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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sep 23, 2016 - 11:03am PT
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So, we've reached consensus: A few cowards will continue to retrobolt and call it "climbing." A few real climbers will occasionally remove the retrobolts. Most climbers will keep doing basically what climbers have always been doing.
Move along; nothing to see here.
So, I'm moving along. You guys can close up the circle-jerk to accommodate the missing person. I'm outty at this point.
Carry on.
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Escopeta
Trad climber
Idaho
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Sep 23, 2016 - 12:07pm PT
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MB1, I may have missed it but what was your recommended resolution? To have a bolting committee? I'm not being facetious, I didn't understand what your suggestion was.
Regardless of what your suggestion was, I posit the question: What to do when someone doesn't play by the (supposed) rules? Lodge insults like their mother smells of elderberries?
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anita514
Gym climber
Great White North
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Sep 23, 2016 - 12:33pm PT
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Hey, why isn't Steve posting on this thread anymore?
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adrian korosec
climber
Tucson
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Sep 23, 2016 - 12:49pm PT
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What's to discuss? Steve cleaned up a route of his that someone stained. Anyone with enough climbing experience agrees with what he did. If you you disagree with what Steve did, keep climbing more, you'll come around.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Sep 23, 2016 - 03:22pm PT
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What we "old fuddy-duddies" are arguing is for general recognition of what has "forever and a day" been a sweeping consensus that what makes climbing climbing (as opposed to gymnastics) is the basic principle of conforming oneself to what the rock presents. The more closely one does that on a FA, the more one has put up a climb. The more closely one does that on a subsequent ascent, the more one has climbed a climb.
Yes, all us old fuddy-duddies are in 100% sweeping consensus about when bolts should be added/chopped. A ten minute conversation on it results in heads nodding all around and we can get back to arguing important things like can anyone keep Brady from winning another Super Bowl. ;-)
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FTOR
Sport climber
CA
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Sep 23, 2016 - 03:44pm PT
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lost here is the notion that bachar et al was focused on pushing the mental limits, not just the physical. add a bolt here and there and that's lost. one would hope there are climbers coming up that want those challenges left intact.
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CCT
Trad climber
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Sep 23, 2016 - 04:06pm PT
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That's exactly the point. Plenty of climbers do push mental limits. They just don't do it on 5.9, 5.10, or usually even 5.11. But the anti-retrobolters are almost always arguing about preserving their personal routes, or the routes of their generation, which sit right in that physically easy/intermediate sweet spot. There now is a major mismatch between how hard the climbs are, and how much mental commitment they require. It makes for a very polarizing debate.
At the same time, those climbs only get retro bolted at a very slow rate, because they are only important to older climbers and mediocre climbers, neither of which is likely to do anything about it. That's why we haven't seen larger scale rebolting efforts. Only someone like Eric Sloan, who considers himself to be acting in the public interest, is likely to bother. Most climbers just climb whatever is in the guide book, without much interest in the beautiful x-rated plum line right next to the road.
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WyoRockMan
climber
Grizzlyville, WY
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Sep 23, 2016 - 04:08pm PT
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They just don't do it on 5.9, 5.10, or usually even 5.11.
Some do. A lot actually.
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Sep 23, 2016 - 10:02pm PT
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Plenty of climbers do push mental limits. They just don't do it on 5.9, 5.10, or usually even 5.11.
You can push your mental limits by trying to overcome whether you believe you can do a well-protected sport climb(which is probably what this quote is referring to). Or you can push your mental limits trying not to get seriously hurt or die if you can't get to the next bolt without falling.
Both these scenarios are pushing your mental limits. One has a huge risk component, the other does not.
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Degaine
climber
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Sep 24, 2016 - 02:35am PT
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CCT wrote:
That's exactly the point. Plenty of climbers do push mental limits. They just don't do it on 5.9, 5.10, or usually even 5.11. But the anti-retrobolters are almost always arguing about preserving their personal routes, or the routes of their generation, which sit right in that physically easy/intermediate sweet spot. There now is a major mismatch between how hard the climbs are, and how much mental commitment they require. It makes for a very polarizing debate.
With all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about.
On any given sunny weekend in Tuolumne, there are climbers all over Stately Pleasure Dome and Harelquin Dome, and not just on well-protected climbs. South Crack is probably one of the most popular moderate routes in the entire park, and it has huge runouts.
I'm much younger than the generation that put up most of those climbs, and I like those routes as do obviously many other climbers in the community. It's pretty clear the community overall does not have a problem with the protection on the climbs you allude to, so why should you?
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Degaine
climber
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Sep 24, 2016 - 02:40am PT
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Cragman wrote:
Since they can't climb our routes the way we put them up in our generation, it won't be long before this nanny state, entitlement generation recreates the run out routes virtually on a video game.......and they'll sit around on their asses and 'fire' those routes pushing buttons and playing with their joysticks.
Dude, seriously, who exactly are you talking about?
Again, as I wrote to healyje, one of the greatest freesoloists of all time is less than half your age, and from what you falsely refer to as the entitlement generation.
What gives?
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Degaine
climber
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Sep 24, 2016 - 02:42am PT
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Madbolter1 wrote:
A few real climbers will occasionally remove the retrobolts.
Bold by me.
Could you please define what a "real climber" is?
Thanks in advance.
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Sep 24, 2016 - 05:14am PT
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"Testing mental limits"
For that laugh, I thank you.
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Escopeta
Trad climber
Idaho
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Sep 24, 2016 - 06:03am PT
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How's that meeting going where you guys get woot boi and the other retro bolt crew to stop?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 25, 2016 - 07:38pm PT
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If people don't like it they can go jump on one of the thousand routes waiting to be done in the grand canyon of the Tuolumne...right over there and virtually in sight of this route.
many of those routes have been done... you just don't know about them, yet...
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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Sep 25, 2016 - 07:57pm PT
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Shipoopi- thank you for starting this discussion. Quite a few interesting comments on this thread.
There is still rock out there for people to establish routes in the style they wish, with their own vision, It doesn't yet seem time to start adding bolts to established climbs. If people want to drill bolts in the rocks, they may want to do so on their own new routes.
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CCT
Trad climber
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Sep 26, 2016 - 10:53am PT
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The South Crack run-out is on 5.6 terrain. Even 5.8 climbers usually feel ok on a small amount of 5.6 run-out. Bump that run-out to 5.9, and the number of climbers would plummet.
Like most climbers, you probably aren't aware of how many 5.9/5.10 routes similar to South Crack, but slightly harder, exist in Tuolumne. They don't get climbed much because they aren't in the Supertopo, because Supertopo deliberately excludes most free-solos or x-rated climbs. As Ed says, most of the nicest lines have been done, and kudos to the bravery of the first ascent team. But they are not common knowledge unless you look for it.
Maybe someday climbing shoes will get good enough that 5.9 will feel as casual as 5.6 to a gymbie. When that happens, some of those climbs will come back in style. In the meantime, once in a blue moon they get a retro-bolt, and heated internet discussion ensues.
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couchmaster
climber
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Sep 26, 2016 - 12:41pm PT
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If it's not either community unanimous or FA approved, keep new bolts off old routes. I just made that up, feel free to quote it though.
Albatross quote:"There is still rock out there for people to establish routes in the style they wish, with their own vision, It doesn't yet seem time to start adding bolts to established climbs. If people want to drill bolts in the rocks, they may want to do so on their own new routes. "
Damned straight. I have nothing against bolts, but the climbing world is big enough to have both face climbing test pieces and routes where one isn't calling for mommy half way up. I suspect that given the way climbers come in these days via the gyms, these kinds of beliefs are a rear guard action in a skirmish which will be lost.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Sep 26, 2016 - 04:13pm PT
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Maybe someday climbing shoes will get good enough that 5.9 will feel as casual as 5.6 to a gymbie. When that happens, some of those climbs will come back in style. In the meantime, once in a blue moon they get a retro-bolt, and heated internet discussion ensues.
Climbing shoes, meh. I'm waiting for when the technology gets to where the leader can slap down a bolt wherever they want (that adheres to the rock) and then the second removes it like any other protection as they climb.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 27, 2016 - 01:57am PT
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C'mon healyje, quit beating this dead horse. One of climbing's greatest ever freesoloists is less than half your age and started out in a gym.
Right and compare what percentage of the today's demographic he represents compared to what JB represented in the late 70's and the difference is staggering. And producing a gem out of a rough of several million hardly offsets the general havoc they've unleashed.
As I believe someone mentioned earlier, something like 85-90% of gym climbers never leave the gym, and of the remaining 10% how many of them do you think actually put up routes? Know how to drill a bolt?
A far greater percentage than that get out to sport climb - probably more like 50-60 percent. And no, they don't bolt or know how to bolt - that's done for them by a very few individuals and they tend to do a lot of bolting. Again, how many bolts do you suppose have been sunk in the past five years in the US? It's definitely not a small number.
Population growth and more people in the mountains - and on adventurous committing routes - is something totally different.
Up here in the PNW they've started bolting those as well.
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