Geezer Wall Bolt Removal

Black Streak is under snow. Lets go to the Billboard Wall in AF...I'll bring a trad rack...you can lead!

bsmoot wrote:Probably half the routes in AF could be climbed using gear rather than bolts... Black Streak is under snow. Lets go to the Billboard Wall in AF...I'll bring a trad rack...you can lead!

Didn't say I could do it. Just said it could be done.

I was hoping you would chip in.

Just a few clarifications to some valid points (from some who has dealt with access issue for far too long).

Boreas wrote:This wall is on Forest Service land, and is subject to the policies and rules of the Forest Service.

Unfortunately, the "rules" if any are not always very clear.

Boreas wrote:Climbing is becoming a “high profile” problem by the agencies that govern our public lands (NPS, FS, BLM etc).

Wrong tense - has become. Been that way for about 20 years now.

Boreas wrote: Social trails, bolting, land and vegetation damage, and wildlife impacts are being watched and documented by these agencies.

The odd thing about this phenomena is that bolts are what becomes the focus. Routes that protect primarily with natural gear placements are in themselves self limiting. Fully bolted routes can go in anywhere thus can concentrate climbers any and every where. Get rid of the bolts and the rest of the impacts go away as well. Which is why they get the focus.

Boreas wrote: The Geezer Wall is a prime example of “bad behavior” by everyone involved in its development, and in the removal of “abandoned fixtures” (bolts).

I am not sure I would go quite so far as to say that yet. I have seen worse. That said though the parties involved may have pooched the development I think they taking things to heart. The person(s) who removed the routes are hiding in anonymity which is pretty weak. They should at least be willing to man up to their deeds.

Boreas wrote: As a user group of public lands, climbers need to be very careful about the messages we send to the general public.

This statement is very true ...

STH wrote "We should try to climb these routes in the cleanest, least damaging ways whenever possible."

I've always found it amusing how so many climbers preach about how we need to "leave the rock the cleanist we can", all the while dipping into they're chalk back and stuffing their fingers into or onto a hold that's covered with chalk. I would take they're righteous indignation more seriously if they stopped using chalk. Then everyone could look up a route and see a clean crack or try to find the camouflaged bolts. No more connecting the chalk covered dots, on sport routes or trad routes.

I don't condone bolting cracks but "leaving the rock in it's cleanist state", is not an argument I would use. I own a chalk bag.

Let he who is without sin....

Jimbo wrote:STH wrote "We should try to climb these routes in the cleanest, least damaging ways whenever possible." I've always found it amusing how so many climbers preach about how we need to "leave the rock the cleanist we can", all the while dipping into they're chalk back and stuffing their fingers into or onto a hold that's covered with chalk. I would take they're righteous indignation more seriously if they stopped using chalk. Then everyone could look up a route and see a clean crack or try to find the camouflaged bolts. No more connecting the chalk covered dots, on sport routes or trad routes. I don't condone bolting cracks but "leaving the rock in it's cleanist state", is not an argument I would use. I own a chalk bag. Let he who is without sin....

THIS IS BY FAR THE MOST RETARDED ARGUMENT I'VE EVER HEARD. Congratulations. Hey genius, in case you haven't noticed,chalk washes off, bolts don't. Neither do the rust stains that older bolts leave. Neither do the bolt holes that choppers leave. When I said leave the rock in it's cleanest nature...I meant it from a PERMANENT DAMAGE standpoint. Any climber with an IQ over 70 knew what I meant.

How's that for "riteous indignation?"

You should get that chalkbag out of the gym once in a while. And as far as the "he who is without sin" garbage, I'm a professional sinner, but I think I'd still like to throw a stone at you.

And to save you a post, yes, I'm a complete asshole.

I went on Mountain project tonight ironically to see if there was any updated info for a primarily bolted sport climbing area in Hells Canyon, where we are going in a couple weeks. However, I noticed this thread and actually read the entire thing. Now it is about 1.5 hours latter. Maybe I am just getting old, I feel like it when I go to the gym and boulder to stay in some sort of shape, when I see young kids all around climbing 5.12 like we all used to climb 5.10. I think there is a lot of twisted logic by what I can only assume are people that have grown up learning on bolts and primarily climbing sport routes. I am not all that old, but have been climbing for 20 years this summer. I learned to climb trad and lead easy trad before I ever clipped a bolt. A lot of folks have commented that the climbing community needs easy bolted routes to learn on. I am not opposed to easy bolted routes, but they are not needed to learn to lead. And easy bolted cracks are also totally unwarranted and not needed to learn to climb trad. Some say the cost is to prohibitive for a new leader to buy a whole rack. Hey guess what, none of us had a whole rack when we learned to trad climb. We all got together and pooled our resources/gear. Someone may have had some stoppers, another some hexes, maybe a couple had a cam or two. Everyone had half a dozen slings or draws. It was some great adventures. Luckily we had some more experienced folks to show us stuff. We poored over freedom of the hills, read stuff by Chounard, J. Long, Robbins, practiced our gear on the ground, did a lot of top roping. Eventally climbig 5.5, then 5.6 etc. up the line, getting up to 5.10, some of us even up to 5.11 and 5.12 cracks (not me though). Somewhere in there we also climbed a lot of bolted routes too, but most of my long time partners all learned trad first. And I can tell you, these are the type of folks you want to have your back when shit goes down and you need to be able to think creatively to get your ass out of a jam.

Do I enjoy sport climbs, Yes. Do I put up routes, Yes, do I bolt cracks hell no, Do I bolt good natural gear placements, hell no. It is as much up to the FA party to consider bolt placement as it is the chopper of bolt removal. It doesn't sound like the FA party thought much other than drilling a lot of holes.

To the chopping:

I 100% support chopping any totally bolted crack climb of any difficulty. After seeing the photos, if there are entire pitches with good gear all the way, I say give the chopper an A, there is no need to cosult any climbing community to chop a totally bolted crack climb. IF a mixed route, that is more subjective and I give the Chopper an F for not bring it up to the community. I am in nearly full agreement with Mike White on all of his points.

The FA party that bolts a climb that can be entirely safely climbed/fallen on with natural gear (especially in a wilderness area) is just as responsible for vandalism as the chopper in my mind.

P.s. While I have not been to this crag, I have climbed all round southern Idaho, and spent many summers in SE Idaho as a kid exploring its nether regions, and also fraternizing with "good" mormon girls along the Utah border.

Jason Shappart
Everett, WA

Lets just pave everything and bolt every crack I'm sick of this discussion. f$#! bolters and mother f%$# choppers. Ethics????? Keep your ethics out of the area I discovered and developed. I found it I bolted it, it was my ethics, not yours so F--off.... I'm sick of this on going discussion. Well I really didn't find this area in particular, and my ethics are a lot different from the bolters here, but the ethics are theirs not yours, so keep out of it.

Unichopper wrote:People who bolt cracks suck.

Ditto.

From a sheer laziness perspective I am baffled why someone would lug all that hardware in and drill holes in bullet hard rock instead of just placing a cam or nut and being done with it. Gear works when placed properly. Everyone knows that.

I am surprised no one has mentioned SOME of the bolting taking place in the Uintas these days. Kinda sad some full of themselves dinks are destroying some of the prettiest rock (and crags) anywhere.

If you don't like it @ the geezer wall don't go there. I don't like Snowbird (which most of is on public land) so I don't go there. I don't go take bolts out of the tram. You could have developed it as a trad area (aka put up and publish FA's). But you didn't. Someone else did develop it. Deal with it. There is plenty around here for everyone. You don't like it don't go there.

Craig Martin wrote: Aaron, I am interested in your thoughts on the Uintas. Care to share more? What crags and/or routes are you refering to? When you say "these days", do you mean recent development? or crags that are in the Uinta guide?

Hi Craig,
I was referring to some newer areas I visited that are in guidebook. I would rather not get sucked into this completely, but I will say that the most offensive bolting I saw did not have your name attached to it.

I DO NOT advocate chopping routes. Instead I take a rack with me when I go back to certain crags and lead the routes with gear. This is still fun, but I have to say that the bolts take away from the experience. That said I didn't put up the route or clean it or share it with everyone. It is kind of a touchy subject for me but I cannot deny that when I see a shiny bolt next to bomber crack it pisses me off.

So, I'm a newbie and I have learned how to climb in the Wasatch front without much problem. My only complaint is how hard it is to break into the Utah climbing community. People aren't super eager to climb with people who suck, especially in an oversaturated climbing community. Lucky for me I took climbing classes at the U a few years ago, and have been dating my instructor since.

My significant other is probably what you oldies would call my "mentor", or as I like to call him, my mentor with benefits. He has taught me about the ethics of the Wasatch, as he was taught by climbers who were better than him when he was new. I understand that this code can be frusterating to newbies. I have been frusterated many times by things I'm too scared to lead because it was rap bolted and the spacing is far apart, etc. However, the longer I climb, the more I have come to appreciate it.

I have just started to lead trad, and it has been an amazing new door to open in my climbing world. I don't have a rack, but pretty much everyone else I know does, so it's never really a problem. I can see how it can be frusterating with expensive gear and hard scary climbs, but we newbs just need to get out there, make some friends, and do it! I think this idea of overproctecting climbs for the new people is insane! Why the need to molly coddle us so much all of a sudden? And as far as trad gear being too expensive, that is no excuse! Half the hard climbers I know are barely employed because all they want to do is climb, and somehow they find a way to make to make it work.

In lieu of this, I propose an Adopt-A-Newb day for the Wasatch Front. Everybody find yourself a newb, take a day to bring em up to some of LCC's classic trad lines, show them the ropes, and explain to them why we keep the ethics we do in LCC and BCC. Lets waste a day on that rather than rebolting cracks under the pretense of saving the newbs.

I think the best thing we can do for the Watatch Front is to reinstate the old ways and start doing some mentoring. Maybe the newbs will get some benefits too..

You trad climbers are so rad. Sounds like you have it all figured out. Have fun chopping assholes.

spencerparkin wrote: Recently, Tyson took me on my most memorable climb of the summer: Tingy's Terror. We did it in 9 pitches and 4 rappels, I believe. It was mostly trad, but there were some bolts along the way. And thank goodness for those bolts too(!), because without them, there wasn't any way to protect those tricky sections. Another way would have to have been found. Minus the inability to traditionally protect it, the route we took was a great climb, so I think it's nice that the bolts were there.

Climbing many of the classics and learning the history of how they were put up is an excellent way of getting to know the area and its ethics. :)

Who knows, maybe sometime down the road you might find yourself sketching out on a greasy chickenhead, well above your last good pro, tapping in a bolt on the lead in perfect style...

Has anyone considered that perhaps the bolts were pulled out of spite for the bolter or climbing community as a whole and had nothing to do with bolting next to cracks?

bus driver wrote:Has anyone considered that perhaps the bolts were pulled out of spite for the bolter or climbing community as a whole and had nothing to do with bolting next to cracks?

My bet is that they were just ripped off. Had nothing to do with ethics or style. Was an out-of-the-way crag that was quiet on a weekday and close to the road. Watch craigslist and/or ebay for 125 prepainted Fixe hangers.

I like the "Adopt-a-Newb" idear. I try to do that a bit.

Good stuff, folks.

-Brian in SLC

lance bateman wrote: In American Fork every cliff is grid bolted In Maple thousands of bolts have gone in. So why do we embrace thousands of bolts in one canyon but not another?

I can see where you are coming from, but I kind of disagree. At least I don't think that Maple and AF are the best examples. I'm pretty sure the only way you can safely bolt chossy unstable rock like the types in AF and Maple is to bolt the crap out of it. I actually feel the same about the way some stuff at Hellgate is bolted too. Limestone and conglomerate are very unstable rock types that are easily infiltrated by water, and it's kind of a miracle that we can even climb them. Some places in AF are more solid, but in general it's not rock I would like to take a massive whipper on, even on bolts. Granite and quartzite are almost always going to be more trust worthy.

I am a big pansy though, so maybe I'm just being overly cautious..

lance bateman wrote: The Geezer Wall would have been accepted without question had someone not chopped it.

Not so sure about this. Not many people had climbed there yet.

lance bateman wrote: We accept bolted anchors next to perfectly good cracks out of pure convenience.

Mostly true IMO, but I don't think the Geezer wall issue is about bolted belay stations.

I am in Nepal working in health care at the moment, so that is why I am not back home bolting next to cracks....no seriously, though, If a wall like the Geezer Wall was here (where so many Nepalis I have met are so eager to learn how to rock climb!), they would worship it and probably literally wear it out it would get so much traffic. There would be a shrine around it at the entrance of the rocks, for sure.

Yes, you counter, "but this is the Wasatch and not Nepal", and that is correct and true....but which climbers exactly was the Geezer Wall denying future climbers of climbing it traditionally? Who was it intended for? I hadn't climbed there...neither had any of you apparently, who condone the elimination of it. Doesn't sound to me like anyone, but the newbies who were climbing there, going to climb there, and were seemingly enjoying it to its ultimate potential...were the ones enjoying it. And just because a gym climber moves outside, he can't climb bolted routes? Some of the ever popular Gregorio routes might have been available, but most are harder than 5.8/9. Why couldn't this wall be left for them?

Yes, yes to address the other issues...we did climb the Black Streak without bolts (well, we did hand drill one 1/4"er and broke the bit and zig zagged all over hell (excuse the pun) trying to place any gear)...and it didn't get one (NOT ONE!) repeat for 10+ years until bolts were installed. In Jordan, my late friend Res looked at me after we climbed a mega classic wall and said, "I don't know anyone but you who carries a #4 or bigger Camalot on his rack, let's climb it again and bolt it...We climbed it again and equipped it. And repeated it later with other friends. It is so good, so fun, but it does have some OW (now bolt protected! I am embarrassed and not too proud to say). So yes, these are in both cases these "convenient bolts" you guys seem to like to diss or chop, but hey, I tend to think that 99.9% of all of you 5.11 or harder climbers out there in the Great State of Utah have clipped quite a few bolts in your day...and if you are from the UK, you probably migrated to the USA for that very purpose.

I mean, really what is the big deal about this
GeezerWall? Many recent bolted Wasatch routes are bolted not the way I would choose to equip a rock climb, some of the bolts are in inappropriate spots, some are just wrong in every way, but I respect the style chosen by the FA team...despite how much I may dislike/disapprove of the style or the climb. None of you hardmen would have climbed there anyway, so what exactly is the big deal here?

Again, it would have been appreciated here in Nepal's Himalaya. Sounds to me like it would have been appreciated by a lot of people there in the Wasatch, too.

TP in SLC wrote: +1. Wow. Have you ever climbed on Euro limestone? WAAAAYYYYY different that the choss we have here, WAY different. They are protecting pockets (in what 2 areas?) because it is a tried and true method that HAS held falls, on very different stone. I would say without a shadow of a doubt that ANY of your examples couldn't be gear protected unless they didn't have 101 ascents. Sure it COULD be done. But then again (insert famous solo'er) could just 4th class everything and deem all the protection invalid b/c hell, HE didn't use it. I would be pumped to hold your rope on AF on a route at your limit while your dinking in tri-cams and slotting perlon cord. Give me a shout.

The purpose of my posting was to point out that people tend to get riled up about "bolting cracks," whereas the issue could just as easily be about bolting protectable terrain, whether that means pockets, horizontals, flakes, horns, etc. I was not suggesting anything is wrong with bolted limestone, but people do get a bit myopic about what they do and why they're doing it.

James has surfaced (cheers) and reminded me that he did indeed climb the Black Streak originally without bolts. Thanks James, I had forgotten. I guess I'm off the hook for the repeat, though I had warmed up to the idea of doing a gear ascent anyway. While there are a number of crack placements on BS, the upper pitches I suspect involved a number of pocket placements. But, James is correct in that the bolts largely drew the climbers. Maybe, they didn't know the route was there until the bolts showed up, or just didn't think it worthwhile. Don't know, but bolts draw climbers.

I've climbed a bit of Euro limestone, though maybe with a different emphasis than yours. I've done limestone gear routes all over the Dolomites (gear is the rule not the exception), in Arco, and in a number of places in Spain (El Chorro, Sella, Penon, Mascarat, Picos de Europa, etc), so yeah I've got an idea what they're doing and why. Did you realize those places have gear routes, even on or near the so-called sport crags, with pocket placements?

As for the AF examples I gave, I think the rock quality is more than adequate to take gear placements and hold falls on the two routes I mentioned, and again I'm intrigued enough to try it this coming spring. The rock on PB looks super solid to me, and mostly virgin.

But, so what. I clip those bolts all the time and I'm not suggesting they be any different. All I'm saying is people are getting riled up over some bolts next to a few crappy gear placements (not really next to "crack climbs") when they're clipping other bolts next to other gear placements all the time. Just walk up Ferguson and take a look, e.g. Or, look at Cecret Lake, e.g., or Ruth Lake (ever climb Black Elk?), e.g., or any number of other routes in Big Cottonwood that could be lead with gear instead of bolts, and reasonably. Flamin' Freddie and Hollow Man start 5 feet apart and have about the same features, yet one has bolts and the other not so much. Is anyone bitching about that? There's a ton of that stuff and people never seem to give it a second thought.

BTW, there are also limestone gear routes in the US and Canada, and there's room for more if you're so inclined. Some of it is pretty damn fun. Even bsmoot has been known to put these atrocities up ;).

May be worth pointing out that only one or two people in this thread have come out and supported the actions of the Geezer Wall chopper. No matter what people's feelings are about bolting cracks and protectable features, I don't think very many are happy about the chopping no matter if it was some highly motivated idealist or just a random thief.

I tend to think of ethics as a set of general principles from which one can gain perspective to make decisions, not as a set of ideals to follow blindly.

Maybe this thread is kind of going in circles because the developers have stated that the crag was a community service and not to pad their own personal egos, and also have solicited our opinions about it. This may or may not be the case with some of the other routes around with bolted protectable features, which could have been put up by people who care less about the community. So if developers do care about the community as a whole, the area's ethics are the best guidelines to making the most people happy, I'd say.

There are a lot of areas where I would be really sad to see grid bolting and bolts where there is obviously good gear. I admit that my possibly somewhat skewed perspective about the lack of bolted cracks (bolted anchors were a separate issue in my mind) in the Wasatch probably comes from where I've chosen to climb... some areas I tend to stay away from.

The opinion that there are too many unneeded bolts going in here is definitely not the same opinion as that all bolted routes with good gear here should be chopped. It is perfectly legit to ask developers to have a little more discretion. I hope that something like the Geezer Wall chopping never happens again, no matter what my opinion is about the bolting of it.