Who wants real anchors on Vision Quest, IC?

Okay, I'm leaving Golden tomorrow and will easily be there tomorrow evening. All the anchors are getting replaced and the death blocks trundled. I will put 2 bolts at each belay and I'm leaving the old shite where it is. Yes I know it's hot but there shouldn't be anyone there right now so it's perfect. Short update when I get back.

I strongly disagree with retro-bolting anchors on this route. There are already two ways down: 1) A separate rappel route, and 2) BASE jumping off the top, to which Hank is very familiar with.

On the way up the tower, you can create bomber gear anchors. If you can't make it to the top, well, that's part of the adventure and the gear you may have to leave behind in bailing can be counted towards the price of admission.

One-for-one replacement = OK. Retro'd anchors = NO!

Just to be clear, I talked to my BUDDY Jeff Achey and he fully endorses real anchors on HIS route.

Hank, you just got so much cooler. But seriously, have fun retrobolting the anchors.

Real anchors are always a pleasure to find. More people means more stress on the rock. Bolted anchors can only help.

Thanks for the hard work and trying to seek consensus Hank!

Thanks Hank!

Did the 1st 2 pitches today, will try to do the last belay on Saturday, we got a rope stuck and bailed in the hellish sun. So there's a shiny new bolt next to a pounded in angle at the 1st 2 belays. We rapped down the 1st 2 pitches and yes rapping the route sucks.

Just noticed this thread ... FYI, Ed and I did not place any fixed anchors on the FA, since there was good gear and no need to rap. So apparently some WANKER put in LAME anchors after the fact. Please upgrade the thing to modern sport status - thanks!

Not sure of your summit intentions, but I'd like to suggest chain. It's been a few years since I was last up top, but I recall a mess of sun bleached tat. The summit really gets a lot of sun.

Chain on the summit would be pretty nice. It is a pretty nasty rats nest of old tat equalized between pins, drilled angles, and bolts. Also we tried to trundle the block at the third belay a couple weeks ago and it ended up getting stuck against the left wall. Still detached, but not loose like it was before.

Hank Caylor wrote:Just to be clear, I talked to my BUDDY Jeff Achey and he fully endorses real anchors on HIS route.

I saw Jeff's comment. He's entitled to his opinion, certainly, and I do think that special consideration should be given to the opinion of the FA party.

However...

HIS is an interesting choice of words. When does a route become a mature creation? Would it be HIS if he instructed you not to do it? Was it HIS when other people retrobolted (OK, drilled angle) it?
When does a climb become mature and not a work in progress with a single owner? Is there a statute of limitations?
What if he had put anchors on and 20 years later decided that he shouldn't and chopped them?

Can Larry Hamilton go chop those retrobolts on Rosy Crucifixion now? Would you approve if he did? What if Charlie wanted to add a bolt to Perilous Journey? As people get older, their desire for risk tends to decrease, after all.

Hank, you are a thinking man, so I am interested in when you believe that this applies and does not. When it supports your intent or beyond that? For how long? Why? Are there consequences to that line of thinking?

Cheers, and thank you for the community service Hank.

Really, it would have been nice to leave the route boltless, but since the damage had already been done, the next best thing is to pretty it up. So hopefully, Hank, as you upgrade, you are pulling out that junk and patching the holes. THAT would be the true public service. Otherwise it's just more unnecessary junk.

Jeff, so those drilled angles are not from the first accent?

Those angles are bomber from what I remember. They ain't coming out. Lots of tat and crap attached to them for bailing. Seems like two bolts would be less intrusive.

J Achey wrote:Really, it would have been nice to leave the route boltless, but since the damage had already been done, the next best thing is to pretty it up. So hopefully, Hank, as you upgrade, you are pulling out that junk and patching the holes. THAT would be the true public service. Otherwise it's just more unnecessary junk.

And this is my point: Really, it would have been nice to leave the route boltless.

However, "since the damage had already been done", in my opinion, a better course would have been to pull/patch the holes and return it to it's original state. The state it was in when Jeff did the FA.

I just did an amazing route in the Swell last week: Tippin' the Bottle on Bottleneck Peak. Not a single bolt on the route (I'm not against bolts - they just weren't at all necessary) which created quite the sense of commitment while up there (imagine what it would have been like for the FA party!). A very rewarding experience. Again, I'm not categorically opposed to bolts - and I probably do just as much sport climbing as trad climbing - I just think they should be limited to where they are necessary. And in the case of Vision Quest Jeff proved that they weren't necessary when he did the first ascent bolt-free.

Also, Jeff, the guys who put in the pins may be wankers - but I'd say only if they knew better (for the same reason I think retro bolting these anchors now is a wanker move, albeit a possibly well-intentioned one). Do you think it's possible they went up there thinking they were doing an FA?

Tony, really interesting question about route ownership. I agree with the idea of respecting the FA and providing a tremendous amount of deference to their wishes, but I don't necessarily believe in strict ownership of anything. You own the creative process, but the medium itself - the rock - is not yours.

I'm pretty much with you, Josh, but trouble is, if you pull and patch everything, chances are really good that it will start all over again. Maybe that's giving in to the lowest common denominator, but it's reality. The Creek has such an "anchor" ethic that to have a boltless route doesn't fit the mold. Ed and I weren't trying to prove any big point in this case, we just didn't need belay bolts so we didn't bother. We had solid anchors and didn't need to rap or bail. We placed belay bolts on many of our other routes.

So I think Hank has the right idea: clean it up and make it solid. Maybe I gave him a hard time in my last post for not cleaning it up enough, but that's splitting hairs. Thanks, Hank, for yanking the mank!

Tony B wrote: I saw Jeff's comment. He's entitled to his opinion, certainly, and I do think that special consideration should be given to the opinion of the FA party. However... HIS is an interesting choice of words. When does a route become a mature creation? Would it be HIS if he instructed you not to do it? Was it HIS when other people retrobolted (OK, drilled angle) it? When does a climb become mature and not a work in progress with a single owner? Is there a statute of limitations? What if he had put anchors on and 20 years later decided that he shouldn't and chopped them? Can Larry Hamilton go chop those retrobolts on Rosy Crucifixion now? Would you approve if he did? What if Charlie wanted to add a bolt to Perilous Journey? As people get older, their desire for risk tends to decrease, after all. Hank, you are a thinking man, so I am interested in when you believe that this applies and does not. When it supports your intent or beyond that? For how long? Why? Are there consequences to that line of thinking?

Larry Hamilton was not on the FA/FFA of Rosy. He was, however, pictured on the cover of CLIMBING May/June 1975 climbing it. The retro-bolts on Rosy were placed by two locals in the 1980s, who felt the aging fixed pins on the initial traverse were unnecessarily dangerous. There was a mixed reaction by the climbing community after the bolts were placed, but in the intervening years they have become accepted and now determine the character of the first pitch lead. Still, the FA/FFA party could submit a proposal to the Action Committee on Eldorado/ECSP to remove them, but I doubt such a proposal would pass.

Perilous Journey was first climbed by David Breashears & Steve Mammen in 1975. Charlie Fowler claimed the second ascent, ropeless, in 1978. Breashears could tomorrow submit a proposal to the Flatirons Climbing Council/OSMP to bolt PJ, but again, he would have little chance of his proposal passing.

In both of these examples, community consensus trumps FA party "ownership", and rightly so.

Thanks Steve, I got Fowler and Breashears mixed up. I did somehow think that Hamilton was on the FA party for Rosy though, due to the context of his public contribution/opinion on the matter of the old pins and bolts on this site. But I digress...
I resubmit the question with the names changed. How about Breshears and Wood?

I did intentionally want to put a follower's name down as an owner... because what if the leader has passed on? A situation which we are bound to face as the Becky, Kor, Pratt, Harding, Erickson, Croft, Briggs generation start to leave us.
We will be asking these questions again about ownership on managed and un-managed lands both.

Where does the ownership lie? I believe in consensus, but I believe that the amendments to an existing route should only occur if supported by and overwhelming consensus, not a simple majority. Or you just get war. And we all loose. And "now that they are there, leave them" rhetoric doesn't change that, as it is quite transparent to a chopper that it encourages the retro-bolters and by default grants them carte blanche.

As for my own part, there are retros I'd agree with and ones I would not. These are a poor idea in my view, and even the consent/agreement of the FA party to place more retrobolts is a precipitate to the fact that someone else already did it. Just read Jeff's post, above, which regrets the fixed gear but concedes that now that they are there, we have to leave them.

Very funny how these things work out when unilateral action is taken without a clear overwhelming majority...

Tony B wrote:...even the consent/agreement of the FA party to place more retrobolts is a precipitate to the fact that someone else already did it. Just read Jeff's post, above, which regrets the fixed gear but concedes that now that they are there, we have to leave them. Very funny how these things work out when unilateral action is taken without a clear overwhelming majority...

This is a very insightful comment.

I don't think that just because someone unilaterally drilled anchors means that now they have to be there forever and "may as well be done right."

It would be a simple matter to pull/patch the pins and change the description on Mountain Project for the route indicating that there are now no fixed anchors. Info disseminates much faster today than it did even ten years ago. Sure the last guidebook says there were anchors, but word will travel fast enough and as soon as a new edition is printed - with corrected beta - it becomes a non-issue. And the world's not going to end because some Euro goes up there without doing their due diligence and bringing enough gear. The important part is the climb is restored. The only reason anyone would go up there and put the work into retrobolting the anchors once the FA party has weighed in, the holes have been patched, and the description on Mountain Project (and eventually the guidebooks) has been updated would be if they had a serious chip on their shoulder about this.

I did this route 10 years ago and clipped the pins (which I seem to remember were good) believing them placed by the FA party and not giving it a second thought (other than observing bomber gear anchors nearby). Had I discovered that the description was wrong and there were no fixed anchors, I would have dealt with it no big deal. But conversely, I have to wonder if, had I known those pins were retro's, and had I pulled and patched the holes then, if we'd even be having this discussion now. I would have posted on Mountain Project that the retrobolted anchors had been pulled and patched, and the climb requires extra gear for anchors. Over the intervening years Bloom would go on to publish the 2nd and 3rd edition of the guidebook, and ta-da, the route is restored as it should be.

What I don't understand is this motivation to put new bolts in on this climb. Does that somehow make this route better? I don't think so. As climbers, history doesn't have to dictate our future (though I suspect it will and the clock is ticking for someone else to weigh in with some hot-headed silly comment that derails this entire discussion).