New routing at Eagle Lake Cliff

Hello,

Last time I was out at this wall I noticed a pretty good looking line between The beak and Moonflower. Basically it is a diagonal rail up an otherwise blank face. I intend to rig a toprope and try it next time I am out there. From the ground it doesn't look like there is gear so it requires bolts. Before I go and put up a route out there I thought I would ask the community. I am fairly new to the area so I don't want to get in trouble with the local "route police." Because it is a wilderness area I assume bolts would have to be drilled by hand.

Can anyone say Yay or Nay to the potential for new routes out there?

I don't know if there's really a local route police.

Eagle Lake Cliff is definitely a traditional crag...however, there are a few fully-bolted routes in the area.

It is a wilderness area, and bolting would have to be done by hand. Don't know if you've hand-drilled bolts in granite, but there's a good reason that most bolted routes are put up with power drills.

All that being said, I think as long as (1) you know what you're doing bolting-wise, (2) the route is quality, and complements the rest of the routes on the cliff well, (3) you don't use a power drill, and (4) the route doesn't infringe on any other previously established routes, and doesn't have bolts next to gear placements, then go for it. Regardless of what you do, there will always be somebody that disagrees.

If you do put the time/effort into establishing a route there, I would consider going the extra step and camouflaging the bolt hangers (either buy black/grey Metolius hangers, or paint them). Non-climbers do sometimes stumble past the cliff, and it would be best to keep visual impact to a minimum.

ERIC..... why start with the rap bolting?????

If you think you see a line, and the stone is not choss.....

Climb from the ground up, use hooks to drill, this way you know how the climb goes and you are willing to take the falls, if a hook blows.

If you go and do it on TR..... keep it a TR.

have fun, just felt like tossing in my .02

Guy Keesee wrote:ERIC..... why start with the rap bolting?????

Because it is the best way to get quality bolt placements where they should be for free climbing. Good route setting has been done ground up, but there is much more chance the bolts won't be placed optimally or the route will be cleaned well. If you and some buddies TR the thing and double check the placements and make sure the line has the most natural flow, the results for others will usually be better.

M Sprague wrote: Because it is the best way to get quality bolt placements where they should be for free climbing. Good route setting has been done ground up, but there is much more chance the bolts won't be placed optimally or the route will be cleaned well. If you and some buddies TR the thing and double check the placements and make sure the line has the most natural flow, the results for others will usually be better.

M Sprague..... I have always found that on GOOD granite, its best to lead without TR rehersal. If its choss, diferent story, one must figure out if indeed a line of holds will stay in place.

There are a whole bunch of crappy, poorley (location of) bolted climbs up at Shuteye.... all the products of a Rap Bolting mindset of "the most climbs in the quickest timeframe"

But in the end its a good climb you are after. If one wishes to leave out the ADVENTURE part that's ok, by me.

Guy Keesee wrote: M Sprague..... I have always found that on GOOD granite, its best to lead without TR rehersal. If its choss, diferent story, one must figure out if indeed a line of holds will stay in place. There are a whole bunch of crappy, poorley (location of) bolted climbs up at Shuteye.... all the products of a Rap Bolting mindset of "the most climbs in the quickest timeframe" But in the end its a good climb you are after. If one wishes to leave out the ADVENTURE part that's ok, by me.

I'd have to agree with Mark on this one. If you are intending on bolting a sport route, then top down almost always yields a better result. When you climb a route ground up then your bolt placements by necessity are dictated by where you can get a solid hook placement or a stance to drill from instead of where the best bolt locations are relative to where the climb is supposed to go. Thus in the end, a ground up approach often yields haphazard bolting at best. Now, I am certainly not arguing against all ground up bolting because many of my favorite routes were done ground up, but most of those routes followed a nature line of weakness on mostly moderate ground up a big face where a bit of a wandering bolt line really does follow the intending line of climbing. In the end, both types of bolting are great, but they are intended for very different types of routes. IMHO, it is usually the route developer's abilities that dictate whether the climb and the bolting job are top notch and not the style of installation.

By the way Guy, I am surprised to hear you say that you dislike the bolting at Shuteye. Most of the stuff that I have climbed there was bolted pretty well and followed interesting climbing. Though I have to admit, I have not climbed down at Chiquito which is likely the location that you are bitching about, yes?

I certainly wasn't saying rap bolting guarantees quality placement. There are good and bad practitioners of both methods, but it is easier and somewhat more likely to do a good job if you are able to have a good pre-inspection of the canvas you are working on and be not stressed out while your are drilling.

Adventure is another matter. Personally, I find a lot of adventure hiking around and finding cliffs, then rapping in by myself to explore possible new lines and getting them ready for when friends come out.

I want to toprope it just to see if the route is doable (for me). If it turns out to be 5.14 I will probably not do it. However, it looks doable from the ground.

Personally, my goal is to create a new cool route. It would share an anchor with a neighboring route (the beak I think??) so you practically lower down on top of the thing from the other anchor. If I went ground up on hooks it is not like I am venturing into the unknown. I also am unsure if I could get hook placements. The only feature for a good chunk of the line is a rail which runs diagonally.

Also, I have never drilled a bolt by hand so I will have to practice first.

J A. ... I am pretty hard on rap bolters if they don't get it 100% right.

When I rap bolt, and I do, I settle for nothing short of perfect placements.

What went down at the ridge is something completly different, some of the routes were drilled at nite, with no top roping at all..... just a bolt every 10 feet or so. So you end up like I did, climbing a route and becoming annoyed by the fact that some of the hardest moves are the hard to reach clips or the midstation where the bolts are like 20 inches above the nice 6 inch wide ledge, that way you can't stand there and take your shoes off and relax.

Just stupid stuff that is all, and I am not saying ALL of the place is like that.--- just some.

All I wanted to do was let the OP know that TR inspection is not nessary, esp if one wants to take on the unknown.

And please don't set it up with a shared anchor...... I have found that many climbers get upset if I request to clip into a bolted anchor and share it.... One of these climbers, I questioned, told me that the anchor could fail if both climbers, on TR, fell at the same time!!!!!!!

Anyway I am glad that its not 1988 anymore and nobody is going to get their panties in a wad over how some bolt was placed. ..... But then again I don't know any of the Eagle Lake locals.

have fun

Hey Guy,

I figured your stance was more nuanced than I was giving credit for, but the OP may not know that so I was just trying to clarify.

I totally agree with you regarding the standards that need to be met for rap bolting. That is, I am much more understanding of weird stance bolting because, well, you did what you could!! In contrast, if you did things poorly on rap it was because you were either lazy, sloppy, or ignorant (or some combination thereof). Super big bummer if some of the newer stuff at Shuteye falls into this category. The stone there is some of the best granite I have ever touched and it is a shame if it is not treated with due respect. I am coming back to visit the SoYo area in August, so hopefully I will continue to luck out and end up climbing the "good stuff" and miss out on the machine gun bolted stuff.

Cheers.

J. You will be able to tell the good from the bad.

96% of the stuff is great at Shuteye.

and yes the stone is amazing, golden granite the mid altitude stuff, solid gold.

have a good trip

Hey J. Alberts, if you are looking to climb something phenomenal do this:
mountainproject.com/v/tokop…

WILD crux and a great route. Granite is amazing so are the views. Its around 9,000 ft, but could be a bit warm during August. Check the forecast if you go.

ErichPurpur wrote:Hello, Last time I was out at this wall I noticed a pretty good looking line between The beak and Moonflower. Basically it is a diagonal rail up an otherwise blank face. I intend to rig a toprope and try it next time I am out there. From the ground it doesn't look like there is gear so it requires bolts. Before I go and put up a route out there I thought I would ask the community. I am fairly new to the area so I don't want to get in trouble with the local "route police." Because it is a wilderness area I assume bolts would have to be drilled by hand. Can anyone say Yay or Nay to the potential for new routes out there?

Anyway, enough from me about bolting style; what about the route you are proposing?

I just looked through some pictures that show the route you are proposing. Having lived in Northern CA for the better part of a decade, I would think its pretty iffy that folks are going to be okay with bolting a sport route right there (especially if its rap bolted). The problem is that your proposed route has two established trad routes immediately next to it (one on each side of your route), i.e. it would be a pretty tight squeeze for three routes to exist there. Because Eagle Lake Cliff is probably the best traditional crag in the Emerald Bay area and has striking natural lines, I think folks are going to think that a bolted route so close to two classic trad routes is not a good idea.

Now, I'm not saying don't do it, but I do think that you should give some serious thought to whether its a good idea or not. Given that you have just recently moved to Northern CA, then perhaps you could wait a while before you bolt so that you can absorb some of the local style preferences for the various crags before you put drill to stone? (For e.g., knowing the different bolting styles at Mayhem Cove versus Eagle Creek Cliff).

Cheers Erich.

SirTobyThe3rd wrote:Hey J. Alberts, if you are looking to climb something phenomenal do this: mountainproject.com/v/tokop… WILD crux and a great route. Granite is amazing so are the views. Its around 9,000 ft, but could be a bit warm during August. Check the forecast if you go.

Holy crap, that looks incredible. Whew, I guess that needs to be added to the list (that and the Obelisk, etc. etc.!!) Thanks for the recommendation.

It sure does. I need some of that rock here in NH for new routing. When I look at pictures from out your way, everything looks beautiful and clean, no month of cleaning to dig out a 100 foot "classic". Plus you can get great photos because it is not buried in trees.

J Albers ...... thanks for your well thought out answer for the OP. I agree with your thinking.

And DO GO TO THE OBLESK, I have been twice, worth every step of the hike.

M Sprage..... you should move out here, more clean granite than one can climb in a lifetime, if you can walk a few miles. And we do have stone that needs cleaning, so your skills will be usefull.

J. Albers wrote: Anyway, enough from me about bolting style; what about the route you are proposing? I just looked through some pictures that show the route you are proposing. Having lived in Northern CA for the better part of a decade, I would think its pretty iffy that folks are going to be okay with bolting a sport route right there (especially if its rap bolted). The problem is that your proposed route has two established trad routes immediately next to it (one on each side of your route), i.e. it would be a pretty tight squeeze for three routes to exist there. Because Eagle Lake Cliff is probably the best traditional crag in the Emerald Bay area and has striking natural lines, I think folks are going to think that a bolted route so close to two classic trad routes is not a good idea. Now, I'm not saying don't do it, but I do think that you should give some serious thought to whether its a good idea or not. Given that you have just recently moved to Northern CA, then perhaps you could wait a while before you bolt so that you can absorb some of the local style preferences for the various crags before you put drill to stone? (For e.g., knowing the different bolting styles at Mayhem Cove versus Eagle Creek Cliff).

There is at least 1 sport route at the area and a few bolts on other routes.

This is why I posted a thread about this topic, in hopes that locals would chime in and say "yes, go ahead and put up new routes" or "no, don't do it."

I think J. Albers makes some great points, and I don't think it's as black and white as "yes, put up new routes" or "no, don't put up new routes".

Especially in a traditonal area like that, you need to consider how independent of a line it is, and how you bolt as well. How proximal are the bolts to either one of the established trad routes? Can you clip a bolt from either of those routes? If you did bolt it, does it appear contrived and/or squeezed?

Personally, I wouldn't take offense to someone rap-bolting a route there, but I'm some others probably would. I don't think they would be the first bolts placed on rappel at the cliff, the .12b arete comes to mind. I would however take offense to a squeeze job, regardless of how it was established.