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Can someone please explain this to me??

Monomaniac · · Morrison, CO · Joined Oct 2006 · Points: 17,295
Johny Q wrote: Am I getting this wrong or does it look like he is checking his swing with that rope tension.
Good point, he's using aid during his aid ascent.
Wiled Horse · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2002 · Points: 3,669
Austin Baird wrote: Awesome. Punnery is even better when based on coining new words.
glad someone caught that! ;)

David Sahalie wrote:so if i can't do a climb with my hands, then I drytool it until the holds get bigger, then I send it using my fingers... did i chip it?
+1
Eric Fjellanger · · Unknown Hometown · Joined May 2008 · Points: 870

You guys sound like a bunch of nerdy dolphins talking about hang gliding.

thomas ellis · · abq · Joined Oct 2009 · Points: 2,615

Son, take the lotion out of the basket

Wiled Horse · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2002 · Points: 3,669

hang gliding is aid

-sp · · East-Coast · Joined May 2007 · Points: 75
David Sahalie wrote:that limestone looks like it got attacked by a sabertooth tiger, makes glued, ticked, comfortized areas look like Yosemite granite in 1940. so if i can't do a climb with my hands, then I drytool it until the holds get bigger, then I send it using my fingers... did i chip it?
Heh, heh...
JCM · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jun 2008 · Points: 115

Lets just remember that your standard mixed crag isn't going to be the next Ceuse, or even the next Rifle for that matter. The rock is usually junky to the point that even if you could free climb it without tools, you wouldn't want to. It is often mossy, dirty, and seeping all summer---which in the winter means ice, though. At many limestone mixed or drytool crags, the rock is so poor that you shouldn't even climb on them until a good freeze sets in so that the frozen moisture in the rock will hold the choss together. Climbing at those crags before it freezes up is sort of like climbing at Red Rocks after a rain storm: poor form, since you'll break all the holds off.

Anyway, most of these mixed areas are heinous choss. If someone showed up at Waimea in the winter and dry-tooled everything, there would be a lynch mob, and rightly so. But on an Ouray choss heap, who cares? Scratch away.

Leo Paik · · Westminster, Colorado · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 22,800

Folks, how many of you who have posted have actually gone up and taken a look at this crag? climbed at it? drove by it for years and never saw anyone on it with rock gear or any gear?

This is a tiny, tiny crag next to the road that folks have driven by for decades...right next to a road carved out of the hillside for miles going into a nearly pristine environment...right across the road from 1000+ foot walls that have largely only attracted ice and mixed climbers. There is so, so, so much conglomerate rock for climbers to explore in that area.

We climbers can and should learn to get along. What we do in one season is really just a variation of what we do in other seasons. Mixed climbing, dry tooling, aid climbing, rock climbing, bouldering, sport climbing, and mountaineering are all just variations of what we climbers have been doing for decades, if not centuries in some arms of the sport. Before you condemn this part of our sport, go try and climb these same routes with chalked fingers, rock shoes, aid gear, or whatever. No one will likely stop you. Then, maybe try and dry tool these routes. You might just have a ton of fun.

iceman777 · · Colorado Springs · Joined Oct 2007 · Points: 60

I don't dislike drytooling , just the cost of replacement picks for my tools.

Now what id really like to see is someone drytool there way up the Captain ,solo....... that would be rad !

jmeizis · · Colorado Springs, CO · Joined Jul 2008 · Points: 230

The tools are an aid in the same way as climbing shoes or chalk. You hold onto the tools the whole time, basically an extension of your hands. You ever try aid climbing where you hang onto each piece with your hands instead of just clipping into it? It'd be way harder. They are not in the same category. In my opinion dry tooling is closer to free climbing than it is aid climbing.

jack roberts · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2002 · Points: 0

What a bunch of screaming ninnies. Folks, ALL forms of climbing use some sort of aid and unless you climb without chalk, rubber-soled shoes, don't use a bouldering pad etc you are using some sort of aid to climb and are leaving your mark. It's a heck of a lot easier to spot rock routes due to all the excessive chalk than it is to spot the scratch marks left by tools. Not to mention wandering trails through the under-brush and smashed vegetation due to bouldering.

When someone develops a cliff specifically for drytooling (the D grade was first introduced to this form of M-climbing by Joe Josephson in his guidebook "Winter Dance".......in 2003?) then that means it is OK to use ice tools on that cliff. It means that because no rock routes have been established on that cliff then using picks on the rock is OK. Generally these cliffs are pretty scruffy and this Ouray cliff is no exception to this. No one bothered to bolt this cliff for rock climbing because this rock is crap for rock climbing. Choss. No one even wanted to clean the rock for climbing. So, these guys developed it for drytooling. A completely legit use of resources. Where is the problem?

There are currently two cliffs in Boulder Canyon that have been developed specifically for M-climbing. For YEARS rock climbers have walked past these cliffs and no one even bothered to develop them because they are dirty and not clean.....like road cuts. PERFECT for climbing with tools. The approach to both cliffs is less than two minutes from the road. I bet no one on this site could identify these crags or find their scratch marks. Aid? give me a break. It's only aid climbing is you hanging your body weight from the piece or yes, HANGING on the ice tool. It isn't aid if you are NOT hanging.......

Drytooling on specific crags developed for that purpose is just as valid as any other style of climbing. This is just a newer expression of climbing which will no doubt increase in popularity. Better get used to it now......................These climbers are armed with more than just little socks filled with soft white powder........

Yarp · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2011 · Points: 0
David Sahalie wrote: the difference: dry tooling and mixed climbing are glorified aid climbing. trad, sport. bouldering: you use your fingers as the good lord intended.
Yer certainly on a role these last few days! Now you've decided you personally know the intentions of the creator, to justify your hatred for something different that you don't understand. Nice!Love the intardwebz!
JulianB · · Florence, SC · Joined Aug 2011 · Points: 15
David Sahalie wrote: chalk is the same as hooks you hold in your hands? if drytooling is so great, why aren't the top climbers chomping at the bit to do it? maybe not, because real climbing where you use your fingers requires real fitness
Right because lord knows guys like Dave MacLeod, Will Gadd, and Stevie Haston aren't "top climbers".
Sir Wanksalot · · County Jail · Joined Sep 2011 · Points: 10

This has to be the dumbest argument EVER! Who the F**K cares what these guys are doing. Sound like jealous bitches...

Matt N · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 415

Crap - this thread has told me I have aided all my free climbs. I'm not just sure; I'm HIV positive.

fat cow · · St. Paul, MN · Joined Nov 2009 · Points: 10

so what do you guys all do for work? daily i sit here at my desk reading these sometimes hilarious threads from a consistent group, wondering, what do these infamous posters do for a living? This thread lost most of its umph, anyone care to share?

To start, I am an accountant at a resort hotel in Monterey CA, which is why i have time to peruse MP endlessly...

J. Broussard · · CordryCorner · Joined Feb 2011 · Points: 50

Have yet to hear any middle ground here. It's all one way or another. Can't we agree there is importance to the crag selection for such an activity?

My ONLY concern here is that these climbers are publicizing their playground with out broaching this important subject. Introducing the crag should begin with "We decided to trash (my choice of wording) this crag because (fill in the blank)... Once the rock quality, plethora of mining debris and quarries are identified to have already blemished the area I think we'd all find a lot more ease with the situation.

Let's think about the example we set by not mentioning these facts when publicizing a new area. I guess this is on R&I for not establishing this by simply asking the athletes this question. Seems like a trend in recent climbing articles to completely ignore pertinent information and simply present the story for as much general appeal as possible. Remember the Devil's Head thread?

Cor · · Sandbagging since 1989 · Joined Mar 2006 · Points: 1,445

Jack,
are you referring to the sport park in boulder canyon?
what a perfect place to drytool... with all those bolts and chipped holds, only 2 minutes from the road. what could be better?! ;D

Jason N. · · Grand Junction · Joined Mar 2011 · Points: 10

I believe David is trolling us, or at least being using hyperbole for comedic effect...

M Mobley · · Bar Harbor, ME · Joined Mar 2006 · Points: 911
Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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