasing the video, and the fallout.
That's right, let's change the subject and attempt to put the focus on the folks documenting Ivan's behavior rather than keep the focus where it belongs - on the serial chiseler. As to the "fallout", the fallout is exactly what it should be and, in fact, hopefully we will see enough 'fallout' to get Ivan to stop chiseling and to serve as a warning for anyone considering similar behavior - i.e. the more fallout the better.
"Donald---many people were in fact very upset with the French Connection and feared the precedent it might set in the Gunks (and elsewhere). There was no internet, no Taco, Mountainproject, etc back then, so the disgust was expressed verbally, but expressed it was."
From Don: They wrote me up. If they were really that upset about it, if they were then there would have been something in writing somewhere. But rather what we have, is that its in both Guides. Williams writes: "After so many years, it's finally free, fallen to the amazing talents and efforts of Rus Clune and Jordan Mills, and is easily the most spectacular 5:13 in the Gunks. ... Variation 2: The French Connnection 5:12d PG ...Jeff Gruenberg and Jack Mileski after chiseling holds, placing protection on rappel, cleaning, toproping and hangdogging.
They put it in the Guide! No one ever said it should come out of there. I don't believe your line of reasoning. Rather I think that there is a lot of hypocrisy that needs to be dealt with first if you really want to make any progress. If the French Connection is not going to come out of the Guide, and the holds will not be put back the way they were before, then its hypocritical to now make Ivan Greene your scapegoat.
What did they write about you? Are you defending this because you were treated unfairly? I started out defending the guy before I saw it was at the gunks. I thought it was just some boulders no one would care about, there must be a million like them in Wyoming alone.
"What did they write about you? Are you defending this because you were treated unfairly? I started out defending the guy before I saw it was at the gunks. I thought it was just some boulders no one would care about, there must be a million like them in Wyoming alone."
From Don: Concerning Twilight Zone, for example, "Pox in Vulgaria-The Profit of Impurism Commentary by Mark Robinson. “The next day I saw the same Scary Aria team, young tigers both, try another “new” route. The first 40 feet looked too bold, so they hung a rope at the 40 foot level via a horizontally stretched rope which was anchored from nearby easy climbs. They climbed up to the top of this with a rack of nuts and pins with the intention to blast on though after placing some protection. But they found some old chalk in a dry pocket beneath an overhang, chalk presumably left by Standdard and Bragg. The route was D.B.S.YA. – done by Stannard Years Ago – by conventional means and recorded only by word-of-mouth. The ridicule that followed was intense, and this bizarre pair now conduct their antics in a clandestine fashion on remote cliffs, although they still record they ill-gotten gains daily in the climbing ship guidebooks. Though by far the worst, these two …” This was on Twilight Zone in the 70's."
I've tried to stay out of this, but the idea that the video depicts some type of "cleaning" operation is laughable. If that boulder is on Preserve property, Ivan should be banned from Preserve lands.
As for the bs from Donald, there was in fact a ton of criticism for Gruenberg and Mileski for chipping the French Connection. Donald says "they put it in the guidebook" as if the guidebook was written by the entire community. One person wrote the guidebook and made the decision to include the chipped route, with the clear description that it wasn't natural. In another spot in the same guidebook, we read that "the achievement came at the expense of the rock itself: holds were chipped and enlarged, forever preventing other climbers from attempting these routes in their natural state."
Had it been me, I would have condemned the entire fiasco in far stronger terms, but Dick wrote what he thought appropriate and certainly never implied Mileski and Gruenberg's behavior was acceptable. The tone and content of his guidebook is his right and privilege, but no one beyond Dick can be held responsible for his editorial decisions, and it is time for Donald to stop saying the "community" didn't protest (enough) with Dick's guidebook text as his only "evidence." There was plenty of protest. The net result, two years later, was an explicit rule by the Preserve banning such practices and banning climbers who engaged in them from the Preserve.
The question of how much alteration of the natural scene is "acceptable" is one subject to many nuances, and local perspectives can vary considerably. Sport climbing, for better or worse, has made manufactured climbs commonplace and acceptable and opened a whole new perspective on the degree to which the natural scene can be altered to increase its human entertainment value. There is no going back, but every now and then something outrageous emerges, and this heavy-handed alteration of a lonely boulder somewhere in the puckerbrush seems to be a galvanizing example.
I am sorry, I do not agree. I think it is big time BS that it's in both guide books for years, it's on the cover of Smithsonian and we are now bitching about Ivan Greene today. There is nothing notably moving written up about it anywhere!, at least that I have been able to find.
This is where it all began, climber hangs off a chipped hold at the Gunks.
Would it be OK, do you think I could sell a guide with chipped climbs in it now, do you think it would be possible? If people complained as much back then as they are complaining today Williams would never have put it in there, that's obvious. So, yes, it is hypocritical to some extent or another, and I think I have established that.
In the mean time, if we want to make a statement and set things right, then start putting a rock back wherever it was taken out of. But we can't do that, right.
That black seam in the foreground going out the roof is an aid climb "The Best Things in Life Aren't Free" and was done with a decent amount of blades, RURPs, and 'heads. I've looked at the line closely and I'm pretty sure it can't be done with clean gear between the fixed stuff (Don... maybe it has been done with only clean gear?). So, for all intents and purposes, that climb is off limits because of the hammering ban in the Gunks.
I'd say Ivan's heavy handed antics on the boulder, if it is on Preserve property, should be met with consequences reaching beyond the climbing community's scorn.
Don, this is my point exactly, you don't know where the incident is, and it is on the cover of the Simithsonian for crying out loud! But everyone knows about Ivan green crawling around under some rock somewhere ... we don't even know where it is.
Are you actually whining that your chipping atrocity did not get as much attention as Ivan's? Christ that is the most pathetic thing I have ever heard!
"The selfsame instinct ... self-glorification, ineptly practiced ... that drove his behavior BITD is alive and well and can be witnessed in full bloom on this thread. "
My behavior is posting information. It's here, but in all this, rather, why do you feel a need now to resort to such weakness to make these ad hominem attacks rather than deal with the information.
"Are you actually whining that your chipping atrocity did not get as much attention as Ivan's? Christ that is the most pathetic thing I have ever heard! "
No, I am whining that the chipping of the French Connection did not get as much attention as Ivan's.
Your argument seems to be that you destroyed a perfectly good 5.14 warm up by chipping it and now you are upset that you didn't get as much attention as Ivan did.
"I think your argument is that you destroyed a perfectly good 5.14 warm up by chipping it. And now you are upset that you didn't get as much attention as Ivan did. "
What 5.15? Both you are Mr. "My memory is a little hazy..." don’t have any idea what you are talking about. Look, if you guys want to make personal attacks all day, that's fine. But it does not prove what I said is wrong. In fact, it is just this kind of thing that would prove someone is correct. So, you keep posting personal attacks, and I will keep posting logical answers. No problem, it just proves your in denial.
I think you trying to justify someone chipping a 5' boulder problem in 2013 by bringing up something that was chipped in the mid-1980's is not only illogical, it is down right absurd.
By your "logic" nobody should complain if I used stove legs to bash my way up El Crap.
you men and your petty rules. Go climbing. For better or worse I now enjoy the pleasantries of sport climbing and could care less about how God put the holds on the rock.
"I think you trying to justify someone chipping a 5' boulder problem in 2013 by bringing up something that was chipped in the mid-1980's is not only illogical, it is down right absurd."
Good, quote me.
"By your "logic" nobody should complain if I used stove legs to bash my way up El Crap."
That age was before the clean climbing era. What happened in the Gunks that I am referring to was well after the clean climbing era had gotten underway.
That age was before the clean climbing era. What happened in the Gunks that I am referring to was well after the clean climbing era had gotten underway.
Who gives a fuk. Chipping is chipping. It was then and it is now.
I am whining that the chipping of the French Connection did not get as much attention as Ivan's.
Is there video of it being chipped? Was it posted on the intardweb? Were there over 10 million climbers in the US in 1985?
Gee, I wonder what "logical" reason there could possibly be for the attention.
My views on salvation? You are going to hell for being an idiot.
Perhaps two further observations are worth making here. The world-wide web didn't exist in the mid-eighties when The French Connection was chipped, but if it did, I feel certain there would have been a far bigger outcry than we've seen here.
A second major difference is that Ivan got himself videotaped. What level of outcry would we have if someone came running out of the woods crying, "Ivan is chipping boulders?" (Answer: this has already happened, so you simply need to scan the internet for signs of the ensuing tidal wave of outrage...not.) And even with evidence as incontrovertible as the current video, we have folks trying to distort the obvious into a benign image of some harmless "cleaning" activity.
So consider how all this plays out in the case of the French Connection. No internet to marshal the communal outrage, no video to prove anything happened, the chipping in a pretty inaccessible spot for most climbers and for a while just a rumor, and at least some people willing to give the chippers the benefit of the doubt in the absence of...why, in the absence of videotaped evidence! For all these reasons, outrage was much slower to build and was confined to a much smaller group of climbers, who mostly expressed their displeasure in person to the perpetrators and did not, therefore, leave the kind of written record Donald seems to be looking for. There was never any possibility for the kind of broad-based beyond-local reaction that we see now.
I could agree with Donald that chipping a superb testpiece in the Gunks is, in some sense, a "worse" violation that chipping some moss-covered overhang in the woods, and that the magnitudes of the community reactions to each do not seem to be appropriately proportional. Where I think he goes wrong is in taking the disparity in reaction as evidence of hyprocrisy of those who were around in French Connection days. The way in which the climbing public received evidence and the differences in communal interconnectivity make the two situations incomparable.
"Donald, just man up and admit that yer ok with chipping. "
I am not OK with chipping, unless it is on something that will fall off anyway. And that MIGHT include that ONE FLAKE Ivan Greene is pounding on with the lump hammer, if it was moving when I was hanging on it A LITTLE. And it would have to be on my own property.
"Where I think he goes wrong is in taking the disparity in reaction as evidence of hyprocrisy of those who were around in French Connection days. The way in which the climbing public received evidence and the differences in communal interconnectivity make the two situations incomparable. "
Again, I strongly disagree. All you would need is a climbing magazine article, such as the write up about me. It would have had the same effect. And in the end it worked wonders without video or posts, I was forced to deal with the climbing community *at large* in many ways, and change my ways. And I can say I speak from experience when I say this. So, your wrong.
Hey could both of you two dinguses (donald and mechrist) take your pithy strokefest of an argument over to rc.com, where being mentioned in a climbing magazine might actually be something that elevates one's status?
Haha that guy in Wes' .gif is trying to chip with his head. Kenny is so funny. Someone else will be banned before we're thru here I'm thinking, especially if u can get banned for being a chippy chipperson.
Having climbed a d camped with both Dingus's I'm pretty sure I could distinguish them each in a line up..... One of them is taller than the other.
What would really be fun would be to get them together sometime. That'd be a party!
Again, I strongly disagree. All you would need is a climbing magazine article, such as the write up about me. It would have had the same effect. And in the end it worked wonders without video or posts, I was forced to deal with the climbing community *at large* in many ways, and change my ways. And I can say I speak from experience when I say this. So, your wrong.
The grammar nazi in me would merely point out that you're wrong, but when you honestly believe that everybody else is wrong, and you're the only one who's right (particularly when people such as rgold disagree with you) then you may be genuinely insane.
Curt wrote: “ ...[W]hen you honestly believe that everybody else is wrong, and you're the only one who's right (particularly when people such as rgold disagree with you) then you may be genuinely insane.”
OK, so neither I nor was anyone else convinced by a climbing magazine article that I had to change my style, and I kept drilling holes, chipping rock, removing fixed pins, resting on gear[1.], etc. etc. etc? That makes better sense, right? Or do you have some other point failed point I need to see?
My point is that the NY Shawangunks climbing community started out with Henry Barber and John Bragg [2. See Yankee Rock and Ice] who developed higher standards than anywhere else on the planet, and then dropped the ball when Brag left and it came around to the Twilight Zone, essentially allowing the chipping to continue by putting the chipping route into the guide books and bragging about it in the Smithson. It really would have been quite the test piece of test pieces, now we got a bucket instead. But I remember what it used to look like because we worked on it, put the rock back. I find it amusing that some of you guys really think you’re going to make a point now and come out smelling like roses. You cannot allow the chipping of the last and greatest aid route to be “freed” into the Gunks guide books, writting nothing negative about it, and then complain when someone else starts chipping under a rock somewhere that no one knows anything about. Meanwhile, I could not get my routes in there because complainers were holding a grudge. Deal with your history and stop being so hypocritical, you failed. If the idea it to make a statement, or to be climbing at Skytop and other like places sometime in the future, you can forget about that now till we can get our act together.
As for what is going in the rest of the world, some of you fellows must not ever see the monthly mags and think that the only thing going on is what is happening here on ST.
See Rock and Ice April 2013 pg 13 about Riggins in Idaho. The limestone cave wall has about 100 routes and projects and a scarcity of only one natural route which is 5.14. The rest of the routes have holds that have been drilled, chopped, hammered or chiseled.
Circa 1992 here in Laramie the avante garde of route establishers ask among others Scarpelli and I if they could "sanitize" and "connect" some lines on the high limestone ridges north of Laramie. The group of Becthel, Kalakay, Jello and others got 100% consensus for the DeMilitarized Zone. A new land owner now denies crossing his land for access and the area is somewhat forgotten. But they had no problem with the BLM land managers doing this "chipping".
Contrasting WY, UT, ID and CO with NY yields some big differences. Virtually all climbing in these 4 states is on public land. In WY one could get lead poisoning while merely crossing public land, yet alone chipping. So in WY most of us seldom do anything on private land.
In NY the resources are scare and I think most of the land having rock is private. So there is very little potential for the climbing factions to put up routes by means they see fit.
And as for you Mechrist you could be the West's Elmer Gantry and preach your naive views on the evils of chipping to all your small kingdom. But STFU we are tired of your irrelevancy.
I must say that what goes on in the Gunks is of no conern to me. We have our sovereignty here and we use it, but not like sheep.
Meanwhile, I could not get my routes in there because complainers where [sic] holding a grudge.
Aha. Now we're getting to the real issue, or at least to the source of Donald's passion for it.
Mostly, Donald's points are moot, even when they are marginally coherent. (For an example of the more pervasive incoherence, he singles Bragg and Barber out for hypocrisy even though neither of them has said a word about the current situation.) And his claims are moot even if you buy his tarring of a generation or two of Gunks climbers as hypocritical for not writing magazine articles condemning the chipping on Twilight Zone. (Donald participates in the hypocrisy he condemns by not having written such articles himself.) At this point, The French Connection activities are nearly thirty year-old local news. Most of today's climbers know nothing about it, and wouldn't know anything about it even if some article had appeared in a magazine that would now probably be defunct.
Donald wants his perceived hypocrisy of the elders to be visited on subsequent generations who know nothing about all of this, and he wants to use this perception to disqualify the genuineness of everyone's views on the current chipping situation. Not only is this is nonsense, it is an unfortunate distraction from the real issues.
The rest of the routes have holds that have been drilled, chopped, hammered or chiseled.
Maybe this is the natural progression, as Peter Hahn called the "gymnification" of the outdoors. People are learning in gyms and just use these areas as outdoor gyms. Should just be viewed as vandalism at some point. Since we're talking about public land out west, this probably means calling the Tools.
Dingus, if you do come to the gunks, as long as you don't chip and bolt your way around we'll get along just fine. In turn, when we gunkies come to WY, we promise not to chop bolts everywhere we go.
I accept the terms of your offer. I attempt to climb the finished product as it is, the same way as I would do watching a magician. I don't ask magicians how they do their tricks.
Don Paul,
the vandalism going on here is of your narrow view. Your views have been destroyed by the avante garde.
Riggins Yes, indeed sort of like a gym, but way more fun. Nothing existed there before.
Oh, and good luck calling the Tools; the BLM would laugh in your face and I doubt whether you have the body tension strength to Tram in and Chop.
I politely suggest you do not bring your climbing ethics to WY. We manage fine without your bygone 60's views of climbing.
Dingus, if you do come to the gunks, as long as you don't chip and bolt your way around we'll get along just fine. In turn, when we gunkies come to WY, we promise not to chop bolts everywhere we go.
about Ken Nichols acting out here. The turf of caves is so difficult just to bolt and monkey draw because of the steepness that I suspect his experience of chopping slabs and vertical gained from out Connecticut way would be of little use. Single handed Tooling of caves would be very difficult night work.
RGold “Mostly, Donald's points are moot, even when they are marginally coherent. (For an example of the more pervasive incoherence, he singles Bragg and Barber out for hypocrisy even though neither of them has said a word about the current situation.)”
+
From Don: “My point is that the NY Shawangunks climbing community started out with Henry Barber and John Bragg [2. See Yankee Rock and Ice] who developed higher standards than anywhere else on the planet, and then dropped the ball when Brag left…”
RGold “And his claims are moot even if you buy his tarring … two of Gunks climbers as hypocritical for not writing magazine articles condemning the chipping on Twilight Zone.”
+
From Don: “My point is that the NY Shawangunks climbing community started out with Henry Barber and John Bragg [2. See Yankee Rock and Ice] who developed higher standards than anywhere else on the planet, and then dropped the ball when Brag left…”
RGold “And his claims are moot even if you buy his tarring of a generation … as hypocritical for not writing magazine articles condemning the chipping on Twilight Zone. (Donald participates in the hypocrisy he condemns by not having written such articles himself.)”
+
From Don: My being part of the generation does not nullify the argument. Furthermore, this is something that would only work if it was done by the collegium.
RGold “At this point, The French Connection activities are nearly thirty year-old local news. Most of today's climbers know nothing about it, and wouldn't know anything about it even if some article had appeared in a magazine that would now probably be defunct.”
+
From Don. OK, so then it’s 30 years of chipping between now and then. Great job.
RGold “At this point, The French Connection activities are nearly thirty year-old local news.”
+
From Don: There was a time when the Gunks set the stage for higher ethics [See Yankee Rock and Ice.], those days are long gone, you have allowed them to slip through your fingers.
RGold: “Donald wants his perceived hypocrisy of the elders”
+
From Don: You have yet to disprove the hypocrisy. But keep trying, maybe you can figure something out eventually.
RGold “Donald wants his perceived hypocrisy of the elders to be visited on subsequent generations who know nothing about all of this”
+
From Don: First, you just proved my point. If there were any real ethics around after Bragg left subsequent generations WOULD know everything about this. You guys went so far as to make a religion out of it! When did you forget what it was like back then, when you ostracized particular climbers who you did not agree with? Second, it would not be hypocritical if they did know about it.
RGold “… and he wants to use this perception to disqualify the genuineness of everyone's views on the current chipping situation.”
+
From Don: No, what I implied is that “the genuineness of everyone's views” should be tempered with the past, to understand how we got here. It has never been my intention to “disqualify the genuineness of everyone's views on the current chipping situation”. Please don’t put words in my mouth.
RGOLD “Not only is this is nonsense, it is an unfortunate distraction from the real issues. “
+
From Don: The real issue is the decline of ethics in the climbing community where they cease to function to bring about real preservation. Your point is there has been no decline in ethic preservation. How are you going to prove that?
RGold “Mostly, Donald's points are moot, even when they are marginally coherent. (For an example of the more pervasive incoherence, he singles Bragg and Barber out for hypocrisy even though neither of them has said a word about the current situation.)”
Moot, out of context.
From Don: “My point is that the NY Shawangunks climbing community started out with Henry Barber and John Bragg [2. See Yankee Rock and Ice] who developed higher standards than anywhere else on the planet, and then dropped the ball when Brag left…”
RGold “And his claims are moot even if you buy his tarring … two of Gunks climbers as hypocritical for not writing magazine articles condemning the chipping on Twilight Zone.”
Moot
From Don: “My point is that the NY Shawangunks climbing community started out with Henry Barber and John Bragg [2. See Yankee Rock and Ice] who developed higher standards than anywhere else on the planet, and then dropped the ball when Brag left…”
RGold “And his claims are moot even if you buy his tarring of a generation … as hypocritical for not writing magazine articles condemning the chipping on Twilight Zone. (Donald participates in the hypocrisy he condemns by not having written such articles himself.)”
Moot
From Don: My being part of the generation does not nullify the argument. Furthermore, this is something that would only work if it was done by the collegium.
RGold “At this point, The French Connection activities are nearly thirty year-old local news. Most of today's climbers know nothing about it, and wouldn't know anything about it even if some article had appeared in a magazine that would now probably be defunct.”
Moot
From Don. OK, so then it’s 30 years of chipping between now and then. Great job.
RGold “At this point, The French Connection activities are nearly thirty year-old local news.”
From Don: There was a time when the Gunks set the stage for higher ethics [See Yankee Rock and Ice.], those days are long gone, you have allowed them to slip through your fingers.
RGold: “Donald wants his perceived hypocrisy of the elders”
Moot
From Don: You have yet to disprove the hypocrisy. But keep trying, maybe you can figure something out eventually.
RGold “Donald wants his perceived hypocrisy of the elders to be visited on subsequent generations who know nothing about all of this”
Moot
From Don: First, you just proved my point. If there were any real ethics around after Bragg left subsequent generations WOULD know everything about this. You guys went so far as to make a religion out of it! When did you forget what it was like back then, when you ostracized particular climbers who you did not agree with? Second, it would not be hypocritical if they did know about it.
RGold “… and he wants to use this perception to disqualify the genuineness of everyone's views on the current chipping situation.”
Moot
From Don: No, what I implied is that “the genuineness of everyone's views” should be tempered with the past, to understand how we got here. It has never been my intention to “disqualify the genuineness of everyone's views on the current chipping situation”. Please don’t put words in my mouth.
RGOLD “Not only is this is nonsense, it is an unfortunate distraction from the real issues. “
Moot
From Don: The real issue is the decline of ethics in the climbing community where they cease to function to bring about real preservation. Your point is there has been no decline in ethics. How are you going to prove that?
I've copied this and quoted it because Donald has a habit of going back and editing and deleting posts, so that responses to his posts seem like non-sequiturs.
This last post of his does a nice job of illustrating what many of us already know. Donald's mind is fragmented and at least some of the fragments have left for parts unknown.
Soon he will resort to one of his other tactics wherein he will accuse debate opponents of not having faith (God forbid!!!), or of being the anti-christ, or of having sold their souls to the devil.
WTF and Dingus have shown me the light. I am no longer against chipping and it is wrong for me to speak out against chipping. In fact, it really is the only way for our sport to progress.
This opens up a whole new world for me around Tahoe. Thanks!
WTF and Dingus have shown me the light. I am no longer against chipping and it is wrong for me to speak out against chipping. In fact, it really is the only way for our sport to progress.
This opens up a whole new world for me around Tahoe. Thanks!
Nah Chip, I'm serious. What's an flake converted to a edge here or there? A few key crystals out of my project and I'm sure to send. Its all good... that's what climbing is about.
I've copied this and quoted it because Donald has a habit of going back and editing and deleting posts, so that responses to his posts seem like non-sequiturs.
This last post of his does a nice job of illustrating what many of us already know. Donald's mind is fragmented and at least some of the fragments have left for parts unknown.
It also demonstrates that all manner of fact and opinion is "moot" to Donald, except for the rather odd perspectives that he alone happens to hold.
FA climbing is typically about challenging yourself to ascend what nature provided in the best style you are capable of. And your best style should be roughly inline with the local standards. That's why you typically don't chip: to preserve the challenge nature provided. Unless something is impossible to climb (a tough call to make given the progressive nature of difficult climbing, but it does exist) then it should be left for someone who CAN climb it.
Rock on private land is subject to it's owner's wishes. It's not a public resource.
This last post of his does a nice job of illustrating...
I really couldn't follow it. It gave me a visual of someone at a keyboard frothing at the mouth.
I don't know Donald and have no ill-will towards him but that visual was the one thing that made me smile in this whole sad affair and resultant threads.
Glad they ticked the hold, sometimes you forget which spot you enhanced more than others. It's not like the giant dark scar is easy to see or anything.
More like the former is the human embodiment of the sun, the earth, the moon, and the stars, while the latter is lost in space somewhere the other side of Altair 3.
This sh#t is awesome, it reminds of some of the BS issues that first attracted me to climbing (and the Gunks) in the mid-70's when I was an impressionable 15-yo lad. Back then it was CH and DH writing letters back and forth to climbing (back when it was still a decent magazine). That was I believe even before Donald found Jehovah and was stealing fixed pins from classic routes for his own projects.
The soap opera is the awesome part, the chipping sucks, if it would have happened at Minnewaska, when I was the Pseudo-law, I would have run his ass right to the cop car, and then gone back to climbing on the tax-payers dime.
I've copied this and quoted it because Donald has a habit of going back and editing and deleting posts, so that responses to his posts seem like non-sequiturs.
Thank you. I see that Donald has indeed edited his post and changed all the "moot"s to "+".
I also see that someone calling themselves Red Swami has a single post with a number of photos of an obscure NY boulder that was chipped in 2009. Interestingly, Donald Perry has posted some of the same photos (actually, he linked to the ones here) in the Gunks.com thread. Does Red Swami = Donald Perry?
DROPLINE “More like the former is the human embodiment of the sun, the earth, the moon, and the stars, while the latter is lost in space somewhere the other side of Altair 3.”
OK, I will try and be clearer, apparently English is not understood here. RGOLD starts out with “Mostly, Donald's points are moot, even when they are marginally coherent. (For an example of the more pervasive incoherence, he singles Bragg and Barber out for hypocrisy even though neither of them has said a word about the current situation.)”
OK, here is WHERE I am the “MOST incoherent” according to RGold. If he is wrong here he should be wrong everywhere else. Why? Well, let’s read it again. RGold: “an example of the more pervasive incoherence”. So if we are to follow RGold’s reasoning, if I cannot deal with this, then why should I continue to post anything. Does that make sense yet? I can go over it some more if you think it doesn’t. Let me know, OK?
Now we can talk about WHAT is the “more pervasive incoherence” according to RGold. What is RGOLD’s point? His point is that Bragg and Barber have been singled out for ridicule. RGold writes “he singles Bragg and Barber out for hypocrisy”. OK, let’s go over that again one more time, what did I do again? I attacked Bragg and Barber for their hypocrisy. Got it? Are we clear on the accusation yet? Do I need to repeat it or not? Let me know, OK? I am really starting to get a sense that I am wasting my time here, but I will go on anyway.
Now we can talk about HOW I singled out Bragg and Barber for their hypocrisy. We shall go where to do this? Well, my letter of opinion of course, that makes sense, right? So let us take a look at it, and read it for the first time, CLEARLY. I wrote: From Don: “My point is that the NY Shawangunks climbing community started out with Henry Barber and John Bragg [2. See Yankee Rock and Ice] who developed higher standards than anywhere else on the planet, and then dropped the ball when Bragg left…”
Who am I talking about here Dropline?, Bragg and Barber or the climbing community? English, … do you speak it? What is the subject and what is the object of this sentence? The subject is “the NY Shawangunks climbing community started out with”. The object is “Bragg and Barber”. OK, who “left” in my sentence? Was it the “NY Shawangunks climbing community” or “Bragg and Barber”? I said they “dropped the ball when Bragg left”. I said Barber and Bragg left, and then went on to talk about the end result.
Now we can talk about HISTORY, to see if I may have failed here, if they did in fact leave the ethical climbing scene by the 1980’s. Yet this is IRRELEVANT because I have already established what the sentence can and can’t mean. Both you and RGold have yet to deal with my argument or the English language yet, and are talking about something else throughout. Here I am only strengthening my previous argument, that they left, that they were in fact not responsible. Both you and Mr. RGold are attempting to show that I am saying the very opposite of the thing I just proved that I did and did not say. Stop putting words in my mouth.
Yankee Rock & Ice A History of Climbing in the NORTHEASTER United States.
Page 224: “After 1972 Barber widened his theater of operations until it took in the whole planet … Perhaps even more significant was his influence on climbing ethics and style. Following the lead of John Stannard and Steve Wunch, he became an uncompromising proponent of free climbing, disdaining any form of aid. As the region’s most prominent superclimber, he powerfully pulled an entire generation of climbers in the direction of high standards of ethics and style … This celebrity’s public career received a severe jolt from an incident on Africa’s Kilimanjaro … In a short space of time space of time Barber went from being the darling of the climbing world to object of scorn in the eyes of many critics. … His impact on climbing standards was therefore probably greater than anyone’s. One of his contemporaries went so far as to say that Barber had “a greater influence than any climber who ever lived,” obviously a judgment difficult to defend, but which was based on the observation that Barber came alone at a time when standards were ready to rise (to catch up with the Shawangunks), so when he showed the way, everyone came along. Once everyone caught up to his level, further progress inevitably slowed, making Barber perhaps “the last great name in North American rock climbing,” to cite another contemporary judgment … no one will ever stand out ahead of the pack nor raise and entire region’s sights so dramatically as did Henry Barber in 1972.
Page 295 “ … the year 1980 saw northeastern climbers question where the future of the sport lay. Nothing significantly harder had been achieved since Bragg’s Kansas City and Wunch’s Supercrack. Indeed, few routes even that hard had been done since Wunsch and Stannard had ceased pushing the standards in 1972 … [the] impressive achievements of 1978-1980 still failed to advance the standards of the Stanard-Bragg-Wunch-Barber era of the first half of the 1970’s. ”
After Barber left, Bragg was a strong influence directly over the area in the 70’s. He said in one instance, Page 234 “If someone did that at the Gunks [speaking of North Conway 70’s bolting], they’d be lynched.”.
From a Richard Goldstone post http://www.neclimbs.com/SMF_2/index.php?topic=3271.0: “As many of you know, John was among the pioneers in the free-climbing revolution in the US in the late 1970's, with a long list of hard free climbs in the Gunks, Eldorado Canyon, and Yosemite.
He made first free ascents in the Gunks of Yellow Wall, Enduroman, and Kansas City, as well as adding the new routes Gravity's Rainbow and Iron Cross. He did Mellow Yellow and Cinch Crack in Eldorado Canyon, and Enema Crack and Orangutan Arch in Yosemite.
Many of John's routes were among the first 5.12 routes in the US, and climbers are only beginning to realize how hard Iron Cross is. Perhaps 5.13, it is only recently being repeated on the lead, so far with pre-placed protection, which Bragg did not use.
John was also part of the first generation of American climbers who simultaneously climbed at the highest standards on ice as well as on rock. His first ascents on ice include Repentance, The Fang, and The Power of Positive Thinking.”
From http://www.gunks.com/content/climb/articles/johnbragg.htm “The Return of John Bragg Most revolutions are delivered by armies of men. This one was delivered by four, The Front Four: John Stannard, Henry Barber, Steve Wunsch, and John Bragg. The Front Four were so far ahead of other climbers in the early 70's that other climbers began claiming "First Human Ascents" when they did something "first", after one of the Four. In the mid 1980's, John disappeared from the climbing scene … “.
The Gunks Guide, Todd Swain, Page 114: “The Zone 5.13- R FA P1 Jeff Gruenberg, Jack Meleski, Spring, 1986; P2 Jack Meleski Jeff Gruenberg, Fall, 1986“
Here is a movie onto it, great movie, the chiseled hold is just out of sight over the lip.
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).
Well, I might be kinda grizzly at this point, but no, not him. Just a long time Gunkie from way back. That would be a hoot! Needed to come up with a forum name some years ago and somehow Hagerty stuck. Not really sure how or why.
Yeah, the cross posting of the photos and Donald's schizoid personality raised the question. Obviously he snagged your photos to make whatever point he's trying to make over on gunks.com, although it now seems he's just arguing over anything for the sake and questionable joy of arguing. The man has a seriously impaired gibberish and drivel filter.
WBraun you wrote “ donald perry = stupid American “It looks to me like he could have just pulled it off under body weight.” Then he would not have needed to smash and chisel forever as was evident in the video. But since you have no good brain you will just keep on trucking with your nice illusion ...”
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What you are saying here in this sentence is the same as to say you could feel comfortable advising a rescue where, if someone could get some wire around that flake, or some thin webbing left over from a Black Diamond porta-ledge perhaps, all would be safe and sound. If this is the case, than don’t lecture me about “a no good brain”.
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“LOL” you may be wrong, you may in fact be reckless. First of all, he is hammering up to crack the thing in half, which makes a big difference. You can’t accomplish much hammering up if you want to remove something. If he wanted to break off the flake entirely all he would have needed to do was insert his chisel between the rock and the flake and hit it once. Apparently that likely was not his first intention, that’s obvious, he is doing something else to leave the flake and only crack it somewhere.
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I have hammered off 100’s of 1000’s of cubic feet of gunite, either attached partially or fully to steel or other surfaces with hand tools and jack hammers. With chisels and lump hammers. What can happen sometimes when you beat on a slab is … nothing. So, by only watching what’s going on here in the video, this is in fact a very poor way to judge how strong the end of the fake was. Again, if you really want to apply pressure and remove the fake economically you need to get under it. Otherwise a demolition job, with a gunite lining will go bankrupt.
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Furthermore, you can tell from the shot that it is a long way off, and the perspective is poor. Is this how you want me to gauge reality, through a distorted lens? Why do I need to have no brain because I am reserved? Maybe he inserted some epoxy in their first before he hammered on it and it is providing a cushion absorbing the blows. There is epoxy there in the video. I am not going to agree with you about anything solid thorough a telescopic video, that’s not good judgment.
Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I've been there. Hiked in from some scruffy cliffs just up canyon. Seemed like a day of problems if you were psyched. I was psyched when I saw that... until I scoped the (lack of) grips. It might warrant another look... with our new perspective and all...
Come to think of it, I'm pretty out of hiking shape and I think it would take me all day to get back to it. Remind me though... is it like low double digits, or like v20?
Some nice gossip and mostly meaningless discussion about the Gunks......nice counterpoint to the same Yosemitecentric gossip and mostly meaningless discussion repeated here ad nauseum.
Jim makes a good point. Eastern nonsense is poorly represented here. For some reason, Supertopo seem to prefer Western absurdities. But too much of the same diet can be debilitating, and so I'm glad if, even in some small way, I can contribute to the diversification of incoherence so necessary for a balanced internet dialog.
This sh#t is awesome, it reminds of some of the BS issues that first attracted me to climbing
Yeah, its real life drama, like a reality show where any one of us can call the other guy out for being a retard. It gets a little out of control sometimes, but if there was no one like Donald (and Patrick) stepping up to the plate and taking on everyone else, how boring would it be?
To be honest, if they put in a new Walmart at the hairpin turn and excavated and dynamited the entire Trapps, my life would go on. But these little soap operas will get me to pay attention.
but if there was no one like Donald (and Patrick) stepping up to the plate and taking on everyone else, how boring would it be?
At least someone gets it. I never debated this incident specifically, but rock modification as a whole spectrum that starts with chalk, cleaning lichen, anchors, bolts, permadraws, ticks...
...show a non-climber a photo of the madness cave then show them the Ivan video and ask which has more impact. the 'ethics' are in our heads.
Really, my main problem is with this new public shaming concept. I think it sucks and is bad for the sport. I am not buying that DPM tried everything they could do to talk to Ivan and this was a last resort. I suspect there are some personal issues with Ivan that aren't being brought to light.
For the purpose of land preservation and stewardship we all who have this interest and intent here now as members of this community ask all too now come together in this. Please submit here, for the names of any climbs or boulder problems you may know of that have been Chipped, Chopped, or Bolted, the names of the people who have chipped them, the date, and their exact location for this. Please provide photographic evidence if you can. You can email me directly [1.]. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
THE GUNKS GUIDE TO CHIPPED CHOPPED BOLTED REPAIRED CLIMBS AND BOULDER PROBLEMS. By Donad Perry
Chipped Climbs.
1978 Lost World 5.11,
Donald Perry Chipped hold under 1st Pitch 5.9 Roof used for protection.
1980's Gill Egg,
Painted and chipped by vandals. The first hold used to be a lot better.
1986 The Zone 5.13-
Jeff Gruenberg, Jack Meleski 2nd Pitch The French Connection 5.12+ Jack Meleski, Jeff Gruenberg. Chipped and manufactured bucket just over lip on overhang. Previously only a thin seam with a insignificant 1/4” crescent edge over the top of it. The previous formation was part of a bar of rock that has been snapped off, and can be made out shadowed on the wall as darker rock.
1990's Gill's Double Clutch Direct
Chipped by two men learning to aid climb for Yosemite.
1990's Gill Problem left of Katzenjammer
Small rock in crack that would never have come out.
Bolted or Chopped Climbs.
1955 Dry Martini 5.7
Hans Kraus, Bonnie Prudden, Lucien Warner
1959 Turdland 5.9+
Jim McCarthy, Jack Hansen
1959 Wonderland 5.8-
Art Gran, Eric Stern
1959 Never Never Land 5.10-
Dave Craft, Jim McCarthy, Art Grand
1960 Arrow Willie 5.8
Crowther Gardiner Perry
1963 Phoebe 5.10+
Dick Williams
1963 Squiggles Direct 5.10
Dick Williams, John Hudson
1956 Thin Slabs 5.7-
Art Grand, John Wharton, Bob Chambers
1964 Sente 5.8+
Wille Crowther
1966 Yellow Wall
Dick Williams, Ants Leemets
1968 Blackout 5.9
Dick Williams Dave Craft Dick DuMais Bolt over roof.
1970 Scary Area 5.12
Dick Williams? Same make as the bolt on Phoebe. The bolt was placed by an eerily party who set out to free it. Previously, Roy Kligfield and Dave Ingalls had done it with NO bolts in 1969.
1971 J'accuse (bolt chopped) 5.10
Patrick Cordier, Jim McCarthy
1973 Keep On Struttin' 5.9+
Dave Loeks, Walter Baumann
1978 Scary Area 5.12
Donald Perry drilled two slots for the passive use of crackinups.
1978 Scary Area 5.15
John Bragg, Mark Robinson. One new bolt added as a reaction to Donald Perry’s complaints, who were the members of the 1st free ascent party, due to the fact that the climb is deceptive and was a death trap and the bolt now there was questionable.
1978 Beer And Loathing 5.11-
Dave Loeks and Dick Williams. Three bolts placed on aid. This was done after a no bolt ethic had been adopted by property owners and the climbing community.
1986 Pumping Pygmies 5.13
Al Diamond, Russ Clune. This was done after a no bolt ethic had been adopted by property owners and the climbing community.
1986 Pumping Pygmies 5.13
Chopped by? Bolt chopped and pin removed a couple of days after placement on rappel. No free ascent. This was done after a no chop ethic had been adopted by property owners and the climbing community.
1986 The Zone 5.13-
Jeff Gruenberg, Jack Meleski This was done after a no bolt ethic had been adopted by property owners and the climbing community.
Repaired Climbs.
1978 Lost World 5.11,
Donald Perry. Slot was repaired with material similar in color to the rock.
1978 Scary Area 5.12
Donald Perry. The two holes filled with conglomerate material, which even today are very difficult to find. History: RR was not able to find them.
Notes
[1.] Because Gunks.com does not have a format for privately re-editing posts this list cannot be copied but will remain exclusively and current only on Suppertopo.com.
Having witnessed the various and dubious arguments rationalizing chipping in altering rock climbs for the past 30 years, I have distilled a summary of points in response:
(For clarification, I define chipping as the alteration of otherwise solid rock to provide or improve a gripping feature that was otherwise unusable. It avoids the other issues of cleaning, gardening, removing loose flakes etc. that some may also find offensive)
1. History has consistently shown us that one person's Last Great Impossible Route very soon becomes just another trade route, then warm-up, then babysitter's friend.
2. As time passes, the manner in which contemporary climbers view the older testpieces primarily rests on the style in which it was accomplished; in every era, the bozo chipper's route is always relegated to the sh*tpile,and his/her name is added to the list of moronic wannabes who never really got the essence of what climbing is. "Can you believe old Wobblefus actually had to chip to climb a 5.11?!!?? ha, ha, ha!"
3. Actually, feeling obligated to add the /her above for gender parity does a disservice to female climbers, because I know of no woman who has ever resorted to such tactics, perhaps because they are not as quickly blinded by their own amazing brilliance the way guys are.
4. Like "patriotism", chipping is the last resort of the scoundrel.
5. Whenever someone invests a lot of time and energy into a project, without success, the temptation to cut corners, pun intended, grows. Morally inferior individuals will succumb and immediately thereafter feel chipper's remorse, forcing them to spew volumes of rhetorical garbage in justification, to no avail.
6. The flawed argument that appears to accomodate chipping, or any other lesser offense, merely because it is NOT (Hitler, shooting kindergardners, etc.) is classic. Elevating the bar so high that everything else waltzes under it does not justify anything. In fact, I would bet if you are too spineless to challenge a mere hold chipper, you certainly would not be able to tackle a crazed shooter.
7. The "oh, so your doing . . . . (such and such) isn't the same thing/just as bad......" argument. Two poor actions do not justify each other. Every action must be judged on its own merits, and not attached to something else for justification.
8. The greatest unsung climbers may be the ones who refrain from chipping, etc. once they recognize their limits, knowing that one day a stronger person will likely be able to succeed without tainting the rock, and the sport. Taking your sport and yourself so seriously as to trash the medium that provides your "canvas" is to disrespect the earth itself.
9. Ever sensitive to the fallout from such behavior, sponsors should spell it out in writing - any climber found to be chipping shall be released from all sponsorship. The Court of Public Opinion is all that matters. Thankfully, by and large that Court still considers such tactics as affronts to our sport and lifestyle. Keep the pressure on.
10. Since there are no drug tests in climbing, chipping may the closest thing we have as an external test for who to scorn, despise, and ridicule.
I think you don't understand what I am doing. I am starting a record, to keep track of where all the damage is. This is not a guidebook for climbing. I am not happy about what I did in the past, but I am not going to leave it out. Come to think of it, then again, I suppose it serves my purpose that you think I am an as#@&%e, because I am trying to do something to discourage chipping. So thanks, keep posting hate mail.
These broken off flake close up's are to the left on another problem of his. I cannot repember what it is called. Followup? or something like that. There is a video of this to, but it looks like it was removed. Does anyone have a different link to it, I can not find it.
In search of chipped climbs. Do you think this should be called a chipped climb? After all it is completly horizontal, and that does not seem right. Maybe, maybe not. It is over at tripple right. What's this thing called?
If he is documenting all the chipping (preferably with the chipper so we can shame them for fuking with our medium), I find that acceptable.
Just don't try to down play the hammer because it isn't technically a sledge or try to pretend pounding on something for 2 minutes with a chisel is required to remove loose stuff. I know for a fact that it is NOT.
Just for the record, my chipping was not that big a deal, and it was a long time ago. I pried a rotten piece of a flake out of a crack with the pointy end of a piton hammer, and hit it a couple of times, it was not a project getting it out. That whole part of the cliff was all loose rock, no one was interested in it then, and no one is really very too interested in it now. I was just trying to find some interesting feature I would not kill myself on for the bottom pitch. There were tons of loose junk on it. There was a sh#t load of loose junk that came off there, chipping off all kinds of things on the way down with clouds of smoke. That's what we did in those days, dumped all the loose rocks off the cliff. One block even took out a tree.
Bragg on the other hand would leave loose rocks all over the place, like on Enduro Man for example. Mike Burlingame led the second ascent, knocked them off, and just sat down on the block.
As for Scary Area, I literally almost died on it. I assumed I could handle it when I got to the, what looks like a bucket, but it is rounded, there is no bucket there, and then you have to move right. And by the time I did that I was in a entirely different place, where if I fell I would hit the ground from even further up with no way to reverse the move. [There is a slope there on the hill.] I was pretty upset about it, it haunted me, at the time I felt something had to be done so no one would get killed. Today I would not have done the same thing. The good news is the first ascent party caved in and put a decent bolt there. Before then there was only a thin sheet metal piece of sh#t, I don't think it would have held the fall even if you could suck in the rope.
When constructing responses to my posts, keep in mind that my intent is to edit my writings when I find errors and shortcomings, but not to cast things in a different light. My posts will change when I realize I have posted something that can be easily misunderstood or not originally intended. Not everyone it going to meticulously follow through a whole thread further down to find the “correct” interpretation. However, I do realize that the thread needs an apology when there are significant changes. This is one of the reasons primarily, why I believe the supertopo.com thread configuration is highly superior over gunks.com.
Chippy the Chipper is back! Many new fine lines Chipped for you Near Harriman State Park.
The Cliffs are off Route 17 at 906 Orange Turnpike Monroe, NY just before Arrow Park Rd. You can see the cliff from Bing.com. Go to Bing.com, go to maps, put in the address and the click on birdseye view. The Property appears to be owned by the Palisades Park Commission.
Geez Don, by the looks of it, if anyone has been bouldering there, they've kept it pretty quiet, you know.. low profile ..... so far. Then you visit, post up photos and such ASAP. If the PIPC didn't have any issue with boulderers as opposed to their traditional regulations against other forms of roped, trad, and sport climbing, that could change with this kind of attention.
Maybe that could be the reason why the person who originally posted the movie did it anonymously, because they could be blamed for causing more potential problems then the chiseler.
However, at this point I think that the movie that started this thread was taken on PIPC property so the cat is out of the bag, right? Although I will admit that this seems to be much worse than what that movie depicts and I am not sure just how extensive it is yet. I have to back there and find out.
But as far as I and other people like me are concerned they are drilling on our property and we don't like it. The point is that the drilling needs to stop, I think that this is more important than us climbing. Those holes will be there forever, we will only be here for another 30 or 40 years.
What would you do if you caught them drilling? Beg them to stop or call the police?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Published on Nov 6, 2015
Old video of me (Isaac Palatt) repeating Ivan Greene's "Chubbers" aka "The Malibu Roof," at Malibu Creek State Park, CA. Date of ascent: 03/07/2012. To go on the record about this one, this boulder does not get climbed very often, but it has been called both V11 and V12. Apparently an intermediate left hand undercling that was grabbed before the pinch has broken, but I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes to the difficulty, as I climbed it post-break. To me, it felt like solid V11, on par with the likes of "Lolita" (Priest Draw, AZ), "Ex-Patriot" (Black Mt., CA), "Loaded Direct" (Hueco Tanks), etc. This is a re-upload for my archives. Original video thanks to Dara B: http://vimeo.com/38147143
UNDERSTASND I CANNOT TOLERATE THE CUR, AND WISH ID LET HIM AUGER IN WHEN HE WAS A LOST AND HOPELESS AT 16
"I can't find the Hammered & Chiseled Video anymore . Does anyone know where to find IT?"
I believe Ivan Greene is not chipping anymore, he forgot about it so I think it would be a nice gesture if we could forget about it. Nobody's perfect, and perhaps when the rock keeps breaking under your fingertips eventually you feel you need to do a little chipping to bring things back to the way they were so you can send again or use some epoxy to put the flake back.
BTW, I posted some photos of big rocks drilled out to make hand holds in NY and no one said a thing about that.
There is a few flakes on my climbs that may pop, and if the climb disappears I may epoxy them back, or I may put some epoxy behind the flakes so they just stay there.
But I do not think it is a good idea for people to do anything without consulting with the other climbers about it first.
Ivan Greene is probably one of the greatest climbers of all time, I would be more interested to see some more videos of him climbing then talking about his chiseling under some rock no one can find.
Donald,
Sorry I missed your post.
I did catch your recent posts, to the data base. great stuff!
I hope you will post some of the those super white rock pictures here with
a description of some of those lines or at least that One . . . .
What a penultimate route maybe a write up about all of the years of dedication,
Your son has done you proud!
As for the Chipping video, I want to make sure that it is understood that my
opinions of Ivan mirror yours.
Yes, I posted videos of him
Because He IS That Good a climber.
He is one great climber. A Natural,
And that he did not touch rock till he was 17 is also To his credit.
I understand, the steep divide and think it needs to be repeated.
Some of It was a creative effort to make worthy and very hard (v10& up) problems go.
He did remove some big holds. . . .to keep the grades very high, ....
My hope is that I and Ivan are still old fiends like you! (& me I hope?)
quartzite IN the bones.
Friends too I'm sure, but I've never been to Pudge Knuckle's Coffee shop in Brooklyn
and have not seen you or Ivan in at least a decade.
Are you watching this unfold ? It has a familiar ring to it,
My thoughts; some bitter old dude may have not liked all the new crew of 12 year olds
hiking his high water marks, but who knows
So it is . . . . So it goes. . Same as it ever was...
The Canyons beyond Salt Lake City, Ferguson,Logan and Big & little
Have some very good stone.
I read some of this upthread that I must have missed 3 years back, in particular, the Larrys comment:
"Healyj likes to make up his own ethics. Like putting bolted anchors in the middle of a crack pitch and gluing loose holds on 5.7s.
I personally know you to be a good dude, but this is unfair Larry. Like comparing apples and squirrels. The bolted anchor was advised by the authorities and would spare a tree and the glued holds were not even the same planet of discourse. The holds Healyj glued were:
1st) Existing rock that was working loose. Not added on.
2nd) Failure of which would have both radically changed the route dramatically for the worse and possibly resulted in a free soloist fatality if it pulled off at the wrong time.
3rd) Unanimously and consensus agreed to by almost all that glue would be a good thing in this single application.
4th) Near perfectly installed so that it is all but invisible. The loose hold is stabilized and you'd never know it unless you were told.
Call him an as#@&%e for lots of other things, but for the glue in particular, he should get our thanks. I climbed that route a few days back, and had forgotten about the glue to stabilize the key holds a few years or so ago.
Holy Crap. Are we rationalizing glued holds and retro-bolts now?
1st) Existing rock that was working loose. Not added on.
<Uh, that's what happens in the real world. In fact, that process is what created your little climb in the first place. How does that make it less offensive?>
2nd) Failure of which would have both radically changed the route dramatically for the worse and possibly resulted in a free soloist fatality if it pulled off at the wrong time.
<Oh no! Heaven forbid a climb change through natural causes. And ANY f*#king flake on the planet will kill a soloist if pulled off at the wrong time. I think Loose Lady has changed over time, maybe I should glue some sh#t to it and add a bolt or two. For safeties sake. Is that really the rationalization you are going to use? Let's make it safer for everyone - Woot Woot. >
3rd) Unanimously and consensus agreed to by almost all that glue would be a good thing in this single application.
<Echo chambers have a way of validating preconceived notions.....>
4th) Near perfectly installed so that it is all but invisible. The loose hold is stabilized and you'd never know it unless you were told.
<So, by that standard, if Ivan Green had done a better, more aesthetically pleasing job of chipping holds it would have been ok? Good grief. >
I got to rap-clean a great boulder problem in Bishop once.. R/X (though no one will ever fall off this thing).
Let us know!