Why FAs don't matter...

Mobes Mobesely wrote: Rap bolting is lame, it also creates fun routes so it evens out.

How about rap cleaning a trad route before the FA? Lame?

I think everyone can agree rap bolting is lame but why? Rap bolting is certainly the safer, easier, and a more logical way to equip a route. So why does the climbing Illuminati hate it so much? Probably ego but lets dig a bit deeper.

Bitd climbing and well, alot of life, was very macho centered. Making something hard for the sake of making it hard was attractive. So when the new order came through with the bold idea to simply rap in it was an affront to the macho belief system of the old guard. It was tough for them to put aside their ego for an innovation that was clearly "better" from a technical stand point. Change IS hard.

This anxiety that their belief system was under attack created the "ground up, dont touch my route" mentality that has stifiled any progress on old climbs. If the "community" can finally let go of this anxiety, erase the obsession with who the FA is, and compromise on way forward (retro-development) I think we will see a unity of factions.

Tradiban, in response - very little of the information generally given about climbs is "crucial or necessary" - grade, recommended belay points, protection. But many people like knowing some or all of that. "Maximizing the adventure" is a somewhat over-glorified concept, IMO. It best serves people who prefer hiking and rappelling to a full day of hard climbing! And sure, any given first-ascensionist may produce climbs very unlike each other, so assuming too much would be foolish. Yet you can often stack the odds. If you've climbed much in an area, you can usually identify a few people whose FAs are almost universally classic - often plums picked early in the development of a wall or area. Date of FA also often helps with that. Conversely, it's sad but true that certain names are associated with super-cheap hardware that cannot be trusted on any route off the beaten path (i.e., that hasn't been replaced), or with inexplicably poor choice of clipping stances. As for styles, bolts placed "ground-up" vs "ground up from free stances" are styles about as far apart from each other as imaginable, so I'd disagree about splitting hairs. But anyway, thanks for the thread! As I admitted last post, I'm a guidebook publisher, so my opinion can't be trusted anyway!

Tradiban wrote:

I think everyone can agree rap bolting is lame but why? Rap bolting is certainly the safer, easier, and a more logical way to equip a route. So why does the climbing Illuminati hate it so much? Probably ego but lets dig a bit deeper.

Bitd climbing and well, alot of life, was very macho centered. Making something hard for the sake of making it hard was attractive. So when the new order came through with the bold idea to simply rap in it was an affront to the macho belief system of the old guard. It was tough for them to put aside their ego for an innovation that was clearly "better" from a technical stand point. Change IS hard.

This anxiety that their belief system was under attack created the "ground up, dont touch my route" mentality that has stifiled any progress on old climbs. If the "community" can finally let go of this anxiety, erase the obsession with who the FA is, and compromise on way forward (retro-development) I think we will see a unity of factions.

I can guess that 95% of those people who think it’s lame have probably never developed a climbing route before.

Tradiban wrote:

...I think everyone can agree rap bolting is lame but why? ...So why does the climbing Illuminati hate it so much? ...

Two completely unfounded assumptions

i think the FA is important. in fact i have always wished mountain project had a way to search by and sort by first ascensionist. For example I love henry barbers routes, but I know I need to bring my A game, I would also love to be able to search for fritz weissners routes since there are countless ones all over new england and its kind of fun to tick them off and think of the historical perspective of him climbing 200 feet with four pins, boots, and a hemp rope... i guess in a weird way im arguing for more importance of noting the FA on mountain project? don't flame me to hard....

...just one opinion from a chubby guy who climbs easy (but frequently scary and hard for me) routes

Chris Hatzai wrote:

I can guess that 95% of those people who think it’s lame have probably never developed a climbing route before.

Perhaps I should clarify "lame". Rap bolting is clearly the easier option and ground up bolting is in fact more difficult making rap bolting "lame" by comparison, however, that's not to say it's "better". 

Semantics really but the way a person interprets those words probably reflects an inherent bias.

Responding to Jeff:
Yes, I see the distinction between ground up from a stance and ground up on hooks, that I agree is not splitting hairs and I wouldn't advocate adding any hardware via hooks on a stance placed route. I guess I considered that an obvious distinction that retro-developer would consider but I can't think of any other ground up nuance that would reach that par of importance.

As an aside, personally I see hooking as akin to rap bolting anyway.

FA's had visions and created something based on that.  Their history needs to be remembered. Imagine if no one knew who EDIT: WARREN Harding was?

Tradiban wrote:

Perhaps I should clarify "lame". Rap bolting is clearly the easier option and ground up bolting is in fact more difficult making rap bolting "lame" by comparison, however, that's not to say it's "better". 

Semantics really but the way a person interprets those words probably reflects an inherent bias.

Responding to Jeff:
Yes, I see the distinction between ground up from a stance and ground up on hooks, that I agree is not splitting hairs and I wouldn't advocate adding any hardware via hooks on a stance placed route. I guess I considered that an obvious distinction that retro-developer would consider but I can't think of any other ground up nuance that would reach that par of importance.

As an aside, personally I see hooking as akin to rap bolting anyway.

Says one of the internet gods.. you should go climbing. Stop typing.

Beach, a simple search of the first ascentionist's name will probably get many of the routes you are looking for. I just tried it with my name and got 138, not all, but a bunch. Wiessner (often spelled incorrectly) and Barber (not putting myself in their league, lol) will give you lists of routes

Tradiban wrote:

I think everyone can agree rap bolting is lame but why?

You mean except avid sport climbers, folks that have started climbing in the past five years, people that have no desire to climb runout or gear-protected routes, and sport route developers?  
That's hardly everyone.  In fact, one might argue that the people that think rap bolting is lame are a minority among the climbing community as a whole.  That isn't really a valid assertion.  

 Rap bolting is certainly the safer, easier, and a more logical way to equip a route.

Really?  Ever tried to equip a 5.13 that goes at about 40 degrees.  Or how about equip a route at all?  More logical depends on the route.  It doesn't seem like you have much foundation behind your words or data or experience to lend any credence to them.

 So why does the climbing Illuminati hate it so much?

And who would that be?

 Probably ego but lets dig a bit deeper.

Bitd climbing and well, alot of life, was very macho centered. Making something hard for the sake of making it hard was attractive. So when the new order came through with the bold idea to simply rap in it was an affront to the macho belief system of the old guard. It was tough for them to put aside their ego for an innovation that was clearly "better" from a technical stand point. Change IS hard.

You're leaving quite a bit out here.  There are numerous factors that contributed to rap bolting and relatively "safe" sport routes becoming prevalent and quite a few reasons why people oppose it.  Was a lot of it chest-thumping male ego?  Absolutely.  But we've seen climbing shift from hammering aid, to clean aid, to a mixture of free and aid ("clean" and hammered/fixed), to all free with no fixed gear to sport routes- free climbing with all fixed gear and any and all combinations conceivable.  To try to neatly categorize these things and dilute them down to concepts that fit only your conception of how things should be and why- is just that.  A lot of it was ego, but some of it was also, because of the free climbing and clean climbing movements that followed the 60s, realizing that rock is a finite resource and there are plenty of examples where something should have been left unclimbed.  The original Dawn Wall route- the Harding version was an example of that.  It's not just bottom up reverence and dogma that inspired the choppers and the protesting of bolted routes- but sport climbers and bolted routes established top down are just an easier target- or were an easier target.  

You seem to be forgetting perhaps the biggest reason(s) that the advent of rap-bolted sport routes came to be- a lot of it was inspired by difficulty.   You can call that macho or ego or whatever you want, but when free climbing became prevalent, people started looking at faces considered previously unclimbable and started thinking that they would go free.  But no one wants to solo something beyond their limit- and top-roping it removes just about all the risk.  So what's left?  Just leave it there and don't climb it- which, let's face it, didn't happen and never would, or bolt it.  The other reason is that you're not going to find a free stance or maybe even hooking stances to bolt ground up- and even if you could, as has been mentioned, the line would probably look terrible and introduce tons of huge fall and pendulum potential not to mention rope drag.  So, yes, some of it was ego- as was the resistance to it, and some of it was pure selfishness wanting to be the first and put up hard lines but there was also a bit of pragmatic thinking involved as well.

This anxiety that their belief system was under attack created the "ground up, dont touch my route" mentality that has stifiled any progress on old climbs. If the "community" can finally let go of this anxiety, erase the obsession with who the FA is, and compromise on way forward (retro-development) I think we will see a unity of factions.

Maybe.  Maybe not.  Looking at a classic example, the BY- let's say, for the sake of argument that everyone just drops the "leave the FA like it was established" and says "yeah, cool, go for it"  How many scary, run out, mid to high level routes like this are going to have stances to add enough more fixed pro- ON LEAD, to make a difference?  I don't know.  Do you?  Maybe you can think of a few in your back yard or whatever, but my guess is those bold, run out, ground up routes were established that way for a reason- because that was the only way they COULD be established- other than rapping down and drilling.  But let's be honest, everyone agreeing on that is a pipe dream.  

What I can't figure out is why you push this pipe dream so much.  Why does it matter to YOU so much whether a route you're probably never going to attempt gets climbed more or not.  It's not like there's not a wealth of every type of route out there to go around.  Why can't there be a dichotomy that exists- on one end you have pedestrian clip ups as low as 5.6 and 5.7 (maybe lower in some places) and on the other end you have very bold routes in which a climber needs to be exemplary in mental and physical aspects in order to rise to that challenge?  Why try to eliminate that from climbing?  

And another point that needs to be sliced- who decides what is run out and dangerous and what isn't?  I mean, you could fall and break your ankle on a "sport" route that has bolts every 6 feet.  So do the newly anointed "outdoor" climbers, fresh from the gym, who clearly represent a large portion of the climbing community make the call?  Bolts every 3 feet?  Is it some organization in that area?  Have you ever considered that things have evolved the way they have because collectively we've found a mostly workable system and that's why things are the way they are?  Are you going to skirt and circumvent all the pertinent questions that you're asked, and just address the ones that reinforce your point- and vaguely so?

I know this was just a troll post because you enjoy contention and you were bored, but come on in.  The water's fine.

Does the style in which the FA was done not matter either? Take Kor-Ingalls on Castleton for example. It's only a 5.9 but cams didn't exist and there were no bolts. I don't believe I would have done the FA if I were born in the 40s and owned a double set of nuts despite the fact that I climb harder than they did at the time. FAs are a piece of climbing history and throughout history, we as humans document that history. Ice FAs are still being put up in the high desert of Colorado (not much ice to go around) and there are plenty of remaining FA opportunities for the intrepid. I think FAs and the documentation of them are very important to the progression of the sport and lend itself to hold climbers of the future ethically responsible for how they climb the route. Especially in a time where everyone seems to climb. Most of my FAs are just because I walked farther than anyone else and devoted a lot of time and energy to find it. Time and energy that others could not justify. 

Sam Miller wrote: Does the style in which the FA was done not matter either? 

He's saying style does matter, but doesn't go into detail on "style".  It was done ground up, no bolts and only with passive gear.  Does that mean that bolts or other fixed gear can be added as long as it's done on lead ground up?  Yet another hole in a theory that already has more holes than a sponge.

Tradiban wrote: I wouldn't advocate adding any hardware via hooks on a stance placed route. I guess I considered that an obvious distinction that retro-developer would consider but I can't think of any other ground up nuance that would reach that par of importance.

How many people do you think are out there that would climb a "dangerous" route in hopes of finding stances that the FA didn't find?  Is it your assertion that most run-out R or PG routes done ground up and drilled from stances had perfectly reasonable stances from which to drill that were just skipped because "macho"?  I don't know what the ratio is, but I would definitely wager that most routes out there that were hand drilled from stances on lead, ground up don't have sparse pro because "macho", though some may exist.  I think the pro is sparse because the stances are.  If you find runouts on hard territory, then it's for a reason.  

Are you saying that bolts can be/should be added where removable protection could go, just because there may be one or a few bolts on the route that is otherwise protected by gear?  As long as they can drill from a stance?  I mean, that would be in keeping with the "style" because it has a few bolts already on it, right?

As an aside, personally I see hooking as akin to rap bolting anyway.

Sweet.  Can't wait to go add fixed pro to all those scary aid climbs.  Another hole in your proposal.  Or should we start introducing caveats and exceptions all over the place to allow?

Wish I wouldn't have known all of those routes were put up by Whillans back in my grit days - probably would've cruised them instead of drowning in a sea of lactic acid.

Jaren Watson wrote:

I agree with you, Mike, but to be fair, I don’t think anyone does know who Warning Harding was. :)

Come on, man, learn your history. He was the 29th president of the United States.

Rap bolting with toprope determined bolt placement produces THE highest quality sport routes and does it more efficiently than any other technique or combination of techniques. If you think otherwise

You are wrong or have mild brain damage and can't remember information
You have no direct experience developing routes, ie. you are ignorant
Or you be trollin'

Jaren Watson wrote:

I agree with you, Mike, but to be fair, I don’t think anyone does know who Warning Harding was. :)

What, is you a English teacher or something?

Chuffy, doing my best to navigate your stream of consciousness:

-See my explanation above regarding the definition of "lame".
-Hooking is akin to rap bolting in "style".
-The Climbing Illuminati are people like you.
-You confuse physical difficulty with mental difficulty.
-Why must climbing involve risk if it doesn't have to?
-B-Y was led ground up with hooks. See above regarding hooking.
-Routes that are naturally bold will remain so under retro-development, those that are artificially bold will be fixed. 
-It matters to me because I see a new generation of climbers fed up with old rules and I hope to bridge the divide before climbing is just another "sport".
-No one decides what is dangerous and what isn't, that's the point of retro-development, the style decides where bolts go.
-YES, bolts can be added as long as it's in the style of the FA. Fixed gear is trash.
-Bolts can never go where gear can. This is inherent to ground up climbing.
-Aid climbing only exists because climbing the rock directly is too hard physically for the climber. "Aid climbing is aid".

Please take a deep breath before posting and condense your arguments, I'm a busy man!

Tradiban wrote:

I think everyone can agree rap bolting is lame

no

Tradiban wrote: For the record I purposely refuse to post the FA on any route, here's why:

-The FA of most routes is simply a function of right place at the right time. Who's to say that you, dear reader, wouldn't be the person with the gumption to climb something first had you been born in the 40s?

-The posting on the FA simply leads to the false notion that the FA owns the rock. This leads to chaos and confusion regarding the routes future.

-As seen here on MP many FAs get their self worth wrapped up in what they climbed first. This is unhealthy for the "community" and the FA themselves.

What is important is that a route is marked climbed or un-climbed, the person or persons involved are of no consequence. This policy will help progress the sport into the future instead of being stuck in the past and held captive by personal ego.

OP is either trolling 2/10 or has never done the FA of anything worth a shit or most likely both.

I can respect the Troll, but the dipshits that liked the post probably tell themselves that they are doing the same route as someone who did it ground up stance bolting or on pins and want to forget a past that makes their own efforts pathetic. They should realize that knowing that Robbins or Pratt put up the route in hiking boots and pins or that fierce chimney/ow no pro or Tom Higgins stance drilled that rig ground up should shame them to up their game. That's the whole damn point.

Fucking wankers. :P

Sport climbs are a different kettle of fish and the developers deserve props always. Its still a shit ton of work. The FFA of a Sport Route only matters if it is some local test piece.

I see your troll and raise you one.