I don't know about your use of the word ethical. Its not really my verbiage, I think style is the better description.

Be that as it may.... the history, the lineage if you will, stems from mountaineering.

Take for example Everest. What if instead of Hillary's FA, the mountain had been opened by chopper 'ascent' depositing the climbers on the summit who proceeded to walk down preparing the route. Then they reversed their steps and hiked back to the summit.

Or how about those who 'climb' Pike's Peak in their car?

Long has been the notion, in mountaineering AND in certain areas or rock climbing, that the summit gained bu unfair means is less worthy.

So climbers have gotten into the slippery slope of defining 'fairness.' There are many definitions applied throughout the world. I'm not really a judge of any of them frankly.

What works in Dresden doesn't work in the Verdon Gorge, plainly enough.

But a French climber going to Dresden and opening routes in the French way won't be well received by locals, of this I am sure. Such a climber would be deemed disrespectful, at the least.

Lots of folks demean bolt ladders as A0 and the murder of the impossible? OK, maybe they are. The few bolt ladders I've seen were mank and fucking scary/dangerous. A0 my ass, in other words.

However, if we accept that 'anyone' can build a a0 bolt ladder from beneath, what of the 80 foot runnouts of 5.11 and 5.12 c.limbing in between? Can anyone do that too? On lead, on unknown and uninspected ground?

Few, my friend, few can do that.

More can rap in from above, inspect, rehearse, and figure out a cool line reasonably protected.

I've done that. Opened some sport routes, and I like em. Know what? I COULD NOT HAVE opened those routes on lead. Others could, but not me.

And there we get to the crux of the lingering issue in Yosemite. Genuine ground-up opportunities are perceived to be a dwindling resource. Once the argument was against ALL rap bolting because of this.

But sport climbers ably demonstrated their craft on cliffs that cannot reasonably be ascended by traditional ground up means. Many ground up climbers accepted this, even adopted the new methods.

But here and there, Dresden-like, the hold outs, often the very same people mind you, opening sport routes elsewhere, asked that certain crags, cliffs and even walls be left the provence of ground up climbers. And their peers and other locals seemed to accept this.

The main issue between the Growing Up team and the fairly small but vocal critics is this... could this route have been done gound up, by them, by anyone? THAT is the ethical quandry posed by Growing Up.

On a wall side-by-side with some of the boldest routes in Yosemite history, opened by some of the best, where Harding, Middendorf, Rowell and others nearly lost their lives in pursuit of their ideals, is a top down route.

I don't judge the route nor the FA party myself. But I don't dismiss their critics either, simply because their ideals are old and don't align with mine. That would be a fucking selfish thing to do.

Cheers
DMT

And there in lies the locals real problem....in the end they really don't have say as to who opens what and in what style. Those rules are made by someone else who's interests don't have all that much to do with climbing.

Anyone could walk up to the dome tomorrow and put up a new route. Anyone.....no matter who doesn't like it.


Truck

depends on if they want people to repeat or not. there is a lot of good rock that nobody climbs because of death runouts. dike route in the meadows and snake dike are both examples of having a few retro bolts thrown in to make them sane. maybe they could have run it out and then added a few later? i think death routes have pretty much gone out of fashion.

No need for us to endlessly discuss and restate what we're both saying (which is essentially the same thing).

I would respond however, that every climber is entitled to their opinion of any route and the tactics and methods used to establish that route. They/we are perfectly entitled to be as critical as we choose.

Going back to the respect thing.... its really means the same thing. If an Old Dog wants respect for her methods and routes she'd better be willing to dole it out to others too.

At the end of the day its a resource conflict potential...

I've taken the Taco thread at face value -s trong opinions stated and defended and yet folks are behaving in a civil manner - here too for that matter. A far cry from past 'discussions' on this sort of topic.

Cheers
DMT

Nice post Dingus. Made me think about all the places I have had the opportunity to climb and live. I couldn't agree more, most people stick the style they learned and everything else is wrong.

I don't understand why we use the term traditional climbing anyways. Don't get me wrong, if I have to choose climbing a sport area and a trad area, the trad area wins 9 times out of 10. I have a place in New Hampshire and I have only climb Rumney twice in five summers.

If you look at trad climbing, clean climbing came into play with quite a bit of anger from the traddies of that day. Technically, beating pitons is more trad than placing gear, and the leader doesn't fall even more so.

In the case of this route. These guys found a line and went for it. After getting halfway up Half Dome on a new route, they came to an Impasse. Instead of creating a bolt ladder to the top, they decided to rap the top section and see where the best climbing would be. In doing so, they find a line of relatively easy climbing to the top. They used this strategy to finish a great route (I hope) instead of risking a bolt ladder to the top. Codos to them.

Eman

If they had wanted to install and equip the route with a minimum of controversy, perhaps they should have rapped in to scout the line, then equip it on lead from stances? One might guess that it's not like they couldn't have found the line of least resistance and acceptable runouts while on the comfort of rappel.

The .13a tips pitch will weed out quite a few climbers to begin with, those who get past that should feel pretty comfortable on 5.10 slab, yes?