When an engineer designs and roadway for construction, he or she could do so in a manner that makes travel on that roadway risky......."spicy", one might say. But in the parlance of engineering ethics, he or she has the responsibility to create a design that is safe for its intended function. The phrase, "duty of care" is sometimes used to describe the ethic that governs the engineer's work. They have, as responsible professionals, the duty in their designing to create something that best meets its intended function in the safest manner possible.
Where i'm from, where individuals have used substandard equipment, either in terms of size or dimension, or materials.....or when such an individual has created unecessary risk with bolt placements that invite ledge falls or pendulums into the formation.....or other similar irresponsible conditions are imposed on the climber.....such conditions are rectified. Bolts are moved, lowering anchors are replaced, bolts are replaced with proper equipment. The first ascentionist IS NOT some demigod whose hand has wrought some hallowed creation. I would advise anyone facing similar circumstances to do the same, without hesitation. The installation of bolts in a sport climbing environment is largely public service.
Allowing these conditions to persist gives birth to orphaned routes.....routes that virtually no one will climb due to safety concerns. The resource bears the impact of the fixed protection and the climbing community is poorly served as a result.
If however, you are attempting a first ascent and that route contains a mixture of natural and fixed, or is wholy of fixed placements.....and those fixed placements are being installed using ground-up tactics with the expressed purpose of adherance to style, then that style, the manner of the first ascent, should be respected.
Now, quality of installation and materials aside - the thinking process that spawns comments like this are exactly why outdoor climbing is fast becoming a sad emulation of indoor climbing. It is so fundamentally flawed as to miss the entire point of climbing and beg the question of whether the 'development' of risk-free climbing for risk-averse suburbanites really is climbing at all as opposed to simply another 'lifestyle' branding and entertainment option.
In reply to:
Of course for the striving 5.8/5.9 climber, this condition might well be extremely intimidating.
True, and they can use their own initiative and cognitive powers to not go for that runout, descend, and try something more inline with their skills and experience.
Now, quality of installation and materials aside - the thinking process that spawns comments like this are exactly why outdoor climbing is fast becoming a sad emulation of indoor climbing. It is so fundamentally flawed as to miss the entire point of climbing and beg the question of whether the 'development' of risk-free climbing for risk-averse suburbanites really is climbing at all as opposed to simply another 'lifestyle' branding and entertainment option.
In reply to:
For God sake man......you're talking about installing bolts in the rock. By definition you are eliminating risk......or have the capability to relieve the climber of the evaluation of the efficacy and location of protection. Your comment begs the argument to do away with fixed installations and sport climbing altogether.
Its not acceptable that you, the installer, artificially impose unecessary risk by neglect/ignorance where it need not be.
The point of sport climbing is to allow the climber to focus on the moves......yes? That's how i've always understood the general thought to be.
If you are going to go to the trouble to place fixed protection in a sport climbing environment, MAKE IT SAFE. Do not inflict that level of impact and then skimp or do a crummy job to try to make a personal statement of how bold you feel you are......because that's not what sport climbing is about. And if you are confronted with these conditions at your crag......talk about it.....and do something about it.
I am not talking about installing bolt ladders on ever route to enable those who otherwise could not, the oportunity to aid climb the route's fixed protection.
Somehow some want to impose the traditional climbing concepts of ethics and style in the arena of sport climbing
(This post was edited by bernard on May 23, 2007, 11:30 PM)
I am not talking about installing bolt ladders on ever route to enable those who otherwise could not, the oportunity to aid climb the routes fixed protection.
Actually you are essentially advocating bolt ladders. Now someone may have to topstep to use them for aid, but for all practical purposes you are advocating gridbolting. The problem is, safe for whom? At what level of entitlement and 'right to a [risk-free] climb' do you draw the line while tripping down that road? You're advocating bolting rocks to emulate the safety provided in gyms - just be clear and say it.
(This post was edited by healyje on May 23, 2007, 11:34 PM)
Anything rap bolted should be fair game for reasonable fixes.
I'm speechless.
(Although, actually, I disagree. I do think local consensus should trump the lameness-factor. If locals really want to climb lame rap-bolted runout routes, let 'em have what they ask for.)
Ironically, caughtinside's perspective is something I can agree with and this is perhaps where we seem to be talking past each other. If you rap bolt, I think you have an obligation to make the route reasonably safe and if you fail to do so, then the community can come in and correct your work (assuming rap bolting is kosher in your area) even against your protests. There's nothing proud or bold about a route you worked into submission then added the minimum of bolts that YOU needed to get up it. Its like headpointing, but without the dodgy pro. However, if you drilled a route ground-up (in what I might call a traditional fashion) the community should never add bolts to the route without your explicit permission. Note that in either case, I think it takes overwhelming community support (perhaps a formalized governing body) to legitimize retrobolting. We still need to avoid grid-bolting and the like, but there is some common ground to be had here.
I think bold sport climbing is an oxymoron, and anyone who places bolts from rappel but still leaves the route dangerously run out is an idiot who is trying to compensate for something.
On a related note, were the bolts at E-rock placed on rappel or on lead?
(This post was edited by petsfed on May 24, 2007, 12:06 AM)
Anything rap bolted should be fair game for reasonable fixes.
I'm speechless.
(Although, actually, I disagree. I do think local consensus should trump the lameness-factor. If locals really want to climb lame rap-bolted runout routes, let 'em have what they ask for.)
Ironically, caughtinside's perspective is something I can agree with and this is perhaps where we seem to be talking past each other. If you rap bolt, I think you have an obligation to make the route reasonably safe and if you fail to do so, then the community can come in and correct your work (assuming rap bolting is kosher in your area) even against your protests. There's nothing proud or bold about a route you worked into submission then added the minimum of bolts that YOU needed to get up it. Its like headpointing, but without the dodgy pro. However, if you drilled a route ground-up (in what I might call a traditional fashion) the community should never add bolts to the route without your explicit permission. Note that in either case, I think it takes overwhelming community support (perhaps a formalized governing body) to legitimize retrobolting. We still need to avoid grid-bolting and the like, but there is some common ground to be had here.
I think bold sport climbing is an oxymoron, and anyone who places bolts from rappel but still leaves the route dangerously run out is an idiot who is trying to compensate for something.
On a related note, were the bolts at E-rock placed on rappel or on lead?
AS long as the fall is safe (you don't hit the deck or a ledge) there's nothing wrong in spicey spaced bolts... ( just MO)
Now, quality of installation and materials aside - the thinking process that spawns comments like this are exactly why outdoor climbing is fast becoming a sad emulation of indoor climbing. It is so fundamentally flawed as to miss the entire point of climbing and beg the question of whether the 'development' of risk-free climbing for risk-averse suburbanites really is climbing at all as opposed to simply another 'lifestyle' branding and entertainment option.
It is just another entertainment option (you're deluding yourself if you think otherwise), and your generation is the one full of quackos spreading this imbecilic notion that it's a "lifestyle".
Yes, it misses the point you see to climbing. But my sport and your silly pseudo-cult are mostly unrelated (except by accidents of history).
Anything rap bolted should be fair game for reasonable fixes.
I'm speechless.
(Although, actually, I disagree. I do think local consensus should trump the lameness-factor. If locals really want to climb lame rap-bolted runout routes, let 'em have what they ask for.)
Ironically, caughtinside's perspective is something I can agree with and this is perhaps where we seem to be talking past each other. If you rap bolt, I think you have an obligation to make the route reasonably safe and if you fail to do so, then the community can come in and correct your work (assuming rap bolting is kosher in your area) even against your protests.
The chief obligation of an RD is to keep the product in line with what the community desires. That is, to serve the community.
If you aren't serving the community when you put up your route, you are stealing from it.
In reply to:
There's nothing proud or bold about a route you worked into submission then added the minimum of bolts that YOU needed to get up it.
Correct.
In reply to:
However, if you drilled a route ground-up (in what I might call a traditional fashion) the community should never add bolts to the route without your explicit permission.
But why?
In reply to:
I think bold sport climbing is an oxymoron, and anyone who places bolts from rappel but still leaves the route dangerously run out is an idiot who is trying to compensate for something.
Agreed. However, I also put people who bolt routes ground up, but skip available drilling stances in order to deliberately make it more run out, in the same shameful boat.
In reply to:
On a related note, were the bolts at E-rock placed on rappel or on lead?
Regarding the backside, there are some routes that were done ground up without aid. Some that were done ground up with aid. Some that were rap-bolted to look like they were done ground up (i.e. to be similar in character to the other routes on the wall). Other routes were done in a strange hybrid multi-partner ground up yoyo style involving continual rehearsing of moves and downclimbing (a contrived joke). Some routes even have sections that were done ground up and sections that were rap-bolted (this is excluding retros, obviously).
By the way, there are probably in the neighborhood of 15-20 retro bolts on that wall (across less than 30 routes), already. And all routes have a horribly designed ending consisting of dangerous, easy climbing with no pro that only serves to get you far enough from the ground that the anchor is practically useless for lowering or toproping.
Elsewhere in the park, there are a number of runout rap jobs (mostly put up by one individual), as well as a handful of true sport routes.
Overall, the bolted route development at E-Rock is perhaps the lowest quality I have ever seen.
(This post was edited by fracture on May 24, 2007, 5:59 AM)
It is just another entertainment option (you're deluding yourself if you think otherwise), and your generation is the one full of quackos spreading this imbecilic notion that it's a "lifestyle".
Actually, it's the sport climbers from the 80's and 90's who are largely responsible commercializing climbing via gyms.
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But my sport and your silly pseudo-cult are mostly unrelated (except by accidents of history).
Thank god for that. The day climbing became simply a risk-free entertainment option for me and I became so risk-averse as to need it to be just that is the day I'd stop climbing. What it's become for 85% of 'climbers' today is a totally different activity and largely just an embarassing emulation gym climbing replicated outdoors.
(This post was edited by healyje on May 24, 2007, 1:14 AM)
I'm kind of getting a chuckle out of this thread, but, Fracture, baby, are we talking about climbing or setting up a McDonalds franchise? All this talk of convenience and serving the community is getting me hungry for some kind double-double transfatty patty with regurgitated cheese-like substitute. The upshot of this ill-begotten and misapplied analogy is: I guess you've got to concentrate on the gymnastics when the setting is Texas...?? Anyway, you are by far the best troll that is not a troll [if I may innacurately quote CI] this site has to offer
However, if you drilled a route ground-up (in what I might call a traditional fashion) the community should never add bolts to the route without your explicit permission.
But why?
Because, at least from my experience, a route put up ground up was put up for the FAs own enjoyment, not for those who would come in the future. When bolting from hooks or free stances, with a hand drill, in granite, you think long and hard about placing that next bolt. I think preserving that mindset for future climbers is valuable in and of itself. And in areas where ground up bolting is popular, the sport climbing would be boring and low angle anyway. From a pure movement perspective, you've done one grainy slab you've done 'em all, you know?
Besides Fracture, the root cause of most all "community service"-based RD is ED - ego dysfunction. As diseases go it is pretty much a raging epidemic - sort of a pox on rocks.
I am not talking about installing bolt ladders on ever route to enable those who otherwise could not, the oportunity to aid climb the routes fixed protection.
Actually you are essentially advocating bolt ladders. Now someone may have to topstep to use them for aid, but for all practical purposes you are advocating gridbolting. The problem is, safe for whom? At what level of entitlement and 'right to a [risk-free] climb' do you draw the line while tripping down that road? You're advocating bolting rocks to emulate the safety provided in gyms - just be clear and say it.
I never said anything about the bolt installer having to satisfy an imperative or entitlement for the subsequent climber to have a risk free experience.
And i never said anything about convenience.
I'm talking about a reasonable effort toward safety......and it takes some thought and judgement, to be sure.
Hell, with the best laid sport route, there's still plenty of risk......but worrying about decking on a ledge, taking a nasty swing, whether or not the bolts are suffering corrosion or are mankily placed should be in the calculus.
Given the geometry of particularly overhanging sport routes, even ladder-like configuration of the bolts is not going to give the unprepared a leg up
The nature of the climbing.....of the physical requirements of average sport climbs.....weeds out the under prepared.
What i am suggesting i see practiced pretty much throughout the southeast as a matter of course.....and when there are complications or safety issues, typically members of various climber advocacy organizations take on the duty of maintenance and trying to insure a minimum level of safety regarding fixed protection, coming behind to rectify poor or otherwise absent bolt installations where common sense says there's an issue
it isn't your style, but you'll say it anyways? I guess you are the expert on ethics and we should all bow to your opinion
It just shows you know zero about first ascents or the history of climbing.
I know plenty, but unlike you I don't just mindlessly assume that we should do it that way because "they always have". Respect what others before us have done, but when it was foolish or poorly done, call a spade a spade.
Fracture, I truly value your perspectives and the challenge they present to the status quo. Which is another way to say that they get me thinking. If anything, it helps folks clarify and articulate their opinions.
Unfortunately, there is a touch of machismo/arrogance to your posts that prevents me from being in your corner completely. For example, the comment to CI about gymnastic climbing seemed smug, when in fact most climbing qualifies as gymnastic.
Your strength is in arguing the semantics of the out-dated climbing lingo, ie: "trad?", but I wish you'd see the value in the adventure climbing means to some people and not always belittle it.
For the record, I think long, 10+ cracks are much more difficult than Thailand 12s, but I value both of the experiences.
So the point of this post is to say that I'm rooting for you, Fracture, in a way, because there is value in your line of thinking, but... Be nice.
i see no reason not to bolt it, even if the fa doesn't agree.
ethics are just word games that people fight about, some person made it up and no one is right.
That's a philosophy that breeds controversy like gangsta rappers breed pit bulls.
I read the first few responses to controversial questions like these just to get a feel for the arguments, then I scroll down and read what J_ung and Curt have to say.
Well Philly, I will say over the years Fracture has consistently represented his perspective. And as he says, it's also been a perspective of a sport barely recognizable as climbing regardless of how many people now do it. In fact, that the vast majority of the hordes of folks who now identify themselves as 'climbers' lack technical skills and an ability to assess and manage risk has thoroughly changed the demographics and the very definition of 'climbing'. It has changed so much even he manages to recognize it's mostly just another short-lived, low-skill, and no-risk entertainment option for most 'climbers' today.
The fact that sport climbing co-opted the term 'climbing' relegating climbing to 'trad climbing' almost said it all until recent times when it got shuffled even further to the back of the room as 'adventure climbing'. I have to say I consider this latest doppleganger a truly loathsome, if not abominable, term, but one that is ironically spot-on as indicative of the true state of our 'sport'.
(This post was edited by healyje on May 24, 2007, 7:43 AM)
....and its obvious i don't know how to utilize the whole quote function when replying.......
Caught is right.... You know nothing regarding the history of the sport which you "claim" to be a part of. You have no respect for the rock or the people who truly embodied the sport who came before you.
I am so disgusted with fracture and bernard. I can't even realte to these ethics, or lack thereof. It is that gym rat, indoor techno bouldering philosophy. I am so glad that I climbed in a community where the history of the area and the style that the routes were established in, were, for the most part, highly respected.
Another thing....It must be horrible for you climbers who have been climbing for 20-30 years.... I have been climbing for about 8 and I have already seen drastic change. I am impressed with you guys and the level of control it takes to suck it up and just shake your head. I just hate the changes, hate em.
Healy is correct as well....this is how you guys turn crags into climbing gyms.... just awful. I know....Lets tick the routes, bolt every 4 feet( on an already established route) so everybody can come and shit all over mother nature... oh and never risk anything, ever....awesome.
You two need another sport or hobby... like knitting... that should be pretty safe. Although I am sure you find a way to take the fun and risk out of that as well...you could prick yourself
(This post was edited by azrockclimber on May 24, 2007, 12:24 PM)
It must be horrible for you climbers who have been climbing for 20-30 years.... I have been climbing for about 8 and I have already seen drastic change. I am impressed with you guys and the level of control it takes to suck it up and just shake your head. I just hate the changes, hate em.
Dude you got to lighten up man. It ain't that bad really. There are fractures in every generation. Its the Consumer mentality. They were around back in the day too.
Like Caught says, in our neck of the woods these differing styles coexist well. We can go sport climbing in the morning and do trad FAs in the afternoon.
I've established rap bolted sport routes right next to trad routes upon which I myself did the FA too.
I agree with the idea that its stupid to create a death sport route. I too like closely spaced bolts on close-to-the-ground routes.
I did not get the impression the FA of the route the OP brought up was a sport route, perhaps I'm wrong. Did it go in ground-up?
But underlying fracture's points is this tude... he's like a thorough bred horse dedicated to ONE THING, dismissing the history of all other styles of horse back riding and the histories of cowboys and arabs and knights and war horses and all that other shit as 'irrelevant.'
He (the thoroughbred horse) can't even DO his sport without elaborate preparations, tracks and shit.
They might pave over a horse ranch dedicated to raising cutting horses and put a track there. The needs and wants and desires of the cutting crowd are no longer relevant.
The thoroughbred makes fun of them in a vaguely annoying way.
Me? I'm like a fat jockey... I can ride the thoroughbreds though not very fast. Its FUN. But I like backwoods riding too, and long distance, and horse camping, and well... you know.
I respect the past.
If someone decided to retro one of my routes I might chop it, might not. On one in particular I think the retro would be to pull a couple of bolts haha, and I wouldn't object unless they were dicks about it.
Consensus isn't a democracy. Its a collection of individual actions.... consensus may conclude 'live and let live' is the proper course. What that means in reality is NOT a community vote. It means no individual summoned the necessary whatever to take action. Inaction becomes consensus one person at a time. If one of those people goes up and chops, consensus has not been achieved.
There is STILL a place for the lone vigilante here in our wild west. Don't let a myopic sport climber tell you different.
Well Philly, I will say over the years Fracture has consistently represented his perspective. And as he says, it's also been a perspective of a sport barely recognizable as climbing regardless of how many people now do it. In fact, that the vast majority of the hordes of folks who now identify themselves as 'climbers' lack technical skills and an ability to assess and manage risk has thoroughly changed the demographics and the very definition of 'climbing'. It has changed so much even he manages to recognize it's mostly just another short-lived, low-skill, and no-risk entertainment option for most 'climbers' today.
The fact that sport climbing co-opted the term 'climbing' relegating climbing to 'trad climbing' almost said it all until recent times when it got shuffled even further to the back of the room as 'adventure climbing'. I have to say I consider this latest doppleganger a truly loathsome, if not abominable, term, but one that is ironically spot-on as indicative of the true state of our 'sport'.
so right and so depressing....
Frature you speak about climbing in the way that I would talk about accidentally spilling some milk... who cares, no big deal, its' "whatever", "it raises the red point efficiency"... god I hated that line.... red point efficiency...? what are you, an F'ing computer program.
no passion, no respect, no love, no pride, and no soul tied to the sport. You are a barren husk of a climber compared to the people who I respect who embody this sport.
I've enjoyed this debate and think it's a good thread. But fracture, you really ought to go ahead and admit that, at least nationally, your view/your area's ethics are still clearly in the minority (talking about #1, not #2), a fact about which I'm pretty happy.
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