Please check out my post on the other northern utah train wreck.

I have been climbing in SLC for 5 or 6 years. I started (like many before) climbing at crags in BCC (Dogwood, Slips, Upper and Lower S-curves etc). I then moved to the awesome (and sometimes terrifying) climbing areas of Little. When I first climbed Satan's Corner all I had was a rack of hexes, stoppers and a single friend (old school 1.5). When I wanted to lead the Green A I had to make an investment in micro stoppers and HB Brassie offsets. It was worth it. I used to work with Dave Smith at REI and I would always ask him about the olden days with people like George Lowe, Jock Glidden, Ted Wilson, etc. The stories of the climbing achievements of the past are fascinating. He once told me that George Lowe wasn't wearing hiking boots on the FA of The Dorsal Fin, but was wearing the best climbing shoes available that happened to have lugged soles. I know for a fact that Ray Dahl and Paul Hodges climbed most of the Slips w/o bolts, and then retroactivly plugged them in when they realized the convenience of the crag for beginners. Dave Smith seemed indifferent when I told him that a bolt was added to Cranial Prophylactic. I clipped it when I first climbed it, I have placed a nut on later ascents. I am personally trying to get back to the old school way of doing things. I love seeing Brian Smoot's old pictures of Wasatch Climbing "back in the day" ( I just bought Wasatch Granite, Wasatch Quartzite, Wasatch Rock Climbs, and I am furiously looking for Desperate Grace). That large ramble being said, I think that if the Geezer Wall was approached by the Wasatch legends of yesteryear I don't believe that it would be bolted the way it was. Sometimes a bolt or fixed pin can make a climb go from a pucker fest to a really fun route (Astro Lad in Moab, Perhaps?, Touch Up). People need to realize, however, that a bolt isn't necessary everywhere. Stealing equipment is never cool. Remember: as Wasatch rock climbers we are all standing on the shoulders of giants.

PT,
We speak the same dialect...you forgot to mention that perhaps ALL of the new bolts EVERYWHERE should be chopped and replaced with hand drilled 1" x 1/4" Rawldrives...only then will we all return to the good old days. Yea, right on Schmerz Zug.

Think about it like this. If people really started to place 1/4 inchers by hand it would screw me BIGTIME. I would have to upgrade them to SS 3/8".

Sounds like a cheaper way to put up a F.A.

Bobby's comment bears repeating:

"There are two aspects to climbing---the physical challenge and the mental challenge. In my opinion, they are equally important.

We are universally opposed to reducing the physical challenge of routes (e.g. by chipping holds), yet for some reason we debate the reduction of the mental challenge (through retro-bolting)."

There's a route Paul Van Betten and Richard Harrison put up in Red Rock called "Rap Bolters Need to Be Famous". I laughed when I first saw it, thought, how true, and moved on.

Now we have people here rapping in chossy, questionably worthwhile routes that cross over established trad routes. I climbed one of these the other day while searching out a classic line. All three in our party agreed that the route was pretty much garbage; climbing the routes without a helmet and a sheltered belay position would be unthinkable. The hangers could not be shinier; I first noticed the routes when I saw bolts gleaming from the road. No attempts were made to camouflage the hangers, the anchors are six inches apart in soft sandstone on top of the cliff in a spot that was obviously chosen because it could be easily reached with a drill standing on top, not because ropes would pull easily.

My point is this: some routes really are an insult to the rock, our intelligence, to the pioneers that put up the classics, the horrorshows, and the rest. Every rock does not need to be bolted, but I'm not here saying that these garbaggio routes NEED to be chopped.

I'm just saying that it would not be a crime if they are.

I haven't seen the photos of Geezer yet, but the universal description seems to be one of bolted easy cracks with good stances. They take plenty of gear and are more a symbol of the Convenience Clan than the striving and struggling that accompanies a ground-up ethic.

In the histrionics that accompanied the bolts' removal, it seems that everyone calls coward to the person or persons who removed the fixed pro. Should someone who will most likely have his/her tires slashed, house egged, Mark Sgt calling their mom and dad to tell them that they snuck out after curfew etc. really be called a coward for not hanging themselves out to dry? Is it really a cowardly thing not to sign on to Mountainproject and subject yourself to endless impotent mudslinging when you went out, saw a problem, and fixed it? Has it been considered by this insular community that not every climber even gives a crap that this site exists, that some badasses don't own guidebooks, much less post on climbing blogs, that they might not even own cute little Prana yoga mats and Trail Clogs?

Diversity is what makes this and every community strong and more importantly, free. Anyone who suggests that to bolt or to chop requires submitting to the whims of a "community" or "committee" should check their panties for spotting and grow a pair.

If there is one thing that ties damn near every climber that I've met together, it is the judgmental attitude. When land managers look on these sites, the mudslinging is what allows them ammunition to close up shop on areas that are experiencing growing pains. And let's face it, that's what they are: despite being overbolted and chopped and chipped and permadrawed and sikad and chalked up beyond all recognition, the rock endures. Whether we're dicks to each other on some website really just reflects everyone's desire to get personally involved in a Jerry Springer episode.

If the bolts were stupid and the spots for them badly chosen and they were tastless squeeze jobs and they were put up on rappel with a power drill in violation of every possible land management statute, then it's not a crime against humanity that some person or persons went out and did what they could to patch things up and send a message that when you bold stupidly, you risk having your bolts removed.

The possibility of removal of poorly chosen fixed gear used to be an understood part of the game. You put in a pin, fixed it for the next guy, who pulled it out, slotted an RP, and called you a tool and a puss for not spotting the obvious gear placement.

Progress does not mean that we have to accept that any route bolted in any style has as much of a right to existence as ones that have quality, style, and meaning.

Fixed gear is not permanent gear. They let us know this when they close down Cave Rock, Pocket Wall at the Red, and others, and have all the hardware removed.

Maybe if we accept that more care and good judgment could have been exercised in the first place and safe, well-but-not-over-bolted routes could have gone in that would never have raised an eyebrow, and the whole mess would have vaporized.

Meantime, if the guilty party wants to roadtrip to Vegas and prove himself with a big bag of bolts, I'll buy the beer and pizza and take him/her/them on a guided tour of our newest flops.

Merry Chopping!

To me it was rediculas to ever bolt that place,,,,,Learn to climb...I've been climbing since 78, yep Im that old and we never had any 12 bolted 5-5's to learn on....All I see these day is people clipping bolts and lowering off good anchors that you can rapple off...
Save your rope save the anchors and learn to climb and rapple.

Oh GOD, here goes another 10 pages! Can we at least get some GRK "humor" in here. I am sure that within moments, someone will be "back on the cross", and a whole group of people will be swearing, drinking beer, and throwing crowbars!

It's just a thread. Who cares if it goes on and on? It's just data on a server somewhere.

Anyway, I was reading a book on climbing recently and found it interesting that this debate is as old as climbing itself. In, I believe, the 1938 expadition of K2, some members wanted to bring Pitons and some did not, calling it "ironmongery". The pitons were smuggled into the expadition and later provied invaluable.

I'm not bringing this up to swing the debate in either direction, I just thought it was interesting.

*sigh*

come on guys, its all in the name of 'community service'