Stone Mountain NC Question/Beta

Firstly, I would like to preface this post by saying I DO NOT want and/or need an overall lecture on North Carolina climbing ethics. I'm well versed and completely understand the ethics of our amazing state, which strives hard to preserve the historical and ethical tradition set forth by our climbing predecessors. I also agree 100% with the standard/accepted ethics of our state. Don't want this to turn into another crazy debate on safety, access, blah blah blah (note, mountainproject.com/v/addin…) . Please NC regulars and/or FA party chime in.

Now to my question/inquiry . The photo taken below (Dec-28-2013) is the route Fuddy Mucker (5.9+) I believe, please correct my if I'm wrong. mountainproject.com/v/fuddy…

Fuddy Mucker (.9+) I think...

To me it looked very grassy with all sorts of weeds growing in it. Has this crack ever been completely cleaned out? It looks like it could be a nice route if it was cleaned up and another great way to access the ledge. If it was completely cleaned out would it receive more than a "bomb" rating?

I would be willing to clean it out on lead or whatever it that was okay. Is it okay to clean out a route that has been overgrown with muck due to lack of traffic? Maybe I should contact the FA party to see if that would be acceptable…?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Note, I said overall/general NC ethics. I feel like this may be a slight grey area.

seriously just clean it out...there is no dilemma here...if you want to climb it then clean it

I think it's fine and I'll add some historical context here. If you look in some old guidebooks you'll find that Dirty Crack at Stone is "not recommended". Apparently because it was dirty once. It's a pretty nice line these days though. I'm not sure if that's because someone actually cleaned it out or not but if someone did kudos to them.

Jonathan, that thing has been cleaned out a number of times over the years since I started climbing there, only to fill back in with dirt (usually) just a few months later. If people climbed it often enough it might actually stay clean. I say clean it up... Maybe just do it low-key.

Emil Briggs wrote:I think it's fine and I'll add some historical context here. If you look in some old guidebooks you'll find that Dirty Crack at Stone is "not recommended". Apparently because it was dirty once. It's a pretty nice line these days though. I'm not sure if that's because someone actually cleaned it out or not but if someone did kudos to them.

I climbed it yesterday. It's usually my goto route to access the ledge, I really enjoy that route.

nbrown: by low key I assume you mean from park officials, right?

Park officials dont give a fuck if you clean it or not. I dont care if you do and I'll bet that no one else does either. It's been cleaned out many times and like previously stated just fills right back up with shit. I say go ahead and do it, stone has a few more good months in the season still.