Who is allowed to be a developer?

Good question.  Sounds like a burgeoning opportunity here.  Some new org or existing org (AMGA, etc) will create a “certification” program.  Akin to an SPI cert.   an SDC (site developer certification) will be a weekend training course on proper equipment, drilling and installation techniques, accepted ethics, yadda yadda to ensure uniform and minimal stds are met.  Public land managers will require it to bolt on public land.   Probably cost $300-600 bucks for the “cert” to be a “developer

I just started (like just now) the “American Safe Climbing Institute (ASCI)” not to be confused with the work of the legit American Safe Climbing Association (ASCA), which dropped the ball by not overreaching their charter or mission and just going for the authoritarian power grab of offering “certifications”.

Think ahead and Subscribe now (limited time only) for only $50 to get your SDC card (and frameable certificate) and become a member of the ASCI, and be considered a real “developer” (you will be grandfathered in for any future legislation or federal rules).  

Will you teach the "How to chisel without getting caught?" class? How about the "Unauthorized Trail Building" course? Or my favorite, "Glue Slather Hacks"

T Dwrote:

I already did those routes 30 years ago, trust me

On lead, ground up, from stances, hand drilled. But I ended up just continuing to run it out until I got to the top and still hadn’t placed bolts

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

Will you teach the "How to chisel without getting caught?" class? How about the "Unauthorized Trail Building" course? Or my favorite, "Glue Slather Hacks"

Those topics are covered in the “Advanced certification course” 

That requires online training, another Saturday of field work, and of course, another $395.00

curt86iroc wrote:

I mean, you can make fun of certifications all you want, but this is how the world works. You wanna be a guide? Certification. You wanna drive a car? Certification. You wanna be an engineer? Certification.

There is logic in this approach…

Wanna buy a gun?

Curmudgeon Donwrote:

Wanna buy a gun?

I wish there was some logic applied to this

The actual reality is you could place a bunch of terrible bolts in rock not near anything else and no one would notice. Realistically if you go HAM over the course of a weekend you would put in maybe 3 routes. No one goes to crags with 3 routes. No one goes to obscure crags. Your not going to cause access issues because no one is going to care. People bushwack for mushrooms. Hell people constantly illegally cut down christmass trees.

People pretend that every possible new crag could create access issues. If you know who the land manager is and the rules to the respective area the chance you create access issues is effectively zero. Please give me an area where someone installed three terrible routes that could have had amazing climbing if the bolts were not installed poorly and the trail didn't suck. If anything good routes cause access issues since land managers generally care way more about traffic than some measly bolt in the woods. 

People are beggy choosers when it comes to routes. They want perfect hardware, perfect trail, perfect belay area, the perfect climbing experience without doing any work. It is nuts. There are a million garbage routes out there yet only new garbage routes get people worked up. Then when you do build a belay ledge you will get flamed for "altering nature."

There is no winning because people want to justify their laziness with protecting access.

You sound cranky, bro. Cheer up!

Mark Pilatewrote:

Good question.  Sounds like a burgeoning opportunity here.  Some new org or existing org (AMGA, etc) will create a “certification” program.  Akin to an SPI cert.   an SDC (site developer certification) will be a weekend training course on proper equipment, drilling and installation techniques, accepted ethics, yadda yadda to ensure uniform and minimal stds are met.  Public land managers will require it to bolt on public land.   Probably cost $300-600 bucks for the “cert” to be a “developer

I just started (like just now) the “American Safe Climbing Institute (ASCI)” not to be confused with the work of the legit American Safe Climbing Association (ASCA), which dropped the ball by not overreaching their charter or mission and just going for the authoritarian power grab of offering “certifications”.

Think ahead and Subscribe now (limited time only) for only $50 to get your SDC card (and frameable certificate) and become a member of the ASCI, and be considered a real “developer” (you will be grandfathered in for any future legislation or federal rules).  

For $25 the newly created slightly lesser well known slightly less safe alternative to the ASCI - the  Professional Climbing Institute Developers Association (PCIDA) not to be confused with the PCIA, will give you an official digital certification proving that you're a super legit but slightly less legit developer. and for a limited time, we will even waive the $80 annual fee if you buy in the next 30 seconds! 

*Certificate sent as an editable .docx file as we haven't figured out how to send PDFs. sorry for the inconvenience.

I’ll take the George Carlin school of thought on this. You should have the right to do anything you want. I should have the right to kill you if I don’t like what you’re doing though. 

Irreverent Bastardwrote:

As long as you’ve looked hard for any claims to the area and there isn’t any, I see no issues. Even then, in all reality who has priority over you anyways. Just because someone has spotted it or been a local for x amount of years doesn’t mean it’s theirs to develop. The person who deserves to develop an area is the one who goes out and puts in the work. However, since you are visiting, don’t just blot the thing without developing a climbers trail, belay ledge, and a poor cleaning of the route. Bolting is the easy part… Treat it like your own home crag. All that said I would look into the local practices with hardware and what not and try to keep with their standards, unless they’re garbage (**cough** **cough** wedge bolts).
anyone should be stoked they get to climb a new route! 

Now that we have tools like the YABR, I'm a fan of wedge bolts (where appropriate.)

Tal Mwrote:

Everyone says this and I’m fairly convinced it’s 100% BS at this point. The amount of virgin rock still even around the Front range is jarring. The same holds true in developing as it does cragging - if you’re willing to hike a bit, you’ll typically avoid people. I’ve found multiple entire areas with super quality lines that were untouched and <=25 minutes away from the nearest trail/parking area in the last year alone.

They came, they climbed, they left no trace so the next person 25 minutes from the car could feel the same. Its a pretty amazing system actually!

From personal experience learning to develop routes on a finite resource, just know whatever you do do out there probably won't be judged by the masses until at least a few years have past. Prepare for any backlash from events that may have occurred years prior while "learning" to develop. 

The world is your oyster.

I guess it kinda depends on how good you are at it.  I mean in't this exactly what sponsors pay for some of their athletes to do? Think about it, gear companies help fly people around the world to film them find and develop new crags or put in lines at already existing crags.  Often this results in great benefit to the local community, although sometimes it results in a half finished line of bolts sprayed across a roof like the Sharma project at drive by in the red.

M Mwrote:

They came, they climbed, they left no trace so the next person 25 minutes from the car could feel the same. Its a pretty amazing system actually!

Blown away they were able to do so on 100ft 5.11 face climbs - I guess they were just built harder back then

Tal Mwrote:

Blown away they were able to do so on 100ft 5.11 face climbs - I guess they were just built harder back then

Ain't that the truth! They certainly weren't groomed in the gym to carry cordless drills to go climbing. I can't count the amount of times I've been on what I thought was virgin rock only to find some old piton or some old rusty 1/4" er.  Then of course you gotta ask yourself if anyone else is ever going to want to hike up that hill to climb it or am I just high on the thought of "developing".

Tal Mwrote:

Everyone says this and I’m fairly convinced it’s 100% BS at this point. The amount of virgin rock still even around the Front range is jarring. The same holds true in developing as it does cragging - if you’re willing to hike a bit, you’ll typically avoid people. I’ve found multiple entire areas with super quality lines that were untouched and <=25 minutes away from the nearest trail/parking area in the last year alone.

I know routes I did in poudre canyon, cochise stronghold and NM, including 2 whole areas with dozens of routes each, 1980 and 1990 have been claimed by others as first ascents and developed long afterwards.   We did all the routes ground up without bolts now all those routes have bolts, some are sport routes with many bolts.  When I noticed this happening on mountain project I started making a joke that I need to put a bolt on a route to mark, as in a dog marking his territory, as mine.   Today I don't really care but it is likely true that someone else was there long before. The beauty of a purely trad routes, especially if not reported on mountain project or in guidebooks, is that subsequent climbers can have the 1st ascent experience.   Locally most new routes are marked as FKA (first known ascent) because is has become clear that most of the routes 5.11 and easier were done earlier (1970/1980s).

Edit, fixed FNA to FKA thanks to Colonel Mustard.  :)  I am next to illiterate after all.

Edit, Even when I did the routes in poudre canyon and the stronghold I did not believe that they were 1st ascents.  To see those routes claimed as 1st ascents 20 years later is jarring. 

Me waking up, and not seeing a reply from Tradiban after calling out his hypocrisy.

Montoya and Pat - I appreciate your response but I was being sarcastic. It’s not difficult to know which routes have or have not been done before based off the style and difficulty of climbing, the quality of rock and amount of cleaning required. I don’t believe the amount of completely unprotected and undocumented 5.11/+ routes done in the 70s and 80s is in more than double digits nationally, despite the vocal, crusty narrative about it. Especially when these are 3 and 4 star climbs, fairly close to the road, that we’re supposedly FAd by the same people publishing and protecting their dogshit routes 30++++ minutes from a road. I’m sure you both have had routes you did retroclaimed as you mentioned but acting like it’s some sort of epidemic happening in America is laughable.