Kingfisher

This post was originally a comment in Kingfisher

At the risk of getting my head taken off, I'm gonna chime in with a few thoughts:

1. Unless you really don't know what you are doing, glue in bolts are placed from above... not on lead. To me this indicates someone was probably trying to make this a free climb, top down. Or they didn't know what they were doing.

2. Whoever put this route up likely didn't know how to place said bolts. They appear to not be countersunk, and all fixe glue ins should be counter sunk. This may indicate that statement 1 is wrong and they actually did it on lead, assuming waiting 4 minutes as each bolt gets a little cured is ok.

3. The machismo of having climbed D.o.A.D., or any other hard route, is not destroyed by another route. Perhaps one could argue that an ascent of the the Kingfisher is no longer impressive due to bolts, but that was done on the F.A. of the tower. If you feel your ascent of the Kingfisher is harder, and you need that for self esteem (I'm fine with that...its why we keep score), then point out HOW you climbed the Kingfisher and the rest of us can be impressed (seriously, I am by any ascent of A4 in the Fishers). But this bolt line has not suddenly made all climbing in the area "dickless". Different routes get different levels of respect.

4. Bolts are historically the most common form of protection in the Fishers. This is nothing new. And honestly, in the long run noting how many climbers there are in the world, they may be the best for the resource. Yes, the art of aid is killed by bolts, but its a quick death. The art of aid is also killed by pitons, its just a death by a thousand cuts.

5. I respect all your opinions. I do honestly worry about the way the slack lining group approaches things because of access. Leaving lines up for weeks and putting in anchor clusters that are huge (over half a dozen bolts in some spots) and aren't camo'd could have an effect access. Land managers want to group climbers and base jumpers and slack liners and canyoneers together... it could be a problem in the long run. But, there isn't much we can do about it other than ask them to take down their stuff when they are done.