More Tensleep Drama

Andrew McQ wrote: I have climbed at Grayson Highlands and it wasn't very fun.

If you had the option to climb a route with holds that are sharp enough to make you bleed or a different route, which would you choose?

Louie posted this to the Ten Sleep FB page, and I support what he has to say:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/2170074933019714?view=permalink&id=2919123164781550

Have you climbed at funky town? He didn't just comfortize existing holds. He drilled hand shaped pockets up a whole wall of existing holds. 

Fehim Hasecic wrote:

“Cracks were sandblasted “. Really?

Really! Sand blasted, smoothed to the point of being greasy and with big hand shaped pockets drilled right next to them. I mean you can't even get a full idea until you actually climb one.

 I said the same thing as many people in this forum about past routes being chipped and people probably over reacting etc until I actually went there a climbed a route. 

Then reaction changed to "ooooooh! Now I understand why people are so pissed." This is nothing like any past manufacturing ever. This is something else entirely. 

Anyone have any pictures of the routes at funky town? I’m insanely curious what super manufactured routes like that look like.
In all the limestone areas I’ve climbed in, I’ve never recognized glued holds and now I wanna know how obvious they look. 

Sport climbing is responsible, the rules change daily. Bolt is, trample it, cut it down but for the sake of Jesus himself dont alter the rock!

Nathan Witt wrote:

Ever hear of Grayson Highlands? Lol.

For real though, be honest with yourself, is Funky Town the same caliber of meddling as previous incidents, or is this something worse?

I haven't been to Funky Town, but I have been to neighboring crags that were put up by Louie in the same year as FT. I would climb 4 or 5 bolts of 5.8 climbing followed by 4 or 5 bolts of what is otherwise a completely blank, featureless face marred by a perfect line of smooth, two-knuckle deep pockets and monos slicing right up it like a gash.

There was one route I did that also had severely enhanced holds next to other, perfectly good holds. What would have been a thoughtful, set of moves on uncharacteristically 3-D section of wall was surrounded by two ultra smooth, very deep, and very unnecessary pockets two help you pull through. Turned an 11d move on a 12b climb into a 10b move--completely unnecessary.

Other routes at the same crag were massively glued. One had a 200lb block that should have been tossed off as choss glued onto what was already a standing rest to make it a little bit easier to pull onto a ledge that could be mantled onto anyway.

So yeah, from my experience, it's pretty bad, and far more than just "comfortization;" entire routes are being made out of manufactured holds.

Rob warden The space lizard wrote:

Longstanding member mobes. 

All limstone that anyone has ever climbed ia chipped drilled glued for your enjoyment
 
One could argue that in the spirt of mt Charleston the vrg  wolf point it is the dominant ideology.

i was about to say something about mt charleston if i didnt see it in here......i was there many moons ago. tons of manufacturing and gluing there.

EFS wrote:

i was about to say something about mt charleston if i didnt see it in here......i was there many moons ago. tons of manufacturing and gluing there.

Everything at Charleston is hard as balls and intended to test your very manhood. Casa Grande is a shit 10d that brought nothing to the table other than a shitty warm up!

Comparing Charleston to Funky Town is like comparing a Ferrari to a Pinto. If dude gave us a Ferrari people would be driving it instead of parting out!

Ryan U. wrote: I wonder what Royal Robbins would say about this

He would call it an "outrage" and chop the bolts.

Don't underestimate people's ability to take things to their logical conclusion.  Those of us who said such things would be an inevitable outgrowth of a certain type of sport climbing mentality were accused of concocting slippery-slope absurdities that would never actually happen.

There is absolutely no need to be manufacturing routes in Tensleep!!  

Creatively cleaning a flake is one thing drilling a ladder of pockets and finger jugs is another.

Having done my share of cleaning it is pretty obvious what is a good cleaning and what is chipping......   What is even more obvious is using a cordless rotohammer to drill artificial pockets, one after the next.  Some of these pocket ladders merely knock climbable moves down a grade or two but others open what where either blank or extremely futuristic sections of rock.  In either case there is no need or justification.

In my experience those that manufacture routes and hide behind "aggressive cleaning" are kidding themselves.  Louie went one past that.  He says 'look how cool my routes are!'

Aside from Louie's ego, he has a pretty obvious motive.  He owns a climber campground.  He will be selling a guidebook.  He has been heavily promoting these routes and himself.

It might be easier to connect those dots than to connect those pockets!!!

Coldfinger,

You post with so much hate.  Please keep in mind that spreading hate will not bring back honor to Tensleep.

What Louie did was terrible.  This is route manufacturing like I have never seen.
Did he apologize?  Not that I have seen.  You are right, he owes us an apology.  I get chopping his routes but let’s look big picture. The Forest Service does not care about route manufacturing.  They would not be about to tell unless the public contacted them.  In a geological sense a 1” pocket verse a 3” pocket is trivial.  The FS cares when the public is displeased, public unrest marked the FS conserned as it should being a government entity.
Are you writing letters to the land mangers?
I want to put a little scale to this.  Have you been to a Coal mine?  Timber sale site?Large city?
Driven a interstate highway?

These type of environmental changes are much more impactful than drilled pockets in a cliff face.

Have you been to the sites of route chopping? Are they doing a good job? It takes a skill to chop bolts and make it look natural.  With the number of chopped routes they must be very skilled to do that scale of chopping over the course of a few days.

All the best but please be mindful of the big picture while trying to ostracize a member of the community.  

Prikash Bista wrote

Have you been to the sites of route chopping? Are they doing a good job? It takes a skill to chop bolts and make it look natural.  With the number of chopped routes they must be very skilled to do that scale of chopping over the course of a few days.

I have been to several of the crags where this has occurred, everything I saw was wedge bolts simply stripped of their hangars, pounded deeper into their holes and left, no patching. Some routes only have a few bolts worth of this done to them W/ a red lock, some routes have a red lock and no bolts stripped. 

Prikash Bista wrote: Coldfinger,

You post with so much hate.  Please keep in mind that spreading hate will not bring back honor to Tensleep. The Forest Service does not care about route manufacturing. 
All the best but please be mindful of the big picture while trying to ostracize a member of the community.  

What???  

Just pointing out what these route developers have done, how people are reacting in factual terms.  Some people don't like it when folks get upset.  You are one.  So what.  There are a whole lot of us that either live in Wyoming and/or care enough about climbing ethics to follow this.  This industrial route manufacturing been going on for a long time, and not just at Tensleep.  There is a huge amount of hostility being projected by particular people in favor of manufacturing routes.  This has largely gone on out of sight.  Their own words and actions have led to the removal of their routes by the local community after a lengthy attempt at working this out.

As for a certain person being a member of the community, he has a long history of doing what he does, moved to Tensleep, ignored the local community's ethics, and then when approached about it refused to engage.  So he kinda exiled himself from both the larger and local climbing communities.   Or put another way to be a member of a community is something you have to earn and maintain.  Unfortunately he continues to promote his methods so yes people are speaking out.

As for the rest of your post.  That's bs.  So I should just go and do whatever the fuck I want on public land, and it's ok because there are interstates 100 miles away from me??

All the stakeholders when it comes to climbing on federal lands DO care about climber impacts.  I first got involved in these issues 25 years ago.  The outdoor industry, with great input and assistance from the American Alpine Club and the Access Fund in particular, recently formed the Outdoor Alliance in large part because of the significant conflicts and pressures created by dual use federal lands, i.e. industrial vs recreational use.  Uses are always impacting resource values in addition to creating user conflicts.

The big picture is that recreational user impacts are becoming a VERY big problem.  One need look no farther than Titcomb/Island Lake and Cirque/Big Sandy areas in the Wind River Range of Wyoming to see that.  Climbers have been allowed a LOT of latitude, particularly in National Parks and Wilderness Areas to essentially operate in a community self regulating manner.  But in recent years hordes of climbers have been overrunning very ecologically sensitive areas, leaving trash and human waste and having a poor track record in terms of avoiding conflict with wildlife.  There are a LOT of other recreational uses and user groups on federal land so keep in mind that managers have to be fair in terms of managing the impacts of different user groups fairly.  Fair or not, how the public, other recreational users and land managers view climbers in terms of ethics is important.

For most other user groups a low or no impact ethic is very important.  What has been going on in Tensleep is not a good look.

The heavy industrial and transportation uses you mention relate to recreational areas in that the large scale degradation of resource, recreation and ecological values in those areas (more often BLM) put increased pressure on remaining lands (more often USFS or NPS), which are shrinking yearly as development spreads (particularly in energy, be it fossil or renewables).  The immense impacts of climate change, and in particular the drastic changes in fire behavior and fuel conditions, add to the pressure that recreation uses put on resource values.  

Big picture is that to a large degree (for reasons I'm not getting into here) land managers prefer to let user groups self regulate.  It just works better.  But don't confuse their willingness to extend climbers that privilege with thinking they don't care what we do and how we do it.

...And it is nearsightedness verging on blindness to think land managers won't eventually act.  Shoulder-shruggers should take a good look at what Parks Victoria has done in Australia, closing 3,000 routes in the Grampians to protect the environment from climber impacts.  It is a fantasy to think land managers would be swayed to allow arbitrary carving of their domains because there are coal mines and interstates.  Holy false equivalences batman!

The wild and woolly days of self-centered rugged individualism that old-timers like me might have experienced are over, as public lands are now increasingIy overrun.  I think that local climber coalitions need to organize themselves and then proactively seek partnerships with land managers, so that representative climber groups are in the decision pipeline and have the opportunity to convince managers that climbers can be an asset as stewards and not a problem that needs to be eradicated.  

In order to make common cause with those entrusted with protecting public lands, climbers are going to have to restrain themselves at least some of the time, recalling, if they have forgotten it, that climbing itself depends on voluntary renunciation of all possible means, and the land is not a block of marble waiting for the chisel of egotists bent on sculpting it into some kind of jungle gym for popular amusement.

Follow the money, the real issue being private monetizing of public lands.

Many many Americans think OUR public lands reads as MY public lands if I get there first.

Good posts coldfinger

Wade Lippincott wrote:

Everything at Charleston is hard as balls and intended to test your very manhood. Casa Grande is a shit 10d that brought nothing to the table other than a shitty warm up!

Comparing Charleston to Funky Town is like comparing a Ferrari to a Pinto. If dude gave us a Ferrari people would be driving it instead of parting out!

lemme play devils advocate.......so its ok to chip, glue and manufacture holds and drill pockets if its a hard route in the end......

?????

EFS wrote:

lemme play devils advocate.......so its ok to chip, glue and manufacture holds and drill pockets if its a hard route in the end......

?????

At mount Charleston yes

Rob, I hav3 climbed at nearly every name brand limestone crag in yhe US and about a dozen in Europe. I can appreciate the holds that don't slice me, but I shake my hrad every time I grab a clearly manufacturef hold. You didn't mention Mt Potasi, likely because it fucking sucks to climb there. It sucked the first day but I gave it another shot. It still sucks and always will. I don't want to see/climb some jackass wannabe's construction ptoject.

I read Gluey's farcebook post and I think it sounds great, just like the bullshit he spewed in socal after his incredibly shitty glue mess on the granite.

Rob warden The space lizard wrote:

I bet you are real fun at parties...

Damage is done

It robbed no one ( people climbing 5.15 dont give a flying fuck about tensleep) (they also dont care about a single 3 move v13 in the middle of 50ft of 5.11)

Stripping the wall is sour grapes.

The reality is still crowding as there are more people climbing they will proportionally climb the same grades proportionally they always have IE under 5.11

They will climb closer to the road proportionally. Because proportionally people hate to walk.

Theres not a lot more rock right  off the road one state over from Colorado.

A hard boulder is the opposite of this situation. Proportionally, to be able to even understand or care about the minutiae, you must be intimately immersed in the mentiua of hard bouldering.

Anyone else Lol at this?

Deez Nuts wrote: Rob, I hav3 climbed at nearly every name brand limestone crag in yhe US and about a dozen in Europe. I can appreciate the holds that don't slice me, but I shake my hrad every time I grab a clearly manufacturef hold. You didn't mention Mt Potasi, likely because it fucking sucks to climb there. It sucked the first day but I gave it another shot. It still sucks and always will. I don't want to see/climb some jackass wannabe's construction ptoject.

I read Gluey's farcebook post and I think it sounds great, just like the bullshit he spewed in socal after his incredibly shitty glue mess on the granite.

I think your keyboard is broken.