Mike - I agree with most of what you say about what's cool and worthy in climbing, yet end up disagreeing with many of your final conclusions. Maybe the real difference between us is that I put a lot more weight on efficiency, not for "summit at any cost" reasons, but for its own sake. For me, it's part of "style" - for the same reason you applaud on-sight free climbing, probably. Also, aid or mixed climbing involves a more natural use of the gear you're carrying. If you have it, why not use it? So aid has that going for it style-wise: it's less contrived.

That said, I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to free aid routes, and consider my successes to be worthy achievements. When we freed the Nose of Chasm View, in the Black right next to the Hallucinogen, we were super psyched. Ridiculously so. But I don't think we climbed the wall in "better style" than Earl and Bryan who put up the aid version. Maybe it was just that our egos were big enough already that we didn't need to belittle the aid climbers (who on-sight freed some wild shit, by the way) to make our achievement seem more significant.

I don't think style is something that gets gradually improved by eliminating aid. I think it's there, or not, in every ascent, and has more to do with the relationship between that ascent and the general state of the art of the times. Robbins, that lowly aid climber, did big routes in amazing style, unsurpassed to this day.

Jeff,

Well stated. I especially like the efficieny aspect, because I think that is the best defense of the tactics most commonly used today to free big routes. Its more efficient to work it out on top-rope, minitraxion, rapell, etc., than to climb 20 pitches up, fall, and rap down. Ground-up, free, onsight is for sure the "superlative", but if a person feels they cannot achieve that then they do what is an acceptable style to feel satisfied with their ascent.

I will continue with the Black Canyon theme in that I in no way consider free-climbing the Hallucinogen Wall better style than the first ascent on aid. That was a truly proud acheivement and made subsequent ascents possible. I would also throw in that Jared and Ryan's ascent using dry-tools was also a worthy achievment because they laid further groundwork towards the all free ascent, and recognized the potential where none had before. Its a progression that builds on earlier work, and I think the original post did a fine job of pointing this out, especially the "flood gates" phenomenon.

Jeff, I'm sure if we had a beer we would find that we have far more common ground than not. I certainly share your appreciation for efficiency...just ask my wife. Spending weeks to send a hard sport route is certainly not efficient, though, so there are times when it's appropriate to be patient and enjoy the process.

As for the notion that pulling on gear is a natural use for it, I would rather think about what is most natural for the climber to be doing, not the gear. To me it's most natural for the climber to climb the rock as it exists before him, and I don't believe protection taints the ascent anymore than a seatbelt taints whatever it is a racecar driver does. But then, I'm not a free soloist...that's a different sport, as far as I'm concerned.

Mike and Tank - Well said. (Are we even allowed to say that in an online forum?) I agree that free-climbing IS better style than aid climbing, and more natural in the way Mike describes. But aid ascents have their own claims to style, too, certainly on par with siege-free ascents. All I'm sayin'. So show some damned RESPECT for your predecessors, brother, as they do for you. Good climbing to you.

Until that beer ...

I've been chewing on this issue of style for a few days. It seems like the the debate has been fueled by the elitist implications of saying that free climbing is better than aid climbing. Then, in rebuttal, someone qualifies free climbing by saying that it is contingent on aid climbers' vision and hard work and that it depends on dubious tactics of rehearsal and what not. The final step seems to be that the issue of semantics comes up, claiming that once a route is a "free climb," the only legitimate style of ascent is as a free climb. Both sides of the debate like this because it is inflammatory, ego-driven, and easily attacked/defended.

I guess I didn't read that part of Chris's OP. I understood it more as an issue of the infrastructure of a given route. I think that anyone would prefer to free climb over aid assuming that it is within his or her ability in the given circumstances. Other than to practice for bigger climbs, I don't know anyone who would aid a climb that they could reasonably free climb. Free climbing is just more fun. Inversely, once a climb has been freed, there really is nothing other than elitism and ego that says someone shouldn't aid it.

This brings me back to the issue of infrastructure and what I thought was Chris's thesis. In reality, first ascentionists are architects - it's not like the route is there waiting to be climbed. Rock is just rock; we perceive features that become routes. It seems like the ethic of "the way of the first ascentionist or the highway" can be prohibitive of "progress." They established a route as best they could at that specific moment and under those specific circumstances, but with more ascents and perspectives, people often find the more natural (which usually becomes the more free climbable) way of ascending the route. Rather than making the claim that a free ascent of a big wall was somehow better than aiding it (we're not curing cancer here, folks), I think the OP is about how we talk and moralize about the infrastructure of a route. It seems that the thesis argues for a slight shift in the absolutist, "the architecture of the first ascent is the only architecture" attitude Obviously, this should come with restraint, but it seems like the sport, especially big wall free climbing (which, we all can admit is pretty cool), would progress more efficiently if we were a bit more willing to let folks change the infrastructure of a route (i.e. upgrade hardware, use more logical variations, etc) if it provides for an overall improvement of the quality, potential for fun, and - I can't avoid saying it - style of ascent.