SOUTHERN ARIZONA CLIMBING ETIQUETTE—PART IV—DECEMBER 2010--- Proliferation of Sport Routes

All routes should follow natural lines whether trad or sport. If there are holds enough to be climbable there will be a natural flow to them. FA's should consider this no matter what type of climb it is. Squeezing in a line of bolts just because there is space is not very creative. Grid bolting is vandalism. It destroys natural lines.

Meghan c. You got it right. Sounds like you've been climbing with Verm.

I'm not sure if Tamo falls into S. AZ climbing or not but FWIW when putting up new routes there we put a lot of thought into future users since it was supposed to become a state park. If we had climbed everything in our preferred style things would have been done differently. One big thing we did was to top rope routes first and find the most natural line of holds with consideration of the lines for adjacent routes as well. I think it worked very well most of the time. This is contrary to the approach of seeing an unbolted space between two routes and trying to find a line of holds to climb there.

Man, I can't believe all you folks around the naked pueblo are still hashing out all these issues. I remember the same arguments and discussions going on back in the late 80's when I was climbing there. And by the way, keep an eye out on EFR. Once, he cleaned all my shiny new gear I abandoned on my very first lead ever on Georges Buttress. I went back early the next day and it was already gone!! He left word around he had it and I got it back, but not before almost falling through a gigantic hole in his loft when I was at his house.

Sounds like you all need to squeeze into some tight lyrca and go climbing...

A quick question: What happens when the color-blind go leading these bolt color-coded adventure routes? It might turn out to be dangerous!

;-)

There are little braille markings on them. :)

Thanks for the reply on Troll Wall, geir. (does that rhyme with gear? or wire? or air? just curious) I know it's bad form to comment without full knowledge, just my memory was that troll wall was nearly that conundrum of too-close cracks that EFR speculates about... I'll check it out next time I'm in town.

Still... I prefer a natural looking cliff to the disco-mirror-ball effect that many cliffs are turning into. It's probably just ignorance on my part. Or some sorta elitism. But bolting cracks seems a form of elitism in it's own way...

Happy boxing day, one and all!

To keep his head clear, I fear dear geir drinks near beer.

jbak wrote:To keep his head clear, I fear dear geir drinks near beer.

clever john ... that should clear up how my name is pronounced! :)

matt,

definitely check out the troll wall when you're in town next time. drop me a line and i'll climb there with ya. i don't think you'll be disappointed.