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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Aug 10, 2006 - 11:52am PT
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I had no idea that was John Stannard till you pointed it out to us, Roger, thanks.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 10, 2006 - 11:52am PT
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man, i'd like to read the umpteen million prior posts on WOS.
as it is, i just stumbled into the room, banged into some lampshades and tripped over a few wires and tried to throw on a few light switches and skidaddle without getting any spit, poop or bubble gum in my hair.
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Aug 10, 2006 - 01:05pm PT
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Hey Lois, 'Elements of Style' is short and concise. Hint, hint.
I think that the answer to your question is that WoS was grounded in climbing ethics and style. Similar kinds of arguments have been waged within the climbing community since at least the lassoing of "Lost Arrow" in 1946—righted by Salate and Nelson climbing up the tip with then standard aid techniques a year or so later.
Most advances in climbing have come with battles over ethic and style. In some cases a new standard of climbing is established and someone will do a climb in the older style. This has happened on El Cap in early 1960s. Sometimes new climbing styles break old ethical standards and there is an uneasy period as the ‘rightness’ of the new style is evaluated. This is an on going, never ending process. As several ST campers have pointed out, climbing makes sense only within the rules and the rules change when someone does something new that is harder (or better) than the old way.
The most famous dust up occurred in 1970 when a climber, Warren Harding, did the first ascent of a new route on El Cap (The Wall of the Early Morning Light or Dawn Wall) in a style that was not accepted by the rest of the regulars in the Valley. The most famous of those regulars, Royal Robbins, did the second ascent and ‘chopped’ a good section of the lower part of the route. Then Robbins realized, mid-chopping, that his actions were a mistake. Royal realized that the climb was hard and it wasn’t his place to judge it unilaterally.
What is most interesting about that episode is that Royal climbed the route to chop it and he reevaluated his intent based on what he found. We should all be so blessed with such a combination of active responsibility and restraint. Classy.
The other interesting thing that came out of that earlier debacle is that it left deep wounds among old friends. In hind sight, as far as I know, everyone who took a strong stand regrets the outcome. They let their valid disagreements about style and ethics break apart a community that had more in common than it had in differences.
That’s why I think that the debate here on ST about WoS is so heartening. I have read some posts stating that something so old should simply be forgotten. But this is not the way it works with climbers…climbing statements (at the level of new routes on El Cap) are deep personal affairs—nobody just walks away.
The issue of turf and tribal instincts are very real in climbing. I don’t know where it comes from but it seems to be universal. You see this at all levels to varying degrees. But generally there is senior climber who commands the respect of the climbing community and keeps an order. The personality and leadership skills of that ‘leader’ will almost always determine what specific course will be taken to address new ethical issues. Generally a secure and thoughtful leader will keep order and allow ethical issues to be aired and resolved without serious,lasting harm to any of the participants.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 10, 2006 - 02:48pm PT
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I'm going to take Lois’s question straight on here.
I'll aspire to brevity as well.
Lois,
Pooping on somebody’s stuff qualifies as adolescent, turf war behavior. So does miss-representation of evident structural form.
Had we the wherewithal as an active and engaged community to debate the actual ethical and stylistic factors involved during the deployment of Wings of Steel, we may have been able to render a meaningful conclusion as to its acceptance, whether this would have deemed it an effort within the guidelines of accepted practice, an effort stretching excepted practices, or an effort requiring acceptance of new practices.
I am guessing it was quite a bit out-of-the-box in terms of accepted practices, it was incidentaly bold, and as has been asserted by Werner Braun and Ammon, it so happens that few people are truly interested in doing that much tedious hooking. But this last statement is somewhat irrelevant, until we bring an argument which includes the community's uptake of the contribution as expressed by increased traffic as essential to its acceptance. I personally knew Rob Slater (a person who is known to have engaged the route) pretty well and I knew he was keen on “all things adventure” including thinking and acting out-of-the-box.
So I am saying, yes this was turf war stuff, but not in total.
But because of the activities surrounding it, it is hard to say whether it truly deserved the derisive response which it garnered, merely based on its disposition as a breach of style. (nothing should be actualy pooped on).
Anything which attempts to reach beyond accepted practices is likely to be resisted or even scorned. Acceptance is the exception.
I'd say it would have had to have been accepted as a new formulation of style and elements of turf wars ecclipsed an opportunity to fairly judge it as an acceptable extension of the norm.
(I don't think that was concise, but there it is)
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 10, 2006 - 03:39pm PT
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Yes Lois pretty much, that's it.
There are two styles of accepted climbing.
Free climbing: hands and feet to advance, ropes and gear (including bolts) as a safety net only.
Aid climbing: using the gear (including bolts) to advance, again ropes as a safety net.
Wings of Steel: great big slippery slab portion of the mountain, (very distinct from the vertical portions of the mountain which typically have at least hairline cracks), the slab with few if any actual cracks, apparently not too many bolts, so some pretty risky use of small hooks as aid climbing gear.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 10, 2006 - 04:19pm PT
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aid climbing typically applies to rock which cannot be done with only hands and feet (free).
so, with some overlap, the 2 categories are distinct, that said, yes, there is sometimes dispute.
aid, prior to wings, was, in my opinion, typically focused on exploiting little weaknesses, such as hairline cracks, using pretty much the same tools (gear, be it wedges, cams, pitons, bolts) which free climbers use.
now: aid still uses more destructive tools, so the alteration caused is at issue, sometimes.
what the wings guys "invented" or rather introduced, was the application of very tedious use of hooks, requiring many many falls, to climb a very blank area of great height.
they did very much try to minimize their use of bolts, according to "newer" information at hand. they also admit to doing a very small amount of tiny bits of chipping, to help the hooks "stick" so that they could use less bolts. many aid climbers have resorted to this tactic of "doctoring" the hook placements.
also of note, is that free climbers hardly ever "need" to use pitons anymore, where aid climbers do in fact use pitons and other things which are progressively damaging to the rock.
keep in mind, aid climbers access terrain that is incredibly wild.
as time goes by, free climbers get better and make free ascents of aid routes.
it is a grand procession!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 10, 2006 - 07:14pm PT
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well done lois.
the miniscule correction i offer to your understanding:
the nose and many other aid climbs have gone "clean" (no damaging pitons applied) for quite some time,
even before lynny freed the route.
to wit: since the "clean climbing revolution" of the 70's,
only very difficult aid climbs merit rock degredation techniques.
in the end,
even in the interim,
the mountain don't care.
time fer a bike ride and a bite to eat.
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scuffy b
climber
The town that Nature forgot to hate
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Aug 10, 2006 - 07:19pm PT
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jstan, I was just wondering about the mixed tenses.
As I have said before, I believe thread hijacking to
be a phantasm promoted by people who have a hidden
agenda.
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roslyn
Trad climber
washington
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Aug 10, 2006 - 07:45pm PT
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hey leb, why wouldn't you have respect for lynn hill if she free soloed the nose?
just asking?
most of your posts about lynn hill come across negative
just asking
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Aug 10, 2006 - 07:52pm PT
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Hey Lois, just a request here.
Please do not tell us again that you think Lynn Hill is pretty. I am sure that you do not mean it in a demeaning way, but her looks have nothing to do with her heroic status amongst climbers.
Also, please do not debate this. It is a simple request that can be honored silently.
Thanks, Roger
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roslyn
Trad climber
washington
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Aug 10, 2006 - 09:51pm PT
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no, she does. leb has stated she has read hill's bio.
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jstan
climber
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Aug 10, 2006 - 10:48pm PT
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Like Tarbuster, I just stumbled into this. The generosity in this discussion is what grabs your attention. The last thirty years have been barren, tragically barren. It seemed a poisoned desert in which nothing could grow.
I will tell a joke on myself if you will. I was so excited by the tone and intelligence of your discussion I wrote five paragraphs explaining how I thought the generosity I found there was the solution to most of the problems bedeviling our pursuit. But when I applied Strunk's rule of cutting out all unnecessary words, I found none of them were necessary. You folks are clearly aware of what will be needed to solve those problems. Of the hundreds of texts I have studied, Strunk is the one I admire most. So I threw it all away.
A small story though says something about where I think we are today. A friend once told me climbing with Robins was like stepping into an elevator on the ground floor. You knew you were going up. Well, you folks are going up. And what a ride it is going to be.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand, Man.....
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Aug 10, 2006 - 11:09pm PT
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ummmm... Russ don't care what you say about Ms. Hill. It was someone else. ( That is unless you decide to slag off "little Lynnie" then I'll be back to stand up for my friend )
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
St. Louis
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Aug 10, 2006 - 11:10pm PT
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I find it VERY interesting that while speaking of Lynn Hill, a slip of the tongue (keyboard) comes from LEB as she talks about RUSS (instead of Roger). Russ Raffa?
She stated above: "I very much want to pass an additional comment to clarify my remarks regarding appearance but Russ feels strongly that such not be done."
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