Chipping culprit filmed in NY

I clip a brush or stick to the end and clean what I can reach. I've only rapped a couple boulders for cleaning purposes.

One person's desire to climb a line should in no way be placed over the rights of other climbers to use an area.

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?