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Ethics of a FA and retro bolting
Emily Thompsonwrote: What did you climb that was 5.11? Was it something in the creek or something? |
Connor Dobsonwrote: lmao why? are you the arbiter of real 5.11? |
Emily Thompsonwrote: Climbers are typically unimaginative and very conventional. Climbing isn't a topic/activity that requires complex thinking. And Russ W. is right. |
Connor Dobsonwrote: Ticklist indicates "yes." |
Emily Thompsonwrote: Ha, well said. Try to ignore the MP bullies, their self-worth is wrapped up in their climbing. To answer your questions, if it's a sport climb, meaning rap bolted, the bolting should be fairly close and "safe". The naysayers have never really made a coherent argument to keep things as they are besides the fading tradition of bowing to the FA, which has it's major issues: https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/116157988/why-fas-dont-matter As for ground up routes (Trad), time and circumstances sometimes result in bad bolting, they didn't bring enough bolts, the weather changed, it was a 5.12 climber on a 5.10 route, etc. People advocating to keep this poor bolting usually fall back on tradition and the "get stronger" argument, which is pretty ego driven as you can tell from this thread. Unfortunately this has frozen many routes in time and doesn't allow for progress forward, plus the naysayers have a nuclear option, they will chop the bolts!, or so they say they will anyway. But as time goes on that attitude is fading and dying off along with antiquated traditions of the past. My proposal for a solution is "retro-development", read about it here: https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/113940247/retro-development-in-idyllwild Mostly you're dealing with the "clinging to their guns and their bibles" contingent of the climbing community here, don't expect too much deep thought. Godspeed. |
Emily Thompsonwrote: Anybody pretty much does whatever they want. Get a drill, retro that shit, spray about feminism and empowerment or something and call it a day. Yes it's dumb, yes it's mostly male ego. "Ethics" is just a white, western, cis-hetero normative construction of epistemological power that only exists if you lend credence to whiteness, or something like that. You're likely to be publicly supported more if you raise the fist or bend the knee or whatever it is the kids are doing these days. Power to the people and stuff. |
Emily Thompsonwrote: Every answer in the thread falls into one of those two buckets. Well not Russ's - but that was probably a whoosh... And there was absolutely nothing said that hasn't been said many times for many years. |
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64 year old, Guns and Bibles here I guess. I have done about 25 FA's all seventies and eighties, up to 10d. I am friends with many prolific first ascentionsists, and never met a soul that intended to exclude other climbers with scary run outs. No one I ever went out and new routed with went out equipped to bolt without making several prior boltless attempts. After those we would debate the merits of a bolt, whether the route justified the means. We bolted on lead from a stance or a hook, so that the rock still dictated largely where even a bolt had to go. Bolting was hard tedious work that took two hands. We did not rap inspect, or clean, or toprope prior. No one was interested in creating candy for the masses, the idea was to have an adventure. My own rule was that any new route I did would have just one bolt, so that later on other people could have similar adventures with two, then three and so on, how evil! Some of my routes have been retrobolted, one had five bolts added and people seem to feel they are too far apart. I haven't chopped any of them. The routes some people feel squishy about are often trad lines with occasional bolts. We went to great extents to avoid bolting, stoppers in opposition, tiny nests of brassies, and it was not uncommon that in the process you just got so far above the gear it was better to go on. We also assumed that as time went on shoes would get better, and when cams first arrived we speculated a lot about whether someone would find a way to shrink them down smaller than a #1 first gen Friend, so in fact those routes you fret about are easier and safer now in many cases. Fretting about your unwillingness to take on the challenge these relatively limited number of routes represent isn't great. Trad/mixed bolt routes still required a trad line that took some gear, while you people willing to bolt on rappel have a virtually unlimited canvas to work from, so why not just leave other people's efforts stand, and bolt something new you feel comfortable and safe on. Tom |
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Based on response alone, this it at least 7/10. But assuming Emily is sincere, this thread provides a nice snapshot of the spectrum while illustrating the big differences between a historical route put up on lead on one end, and a contrived rap bolted ego fest on the other. Always discuss with the FA and ideally any local climber groups if you are looking to make local “improvements”, but some FAs carry more weight than others, and ultimately it’s a shared resource that requires that unilateral actions be avoided. |
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I'm a bolt manufacturer so say bolt the shit out of it! Bolt at your waist means short people should be able to clip the next, it's all top roping right? On the other hand on the ca 1000 FA's I've done the number of bolts depends on my boredom level, how much battery I've got left and how near beer time it is. |
Emily Thompsonwrote: No it has to do with your experience. Which was the actual point of what i said. You are new and scared and your personal view of climbing, runouts, etc is very limited. In 3 years you will not see those as runout. You wont even register it because you will climb right thru that easy section with no bolt. Its supposed to be exciting and dangerous. Also 5.12 in Potrero. That's softer than the gym. Climb that again in 3 years and see what you think about those "grades". |
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Some future topics: Are trad routes even ethical? They're not inclusive for those that can't afford a rack of the Black Diamond spring loaded camming devices. And you don't have to clip the retro bolts. When will we get gym to crag bussing? Are approach trails that aren't ADA compliant ethical? Are all activities that are purely a personal choice and unnecessary in life, but hard or a little scary to me, ethical? |
Emily Thompsonwrote: Any doubt this was a troll is gone. But all the same I've enjoyed all the replies by developers. It's like 3D chess to work on routes. If you don't develop, it's easy to criticize what you don't understand. For example, rock isn't always monolithic and homogenous. We often can't put a bolt anywhere we want because 1) the rock quality might be poor there (but OK 3 feet away) and 2) the resulting rope line might dangerously go across a sharp feature. So yeah, not all bolt placements perfectly protect a fall, but there are usually reasons why. Thanks to all the developers out there following their visions. I've put up 10 routes at a crag in 2021. Rock quality has in general forced me to develop top down but the average resulting route has been about 1/3 bolted and 2/3 gear placements, so I have to think through the "safety" and "runout" issues on each route. I've put up some 5-8 and 5-8 routes with tighter bolting than if they were 5-10 because I want them somewhat accessible. But that wasn't because I felt "responsible" to the community, it was because I wanted to leave behind a few easier routes for newer leaders to have fun on. It was a choice, not an obligation, and I think that distinction matters. |
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Lots of long winded replies in here that boil down to this sage wisdom from the beginning of the thread Ry Cwrote: |
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Emily, the topic of runouts on traditional routes and retrobolting has been around forever. You’re going to get a lot of different answers as you can see. Asking questions and keeping an open mind without judgment is a good start, but only experience through time will get you to a better understanding of the complexity of the subject. And if you climb in a bubble (only sport, only trad, only face, cracks, safe, runnout or some narrow combination of factors etc...) you may never truly grasp the totality of the subject. You will become opinionated based on your experiences and may not have the empathy to respect the experience of others.
I wrote this in another thread a while back, but it bares relevance here and is only my personal take on runnouts and retrobolting. I’ve put up hundreds of routes, probably about 95% of them ground up and hand drilled on a stance. I’ve missed holds and made things harder for myself, dropped bolts, drills, wrenches, a hammer, ran out of bolts, hangers, been caught in hail storms while drilling on slabs, dead batteries, run out of water, daylight, motivation, funked a piton out that turned and stuck into my shin, had rockfall cut my rope and even had the end of my rope slip through my grigri when solo belaying out in the middle of nowhere leaving me unexpectedly free soloing some sketchy shit. Shit happens! I’ve run out a lot of stuff, sometimes through hard sections, sometimes terrifyingly so for one reason or another. Never because I thought I would be more bad ass or whatever. Just trying to get to the top. So when someone wants to retrobolt my routes, for whatever reason, I don’t have a problem with it. As long as they bolt it in the same way I did. If it was top down, then do what ever you can on rappel that makes it better. If it was ground up, then do whatever you can ground up. Sometimes the “best line” isn’t exactly the most “natural line”. It happens! But most of the time I try to let the rock dictate the route. I’ve passed up a lot of opportunities to place bolts and better protect a route for various reasons listed above. As for the sport routes, you have to take the style into consideration. Not all “sport” routes are the same. Some have supplemental gear that is just sketchy or hard to place (pseudo trad). Some are run out, but safe, just scary. Some are meant to be stick clipped, or bouldered using good judgment in competency. Some were put up by strong, experienced climbers who worked the moves by toproping the shit out of it before bolting and then sent on the first try, and some were put up by kids who don’t know jack about shit. It’s all relevant and takes good, sound judgment, by an experienced climber to make the call. A bit of communication goes a long way as well. |
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I would say with how much beta is out there (mountain project, guidebooks, social media, random people at the crag) it is easier than ever to find a climb / climbing area that fits your expectations. Sometimes I want to go sport climbing at an outdoor gym, full of closely spaced permadraws, and I bring my stick clip up a 5.12 so I can just play a cozy game of moving top rope. Other times I like to go to places like Tuolumne so I can get the elvis-leg 30ft runout on a 5.8 friction slab and forced to climb another 20ft to the next bolt. Both are fun and rewarding in their own ways. |
Tradibanwrote: So Dude- you’re still butt hurt because people won’t say “Please, Traddie- get out there and add bolts to 5.8’s that had the FA done in the Fifty’s by folks wearing hiking boots” Not gona happen my friend, go do your own roots, in Traddie style..... To the OP... I’ll say this- not all climbs need to be climbed by you. |
k twrote: Because creek grades vary super wildly. I have chonk fingers that have turned some off fingers super hard lines into perfect fingers and lowered the grade for me. I wouldn't say I ticked the grade in the book on that one or at least I wouldn't use it as I climb x grade To add it wouldn't be the first time I have seen people claim something is 5.11 but actually be 5.10 hand crack because their hands fit the crux. |
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Damn a lot of these replies are pretty harsh. Emily in my opinion there are a lot of routes bolted by climbers who climb much harder than the grade that results in unsafe, shit routes. As has been said on here, if the runouts are a couple of number grades below the route rating I think most climbers are ok with this, and it can be an enjoyable mental challenge. To me the most important factor is the safety of the fall, not the distance. If I’m going to huck into open air then I may be scared but am good with that. If it’s likely I’ll get hurt and am not sure if I could fall, I may back down, and let my stronger partners put it up. |
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The age-old topic that I’ve had a vested interest in but never had a chance to get in on the ground floor. I fully expect to get bashed but at the very least it’ll be a fun thought experiment. Since a common rebuttal in this thread is the lack of a concrete example, let me put one forth that I personally had to make a judgement call on. https://www.mountainproject.com/route/107045657/costanoan The backstory here is that I was looking for a super easy route to learn the logistics of multi-pitching so that my first time isn’t something at my limit. The Costanoan would have been a perfect candidate except for the fact that its second bolt on pitch 1 is a ground fall from 30+(?) ft up. Yes it’s a super easy climb that I’m sure I could have climbed without incident, but why bolt it in that fashion? It’s a 5.4, it’s nobody’s pride and joy going in the annals of their history as proof of their mettle. This isn’t a case of bolting someone’s decade long 5.14 project to make it more accessible to the masses or “dumbing climbing down to the lowest denominator”. I understand needing to learn the intricacies of trad climbing before having access to those routes, which is why I haven’t joined that realm yet or ask to bolt easily protected cracks. However, if 5.4 is not the grade at which you should be using to learn how to do bigger and better climbs, I’m not sure what else would qualify. Now if the FA had bolted it sparsely due to lacking funds/time/resources, totally understandable and I’m willing to invest my own resources. A quick search on various sites however will reveal that there is a rabid hatred against the idea of making it safer for beginning climbers. I’m not looking for spice in a 5.4 climb and I would find it hard to take seriously anyone who argues otherwise. At its core, the reason you add any bolts to a wall is to make it more accessible and protect against accidents, neither of which are reflected in this route. Secondly, I don’t understand the concept of “if you don’t like it find your own rock to bolt”. Near large metropolitan areas or locations that don’t require off-roading, how many “new” rock faces and crags that are easily accessible do people think are left? I somewhat doubt there’s unlimited Yosemites out there for new route developers to make their mark on. The idea that someone born 2 decades before another has forever ownership of a crag on public land is somewhat ludicrous and it’s odd the worshipping that occurs towards the FA-ists, without regard to who they are or their climbing/bolting philosophy. There’s a time and place to respect history and the whole “standing on the shoulders of those who came before”, but there’s no guarantee individual routes were bolted with any consideration in mind. If the first people who bolted NRG or Red Rock had done an exceptionally terrible job, are there that many people who are content to sit back and just be “well what can you do, they got here first so that’s how it needs to be forever”? How is it not logical to revaluate older accomplishments with today’s technology and knowledge with their efforts in mind and make it better? Historic buildings are often retrofitted to be safer by today’s standards while at the same time paying homage to its past significance; nobody says “well the chance for catastrophic collapse and death is just part of the charm!” |
