New bolts at Crow Hill

Just curious, has this route ever actually seen a "ground up" free ascent? According to the guidebook the FFA was done on bolts, it was chopped, then someone else placed fixed pins and other gear on rappel, rehearsed the route and sent it. I don't have a problem with headpointing, bold routes with a little fixed gear, or equipping routes on rappel, but if you're going to rappel in from the top to place pins and/or bolts why not make it reasonably protected? Most old school runout climbs were that way out of necessity because the FA party was drilling from hands free stances or hooks on lead.

IMO, bold trad routes should remain, if for no other reason, to serve as 'sanity check' and aspiration for all climbers. 5.15a/b sport routes by and large complement bold trad routes and, to me, in no way stand in conflict with them. I am lucky to know a young person who has both redpointed multiple .14c sport routes and onsighted B-Y. And he did both for himself and not in some d* measuring contest.

Tom, never seen the route and it is above my pay grade anyways but if we were to actually follow our stupid climbing rules the bolts would be where they were for the origional FFA or wherever the origional FFA party wanted them. Unless of course you want to apply stupid climbing rule #10 where once a climb has been done in better style all others must match that style. keep in mind if you apply stupid climbing rule #10 we all would have to free solo everything even close to our pay grade. Even Direct Direct has been soloed.

djh860 wrote:Have the bolts been chopped yet?

Well, have they?

This post violated Rule #1. It has been removed by Mountain Project.

Healyje wrote: Yep. The question, though, is can you assume, manage and mitigate it.

You misunderstood me, I was agreeing with JQ and referring to'Unnecessary Risk'. We know it when we see it. We can't quantify it, but we can point at it on a case by case basis.

The occasional bold trad line is great as long as it is your FA. If you chop someone elses rt to get it you have a contrived shit sandwich.

I'm fairly certain the argumeny is dead. The only people pro trad either non-local or are too close to the argument to be unbiased.

Now the real question, how do we get bolts into dune in an ethical and lasting way?

You are not too close to the argument to be unbiased then?

It's not up to me. It's up to the community as has been repeated by both sides throughout this argument.

Do a recount on voices if you have doubt. It's not even close.

To clarify, I am FAR too close to this. I however am quite local. Omit my voice from any subsequent count. I don't expect quantitative information to change anyone's mind though.

It would help to have somebody who knows exactly how many bolts John used and approximately where (assuming the chop job didn't leave that obvious) Is anybody in touch with John regularly? I haven't seen him in years and no longer have his contact info and heard he is more into skiing in Chamonix than climbing these days, so I don't know if he reads this or shows up at the gym. Soon, Dana? We still don't know here if the current rebolting is still there and if it was done well (with the same number and with good bolts)

To be qualified to vote I think we should use the old Rhodie Loady requirement: be able to smoke a full joint and lead a 5.10 (that was back when 5.10 meant something), trad of course, since there was no sport, and maybe actually have climbed at Crow Hill in the last 20 years. I might be disqualified unless I get practicing and get back up there.

Ahh. but if you follow the stupid climbing rules the community has zippty doo da to say about it. the FA is king and can write the rules unless climbing rule #11 is implemented.
climbing Rule #11. We don't like the results of following the FA partys rules so we will make our own new rules. Climbing Rule #11 is usually implemented if the FA is from out of town and or climbs harder than the old guard;)

Nick Goldsmith wrote:The occasional bold trad line is great as long as it is your FA. If you chop someone elses rt to get it you have a contrived shit sandwich.

Yes, agreed.

Mark, the last time I saw and spoke to John was 8 to 10 years ago. And it was longer than that since we talked about Dune ...... but I remember that conversation well. We did not go into the specifics of pro though since I did not want to upset him unnecessarily. My personal impression was that he was not bitter about the chop, but more like "oh man, do they really have to chop the route?"

Jonathan Haggerty wrote:To clarify, I am FAR too close to this. I however am quite local. Omit my voice from any subsequent count. I don't expect quantitative information to change anyone's mind though.

Serious question - you think it should be decided democratically? Because obviously the ratio of people that can lead 12d/13a sport to those that can lead 12+/13- R trad is at least 100 to 1. But the ratio existing routes that fit those grades is also 100:1. I don't think we need another sport route to tick and forget when you can have a trad route to remember. Not every route, every area needs to be dumbed down and sanitized. It's ok to leave a few things around for those that want to train and practice for going places where you need to be responsible for your own well being.

Probably a stretch as an analogy but if you look at trends in wilderness management in the hiking context its interesting. Shelters and bridges are being torn down, trails are being blazed and maintained much less in some areas. Its being realized that wilderness is a limited resource and needs to be preserved even if it means lower usage. I hope that if Dune gets bolted correctly (I still don't think the new bolts are in the right places) that in 20-30 years (when the 3rd set of replacements bolts go in) that people don't lament the dearth of challenging trad routes.

Other then Bill I don't think that anyone who had participated in this thread is a long term, local, regular at Crow. I would have considered myself one 10 years ago but not now. It would be nice if more of those spoke up, if some of the people who were historically involved would speak up, if the places of the new bolts would speak up - but it doesn't seem like that is going to happen and without that there really is not much else to be said.

The Flaw, I think, in your argument, Eric, is that it is not a pure trad route that is having bolts added (I am speaking of the line as a free route), rather a mixed gear route (as I understand it) that had its bolts chopped and now restored. It is not a trad route being retroed into a sport. Zeb and the other's accomplishment still stands, but that is a separate issue from being honorable to John's vision in his FA. It is not like he did something detestable that needs to be negated, like drilled pockets up the wall or bolted it every 2 feet with bright purple hangers. If somebody freed it first without fixed gear, your argument would be valid and in the context of this area I would fully support it

Interesting thread….

A couple of new things I've learned:

-The FA'er always gets to make the call about the protection (or lack there of…) on his new route; unless you don't agree with him. It appear that if you disagree, you have the right (and duty it seems…) to call FA'er a "wanker" and "fix" the route to the way you would have done it, if you had actually done it yourself (but didn't….)

-The FA'er always gets to make the call about the protection (or lack there of…) on his new route; unless you don't agree and have a personality conflict with them. Then, it appear that if you disagree, you have the right (and duty it seems…) to call call FA'er a "d!ckless wanker" and "fix" the route to the way you would have done it if you had actually done it yourself (but didn't….)

-"Retro-bolting" is now actually defined as replacing bolts on a route that originally had bolts that somebody had chopped. I mistakenly thought that "retro-bolting" meant adding bolts to a previously unbolted route…

- Bolt choppers always carefully remove the offending bolts, then always patch to make it as "if the route was never there." I'm glad to hear this, because in many decades of climbing, the vast majority of chopping I've seen looks like it was done by a deranged person angrily swinging a sledge hammer.

-The only climbing worth doing is climbing that is "serious…" "Serious" apparently means: a good chance of death or dismemberment, and the ability to spray on the internet about it, if you don't actually die. Apparently, they don't think doing a 3 pitch, 5 star, g-rated 5.6 is really "climbing" since it's not "serious…" I can't help but think: if "serious" is the sole measure of what's good, perhaps their time would be better spent wandering around an urban he!!-hole like Camden, NJ after dark with $50 bills hanging out of their pockets. Now that would be "serious…"

-Farley is a wonderful place to climb all because of the actions of Kenny N… All this time I was under the obviously mistaken belief that he was just an old, angry has-been who had a seemingly insane vendetta against everybody who wasn't him. Now I find out all of those smashed over bolts were just his gentle way of "mentoring" us. In hind-sight, it's probably a good thing, just imagine how crazy it would have turned out if we'd been listening to Al Rubin instead…

-The "anti-bolters' haven't changed there argument against bolts and sport routes since this discussion started 30+ years ago. According to them, it only takes one bolt and "real" climbing and everything we hold sacred, will instantly cease. They think a couple of bolts on some obscure cliff are: the start of Armageddon, as bad as the AIDS epidemic, or an Ebola outbreak+1…
Climbing, as we know it, didn't end thirty years ago, and it certainly isn't going to end because somebody is replacing a couple of bolts on a route to restore it to it's original conditions.

ed "how could i have been so wrong about so many things… e

ps. as to eric e's post: climbing is not a democracy. it's a "meritocracy." everyone gets a vote, but the more you do, the more your vote counts… (sorry to say, internet nattering doesn't count as "doing…")

Eric, as I've said from the start... My opinion is that routes should stay how the FA was done.

The democratic idea stems from how you and others have said CH's community should decide.

Again though... Mountain project is not a public court and this conversation holds no weight. Let's talk solutions going forward instead of opinion.

Re: bolt line. This is indeed how the sport route is described. Starting from crow mag is an alternate start and further proves this is a crappy trad line. Traversing from a 5.10 to 5.11 (Jane) to get gear takes away from the line.

So Jonathan, list the initials off all the people in the community you yourself have spoken with and you are sure want it bolted.

People always claim they speak for some vast community of locals. The problem is, you really have no idea how many people have led the route in any of it's states, you just think you do.

The community that wants things bolted up usually consists of you, five buds, two of their buds and a couple-hangers on that think what you say sounds good cause you are cool and trad scares them.

If I show up there with forty friends and there are more of us than your "community", does that mean we can re-arrange everything to our liking?