Rant: toproping bolted rappel routes

doligo wrote: Tell me more about the Son of Easy O anchors - are they above the roofs? All piton anchor? Yikes! Don't care if they're new, I'd be sketched to TR from pitons (rappel ok, but not TR), unless I bring a hammer to test them out. Someone's gotta enlighten them top-ropers.

Above the roofs, at the ledge where Easy O traverses in from the left. I think maybe too far up to toprope with a single 60m rope, but I'm told that 70m ropes work.

All-piton anchor with chains. Pretty burly at the moment. Really attractive too...



"Legal" by current Preserve rules because there were three decaying pitons in this spot that were replaced.

Top ropers are an invasive species and should be ruthlessly extirpated whenever they escape their native habitat (ie Ragged Mountain and Stoney Point.)

Can someone tell me how someone top-roping SOEO is any different than belaying from the top? Each person is still climbing the route once(usually) so I don't see how it's being tied up any longer or getting any more polished. Personally, I think 3 people tr'ing a route is more respectful than the time sapping cluster f@&k that ensues with all 3 going to the top. This discussion is really about a bunch of people who think they have bigger balls than everyone else because they're more "trad" than thou.

The Coop wrote:Can someone tell me how someone top-roping SOEO is any different than belaying from the top? Each person is still climbing the route once(usually) so I don't see how it's being tied up any longer or getting any more polished...This discussion is really about a bunch of people who think they have bigger balls than everyone else because they're more "trad" than thou.

Well, I for one haven't mastered the art of peering into other people's souls to detect what they are "really" talking about, so I'm going to stick with what the discussion is really really about.

The remarks on timing might be true if top-ropers came in pairs. But that isn't the way it often works. Those big-balled traddies can do amazing things, but they don't head up routes with four, five, six people, numbers that are fairly common for top-ropers. So one way top-roping takes up much more time is that it seems to encourage and then accommodate much larger parties.

Another thing the tradder-than-thou bunch---in spite of their general superiority in all things---has never been able to master is climbing two or three routes simultaneously. But sometimes a single leader will set up top-ropes on two or three adjacent climbs to keep his or her posse engaged. So a second way top-roping takes up much more time is it allows a single group to monopolize a collection of nearby routes.

Most of this falls into the realm of common decency, which is often in short supply when resources get crowded. The intelligent way to manage such resources is to minimize occasions for conflict. Running rappel routes down popular climbs instead maximizes the potential for conflict. People claim to be doing this as a public service, but it isn't any such thing.

OK fair enough. Personally, I've never had any issue with disrespectful top-ropers due to the act of top-roping itself. The crowd that I see on weekends who set up camp in the Uberfall with strollers, blankets, hammocks, ropes/pack everywhere is annoying, but at the same time it's pretty good people watching too. Sure, in areas like the Uberfall, Seasons, Froghead wall, this is pretty common but really it doesn't bother me because, that's life. And..It's fun climbing with friends and socializing, so who can blame them. I really don't see anything inherently wrong with this. I'd say about 90% of the time "these" people share ropes with strangers and make a good effort to hurry along once someone else makes it clear that they would like to give it a go on lead. There are however, what seems to me to be a new influx of Gunks climber that really have no clue when it comes to cliff etiquette and don't share, but there are just as many of these same people also doing multi-pitch climbs as there are top-ropers, so really this is just a symptom of more climbers coming to the cliff in general. I believe because of this ever-growing flow of traffic to the cliff, climbers need to come together and develop a reasonable bolting policy that respects the area's history but also confronts the reality of a growing population of climbers. Somewhere between the Ken Nichols mindset and the grid-bolting mindset there is a reasonable middle ground that will offer a good compromise to the wants of the old guard and the next generation of climbers. MOre logical rappel routes, replacing old tat with solid anchors, and maybe even adding a couple of bolts to some horrorshow 12x routes that sadly will never be enjoyed in there current state probably isn't a huge stretch considering the changing times.

Brian wrote:Let's start a movement to ban top-roping at the Gunks!! We'll get the Preserve to hire a team of big burly guys to patrol the cliffs with knives. Any rope that has been hanging on a route more than 10 minutes gets cut. ;-)

If the Gunks target program works well, then it should be expanded out west to Joshua Tree. I have spent the better part of a day out there trying to find something, even a crag, that isn't littered with TRs for most of the day.

Fat Dad wrote: If the Gunks target program works well, then it should be expanded out west to Joshua Tree. I have spent the better part of a day out there trying to find something, even a crag, that isn't littered with TRs for most of the day.

Haha, good luck with that! California is Front Range Colorado on steroids, which in turn makes the Gunks look like wilderness.

rgold wrote: Above the roofs, at the ledge where Easy O traverses in from the left. I think maybe too far up to toprope with a single 60m rope, but I'm told that 70m ropes work. All-piton anchor with chains. Pretty burly at the moment. Really attractive too... "Legal" by current Preserve rules because there were three decaying pitons in this spot that were replaced.

It can be top-roped with a 60m rope.

Brian wrote: It can be top-roped with a 60m rope.

not my old 60m rope it cant be, at least not easily. Its a good thing for belayers being tied in.

TR purist wrote: not my old 60m rope it cant be, at least not easily. Its a good thing for belayers being tied in.

Mike, Granted, not easily...it barely reaches but you can use a 60m. A knot in the end of the rope is a good idea.

Brian wrote: Mike, Granted, not easily...it barely reaches but you can use a 60m. A knot in the end of the rope is a good idea.

yeah the knot only works if your belayer is ready to climb, I do sometimes climb with an old 10.5 that seems to have shrunk though

Sorry Dana. No doubt ther are plenty of people on siting hard routes at the Gunks. That's because the grand majority of moderates protect excellently and it would be non sensical to bolt anything that doesn't need it. However, it's easy to boast about being a hard ground upper in the Gunks when you are a 5.8/9/10 climber. If you ever break into the 5.12 grade you will soon realize the Gunks dilemma regarding hard climbing. If the bolting wars had happened a few years later people would be enjoying routes like Survival, twilight Zone, just about all the hard R/x stuff in Sleepy Hollow as a a good lead instead of a top-rope. Most people enjoy climbing realativily safely at their limit just as every climber who clips bolts on Arrow or Yellow Wall or Carbs do. Bottom line is that the Gunks protect very well until you get to the real hard stuff so I think it's a little too easy for moderate climbers to boast about their trad ethic when 5.12x will never be their reality.

Dana Bartlett wrote:I just came so close to getting my first 100 point turn in Scrabble. Spelled rescind for a double-double, and a bingo, and I hooked the s to quad for quads.

Damn, that's some rad pointage!

5.12 at the Gunks? Wouldn't that techincally be climbing upside down? :p

today after rappelling to the three pines GT ledge rappel station, I was greeted by two different parties using the anchors (one on something interesting, one on three pines), and a third party top roping directly off the chains.