The ethics of placing fixed gear while buildering?

I live in an urban area so I often go out buildering to get my climbing time in. I used to just highball and solo everything (with great walk-offs!) but now I've got an eye on a few routes that would be perfect to protect with bolts. One is this really rad looking 4-story church and I'd need to put some repel anchors onto the steeple. I might just be able to get away with some webbing, but I need to get up there first and check it. Of course, I'd camouflage everything to blend in with the natural environment.

Can anyone think of any ethical issues with adding fixed protection to an existing building, assuming I do it all ground-up on lead?

I'd say place the pro on rappel, definitely do not check with any locals first, it would be ridiculous to ask for any sort of permission or permitting - and by all means, please be smoking a cigarette!

I boulder a hitload because there some really good shit around me and I think that if you need to place gear on a boulder prohlem your out of your league and shold go do something else!!!! ITS BOULDERING!!! for the love of god!! sack up and send it or just go climb some real routes same goes for toprope assents.

Buildering, not pebble wrestling!

Once I climbed up a fine basalt line on the side of a church in the middle of the night and I guess someone was asleep in the rectory (hope you aren't reading this Father!) with the window open. When he called out, I jumped!

Luckily I was young and didn't get hurt. Is this story even relevant? Sorry.

Steve

If anyone asks, tell them you're on a mission from God.

Buildering does not require ropes for the ascent or descent let alone fixed gear. Please read "The Roof Climber's Guide to Trinity" and/or "Wall and Roof Climbing" by Geoffrey Winthrop Young.

camwhore wrote:One is this really rad looking 4-story church and I'd need to put some repel anchors onto the steeple. I might just be able to get away with some webbing, but I need to get up there first and check it.

Just put something in the church offering plate first and you will be good to go.
;)

I assume this isn't a serious question but if it is, be prepared to go to jail if you get caught.

Mark Thesing wrote:I assume this isn't a serious question but if it is, be prepared to go to jail if you get caught.

You didn't assume that hard enough.

You are fine with trespassing and vandalism involving permanent defacement but are concerned about the climbing ethics?

Your value systems are in need of a serious tune-up.

rgold wrote: Your value systems are in need of a serious tune-up.

No kidding.

He's a dastardly villain unless he uses stainless bolts.

Bravo, wonderful job trolling.

camwhore wrote:Can anyone think of any ethical issues with adding fixed protection to an existing building, assuming I do it all ground-up on lead?

Has it been soloed or lead on gear previously? ;-)

Buildering is neither

Who wants to meet me in vegas to climb the eiffel tower!

Rob T wrote: I've never seen the aid climbers of supertopo summarized so well.

The "aid climbers of Supertopo" spend their time trespassing on private property and drilling holes in established privately-owned structures?

Introduction to The Roof-Climber's Guide to Trinity:

In these athletic days of rapid reversion to the Simian practices of our ancestors, climbing of all kinds is naturally assuming an ever more prominent position. Since the supply of unconquered Alps is limited and the dangers of Nature's monumental exercise grounds are yearly increased by the polish of frequent feet and the broken bottles of thirsty souls, aspirants with the true faith at heart have been forced of late years to seek new sensations on the artificial erections of man. Such is the origin of modern Wall and Roof Climbing. The discovery that these empiric sciences were in reality of enormous antiquity, possessing an extensive history and a literature which includes the greatest verse and prose writers of all ages, has done much latterly to assist their enthusiastic redevelopment. This branch of the subject is dealt with in the pamphlet "Wall and Roof Climbing," [1] which contains a short outline of the history and literature, ancient and modern, and an account of the laws, methods, appliances, and phraseology peculiar to the art. The interest shown by many Cambridge residents in the opening up of these new fields, and the vigour with which, in one college at least, the exploration has been prosecuted, gave rise to the idea that a brief Guide to the points best worth attempting, with a few suggestions as to the routes most favoured by the early climbers, might be found a convenience. The present leaflet is the result; the precursor we hope, if successful, of similar introductions in other Colleges to regions too long neglected by resident and visitor alike. Doubtless the fact that a certain bashful conservatism has confined the excursions hitherto to hours of the night has done much to induce this orophismic philistinism. But Alpine ascents suffer under a similar disadvantage, and we confess that, however illogically, we should view with regret any alteration in the College regulations tending to soften the conditions. The darkness, besides comfortably concealing the accumulating soot on hands and person, surrounds the venture with an air of vague mystery, and lends a pleasing uncertainty to the handholds, a depth of impressive gloom to the courts and gutters and a shadowy outline, fraught with terrors, to the colossal-seeming towers, that could hardly be spared; while the recurring step of the night-porter, heard when the climber hangs in literal suspense in some awkward lamp-glare, rouses thrills of the chase unknown to legalised stegophilism. Unconventional routes in and out of College are purposely left unmentioned; they are an all too popular abuse of a noble science. Much is here passed briefly over, which in a more exhaustive account would call for longer notice; much also in the College still remains unexplored. The next few years will doubtless see a great advance both in the count of "possible" climbs and in the methods adopted in negotiating old ones. For ourselves non-residence has closed our period of exploration; but we hand on the work to other feet with a full confidence in the powers and numbers of the ever-increasing fraternity who cherish as their motto Browning's lines --- "Though there's doorway behind thee and window before, Go straight at the wall."

insectnation.org/nightclimb…

Personally, I think everyone on MP should start writing their comments in a similar prose.

turd furgeson wrote:Buildering, not pebble wrestling!

climbing friend,

may i hyumbly suggest those calling crushing bouldering pebble wrestling they do it only to make their own selves feel better about their limp, sagging, and unsightly guns that are not strong enough to tackle proud boulder problem flash, instead hiding behind "endurance" and "technique" on long route?hmmmmmyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yes myah

Also worth noting is that at the time of the writing of the second edition there had been no ill consequences to this introduction of "buildering." See below:

If we may be permitted a word of warning --- the Trinity Roofs have an unblemished record. In thirty years there has been no known injury to the framework of a building or of an undergraduate. The 'polished corners' of either will only remain immune so long as the good rules and traditions hitherto governing the sport continue to be observed --- the rules of sober and competent leading, of tactful handling of the material and the officials, of sound grounding in climbing technique, and of slow beginnings on the part of "the schoolboy, fresh from school." The cardinal climbing offences have been pilloried once and for all in Kipling's lines : "By the rubbish in our wake, by the noble noise we make, Be sure, be sure we're going to do some splendid thing."

Mark Thesing wrote:I assume this isn't a serious question but if it is, be prepared to go to jail if you get caught.

climbing friend,

I also understand in your country, if you are african american, the officer they will shoot you instead of only send to jail?