No Lo Contendere

This is on page 300 of the new Falcon Eldo guide. It is on the corner 50' right of Touch 'N' Go.

An alert belayer is required. Some may call this 's', but I think the risky moves are not within 2 number grades of the difficulty of the crux. A small nut protects a bouldery start, then carefully step up to clip the first bolt. A hold out left expedites this clip. The crux of the first section is found when stepping over the rooflet. A good stopper can be placed at the stance above. The second section follows two bolts out right to the arete, although some have gone straight up from the first, and up to finish on The Contest.

The climbing is technical in spots but there are frequent rests.

My only reason for submitting this route can be found in the following....

No Lo Contendre

This route starts to the left of, and eventually joins, The Contest, hence the name which pleads 'no contest' in a court of law. It came into being after I saw the possibility of the upper half and thought to climb the lower BEHIND THE TREE route to reach it. I led it onsight on natural gear with my friend Mark Miller some time later.

It was an adventure for me, but in those days, I was willing to add bolts to some of my routes after-the-fact and this one seemed appropriate. It had two cruxes that risked very bad falls. It lacked the aesthetic position that might have encouraged me to keep it as a 'death lead'. I asked the opinions of other local climbers who supported the idea.

The fly-in-the-ointment was that the bottom part, the BEHIND THE TREE route, was in the book as having been done before by 'unknown'. I was on the FHRC at the time and thought that proposing to add a bolt in the bottom half and 2 bolts to the top half would make it safer though still as sporty as some other Roof Routes. More importantly, perhaps, was its value as a test case to promote public debate about adding bolts to existing routes. This issue, and the idea of replacing fixed pins with bolts, still lurks.

The FHRC made its decisions in public meetings in those days. I had hopes of a lively discussion, but there was little debate, and it was approved (with me abstaining).

Over the years, I have heard from a few people who were taken aback by this sequence of events. I told them I wished they had attended the meeting and voiced their objections then but that it wasn't too late. If they wanted to propose to remove one or more of them, then they should do so. I used Rawl bolts, so that they could be unscrewed easily and the holes camoflauged. I would be willing to attend the meeting, plead 'no contest', and help with the removal and repair. It was my intention to make the offer for "the good of the community", but it was probably misguided.

I think this is a good time for the debate on this route to take place, and this is a good forum.

take time to care, Steve Dieckhoff 11/6/2001

There is a total of 4 bolts and nut placements.