Last Exit

at the risk of resurrecting old ghosts.

was this the reference for the thread title? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Exit_on_Brooklyn

Not really although I did think of the book.  Haven’t read that since high school tho.  Here’s an exit to Brooklyn taken a few minutes ago.

That said this is always an important subject.  A couple weeks ago I received an email about the poor bolting on a route Terry and I did.  Turns out I could barely remember it and I asked if the top was easily accessed because I thought we left it as a top rope.  The reply was “yes, the top is easily accessed.”

why why why?  Surely modeling our behavior after the “Exits”  will unnecessarily limit our freedom in the future. 

Darryl Cramer wrote:

why why why?  Surely modeling our behavior after the “Exits”  will unnecessarily limit our freedom in the future.

You and Terry really should have bolted that top rope better, with glue in's, all four of them.

You have it right - Climbers today need to figure it out before it's gone.

This thread is like an old man yelling at clouds. It really lacks any coherent argument. You have failed to articulate any meaningful examples. The only example you have is a crag that no one goes to that was a tr crag and was bolted 20 years ago.

There have been maybe 100 climbs added to both index and north bend in the last 5 years. If you can’t list specific examples of recent cliffs and climbs then I don’t see why anyone would give your opinion any credibility or respect. People stopped responding because you lack the capacity to engage in meaningful conversation with dissenting opinions.

Old ghosts successfully resurrected

Chode Mega Fan wrote:

This thread is like an old man yelling at clouds. It really lacks any coherent argument. You have failed to articulate any meaningful examples. The only example you have is a crag that no one goes to that was a tr crag and was bolted 20 years ago.

There have been maybe 100 climbs added to both index and north bend in the last 5 years. If you can’t list specific examples of recent cliffs and climbs then I don’t see why anyone would give your opinion any credibility or respect. People stopped responding because you lack the capacity to engage in meaningful conversation with dissenting opinions.

I don't know that I agree with everything Darryl is saying, but his argument is both credible and worthy of respect and consideration, even if it's not particularly convincing to the typical sport climber of today. This guy has seen and done more than many of us will in our lives and has a perspective of what Index was like before rampant bolting. I think it's worth listening to and giving a level of respect even (and maybe especially because) it's not the prevailing notion of our time. 

In general, many of us have become desensitized to bolts on rock and don't question enough whether we're over bolting or if it's OK to just leave a few of the 1000+ routes at Index as top ropes. Personally I welcome the perspective because it causes me to stop and think.

Chode Mega Fan wrote:

This thread is like an old man yelling at clouds. It really lacks any coherent argument. You have failed to articulate any meaningful examples. The only example you have is a crag that no one goes to that was a tr crag and was bolted 20 years ago.

I'm that old guy yelling at clouds and telling you to get off my lawn.

So you think the increased scrutiny of climbing by government agencies is random and climbers are just victims.

Lot's of examples of climbing and specifically development being restricted because of a “hyper development” model.

Ben I’m not saying Daryl is wrong, he is just making a bad case for what he thinks. At some point he needs to actually provide examples.

Max Dufford wrote:

I'm that old guy yelling at clouds and telling you to get off my lawn.

So you think the increased scrutiny of climbing by government agencies is random and climbers are just victims.

I am not saying that. I am saying Daryl did not formulate an actual argument with actual examples. His examples actually prove contrary to his case.

Lot's of examples of climbing and specifically development being restricted because of a “hyper development” model.

List 10 examples of climbing areas that got shut down because too many bolts were placed in the last 10 years.

I’m not saying Daryl is wrong, he just failed to make a compelling case. Then he keeps acting like he made a compelling case. It reminds me a lot of how certain politicians make garbage points and then just keep saying they were correct.

Darryl Cramer wrote:

Just read this thread after a long break and thought I’d clarify a few things.  My primary motivation for posting wasn’t that people were being asocial jerks.  I was suggesting that the prevailing culture is one that will in the end be detrimental to the development of new areas.  Climbing has an impact on the environment.  ( As a side bar MP most certainly amplifies the perception of this impact )  I offered a modest suggestion to help reduce this impact and possible negative repercussions: 

Climbing is harmed by creating a new route by squeezing in a line of bolts.  It is often best to leave some routes as top ropes.  This is true on short crags with easily accessed tops but it is especially true on crags with a top roping tradition; however, many routes without walk up accessible anchors are also best left unbolted.

We don’t lose much personally when we climb with a little restraint and doing so will help keep the future of WA climbing alive.

In Washington the development new routes as a product originated at the Exits and then quickly moved to Vantage.  As Max noted squeeze jobs have become common in many locations. This only strengthens my belief that it is in climbers best interest to moderate their behavior.  Climbing should not be synonymous with hyper development.  The issue is not limited to specific routes but a mode of behavior.  If you concentrate on the margin (ie a single route) you’ll miss the forest for the trees.  It’s not a good guys versus bad guys scenario.

In my defense I did add a post clarifying a bit.  (see above)  

A T - I don't want to get into a tit for tat exchange but you clearly don't seem understand the gravity of the situation for climbing in the US right now. Government interests are now moving forward with banning bolting and bolts in general in Wilderness and WSAs. Climbers are a weak lobby and that will soon proliferate to restrictions on all BLM, Forest Service and National Park lands.

Hyper development may just be one route depending on the land manager in charge.

1. Bend Lava Tubes - Hidden Forest, etc. Area closed, bolts extracted, even bouldering banned
2. Massacre Rocks Idaho - Closed this year
3. Bighorn National Forest - Tensleep - Bolting ban
4. Bitterroot National Forest - Bolting ban
5. Daniel Boone National Forest - No outright ban but impossible hurdles to bolt

I could go on.

The concept that climbing is meaningfully ruining the environment is a major gaslight. There are well documented human activities actually ruining the environment, and neither climbing, bolting, nor any sort of recreational activity is on the list. 

A T - Sorry all of this is lost on you. Increases in regulation are here to stay and will result in less climbing for all in the US.

Hope your climbing life continues unicorns and rainbows.

Man this thread is such a bummer. I really think there's an interesting discussion to be had here, but instead of discussing the arguments there's just a lot of straw mans and ad hominems against some guys who are trying to help *in the crustiest way possible - all due respect Darryl and Max : ). Is bolting on the list of primary causes of climate change? Clearly not, thanks. Neither is throwing trash in the ocean, but it's still pretty shitty and has clear environmental impacts. Bolting is not the same as throwing trash, but it has impacts to micro ecosystems. 

I'm also not convinced that crag closures in the last five years in Washington is the best measure of success or failure here. The wilderness anchor ban proposal is one example as are other proposed legislation of other impacts we should care about, but there's also a  wilderness/aesthetic perspective to consider. If we were walking in the woods and saw someone had graffitied a rock or chipped a hold on a rock, many of us would be upset. However, we don't really see bolts on climbs that never get done the same way (for obvious reasons as climbers). However, it's not crazy to think that non-climbers (or climbers who were around before the 1980s) view bolts the same way as we view graffiti. 

One other thing I think about is the lifetime of bolts and the complications that bad/aging bolts will pose to climbers and land managers in time. Most sport routes in Washington have been put up in the last forty years and many of them were done with bolts that only last 20 years or so in maritime climates like ours. We haven't yet reached a point where there are hundreds and thousands of bad bolts in Washington waiting to hurt or kill people, but that point will likely come. At some point, it's going to be a problem that land managers are going to have to deal with and the more bolts there are the harder that problem is to manage. One could say, well that's what the ASCA is for they'll just replace them, but that would vastly overstate the amount of funding and capabilities that the ASCA has to address it. In my mind, it's reasonable to hypothesize that rampant bolting could cause major problems for access in the future, even if we haven't seen crag closures in Washington in the last five years. The end result I'd guess will be closures or bolting bans - hopefully I'm wrong.

In general, I will say again that I don't believe there are major problems with over-bolting in the places I typically climb in Washington. I'm mostly pro-bolts. However, I think the issues Darryl and Max are mentioning are worth considering and discussing with respect, because I feel like there are some truths to their argument that are being too readily dismissed. 

It is crazy to think that either Max (who I haven’t spoken to in ~ 20 years) or myself are against bolts is beyond crazy.  Both of us still climb (well I think he does) and just two days ago I sent a longtime climbing partner a picture taken last weekend at Banks Lake of a crag with new route potential that will require bolts.  My hope is that the freedoms we have today in WA will last long into the future.  More judicious use of bolts will not ameliorate all the problems inherent with new route development, but it will help to reduce them.  All climbers have an interest in making sure that climbing development is not synonymous with the Exits, Vantage or more recently Index.  While we cannot easily control crowds, we can easily control how we bolt with very little downside to our actual enjoyment.

T Taylor – I bit surprised by your comment.  I think I have responded to basic questions.  I have never said that all climbing areas are terrible or that any climbing area is terrible. I have said that we should NOT use the Exits as a template for development in other areas.  Mid-April I was bouldering in the Icicle.  End of April I was out at Exit 38, two weeks ago bouldering in Central Park, last weekend out at Banks Lakes.  Had fun every time.  To answer your question Lower Pratt isn’t hyperdeveloped.  

Bejamin – Not sure how crusty Max and I have been.

Chris C – The gaslight is suggesting we are claiming climbing is ruining the environment.  I think we aresaying climbers impact the environment enough to provoke a reaction from land managers.

Examples?  In discussions like these examples seem to often be a red herring or an invitation to start slagging someone on the internet.  The impact of development needs to be evaluated in its entirely and not reviewed route by route. I’ll offer some examples with regard to routes I was involved with.  

Princely Ambitions Direct Start –

35 years ago Nicola and I put up a direct start to Princely Ambitions.   At the time of the FA there were hardly any bolts around.  Last year a friend and I walked by, and I wondered aloud why it was not rebolted and climbed.  My friend said simply: “squeeze job.”

Shader - The goofy chains on top of shader. To be clear I helped place them.

Pretty Vacant – To my way of thinking the new bolts (Bottom 3) at the start do not add to the climbing experience but do equal too many bolts on a small section of rock.

Universal Language –   Originally a TR.  I was in favor of adding a few fixed pieces but my partner simply said “It’s a top rope.”  A few years later it was climbed as a lead route with one fixed pin.  Now it has 6 bolts and an anchor.  The bolts didn’t generate traffic keeping it clean.  There is a tree on top that requires a 2-minute approach.  

Darryl Cramer wrote:

Bejamin – Not sure how crusty Max and I have been.

My bad Darryl, it was mostly intended in jest. I was really just trying to call out that there seems to be a generational divide on this and that the arguments don't seem to be very effective at convincing either side. 

For what it's worth, I don't know that I or anyone has claimed that you're anti-bolts entirely (although I'm not going to read through the entire history of this thread). The issue isn't so much: yes bolts ever or no bolts ever, but really how much bolting is best and when/where should we do it. All I can really say conclusively to that is that everyone has a different opinion on where that line is.

Anyway, just wanted to apologize for calling you crusty - it was intended in good fun, but probably didn't land as I'd hoped and is antithetical to my thesis of giving these arguments respect. I'm probably gonna ignore this thread for a while, but will look forward to its resurrection in the next 6-12 months.

Be well y'all.

Ben jamin wrote:

 I was really just trying to call out that there seems to be a generational divide on this and that the arguments don't seem to be very effective at convincing either side. 

Ben Jamin -   Think about a mutual friends of ours  consider again about that "generational divide". :)  

Chris C wrote:

The concept that climbing is meaningfully ruining the environment is a major gaslight. There are well documented human activities actually ruining the environment, and neither climbing, bolting, nor any sort of recreational activity is on the list. 

Cows really bug me and I come from a ranching family from the 1800s on the Grand Mesa in CO. Let's agree that climbing is benign in the scope of environmental impacts, but we are weak as a group because we are not unified.

T Taylor wrote:

Max/Daryl, if you guys cannot respond to basic questions how do you expect anyone to listen to you. Listing one newly developed crag that isn’t hyper developed can’t be that hard. I think there has to be one somewhere in Washington? Or are all the new climbing areas terrible?

I think the issues are indeed generational but we the old farts might be looking at a bigger picture. You can't just look at one crag as a problem. We now have the overlords of government land looking at everything we do. When I saw in print an inventory of all wilderness sport climbs (bolt counts and descriptions of non documented routes) from Mt Charleston to Red Rocks I knew this wasn't a bluff. This is from the BLM not one of the agencies currently proposing wilderness restrictions. 

I was discussing our latest potential new routing woes with members of our local OCD group (Old Climber Drinking). In SLC most of the areas east of town are on Wilderness land (LCC, BCC American Fork, Unitas). Because of good relationships with local land managers and precedent I don't think much will change, but one has to be aware of ones impacts. We all want to find the next great local crag and not cause a ruckus.

I think Daryl and I would agree we had the run of the space of Index, Leavenworth, the Cascades, etc. The shit we got away with just wouldn't fly today.

Please do give an Amen or a healthy shot to Stim Bullitt and others for making Index a protected sanctuary managed by the state.

Darryl Cramer wrote:

Chris C – The gaslight is suggesting we are claiming climbing is ruining the environment.  I think we aresaying climbers impact the environment enough to provoke a reaction from land managers.

I don’t disagree with you, I think we’re just having two different conversations. You’re talking about the here and now, and I’m talking about the bigger picture.  I think both conversations are valid.

And I don’t think it’s the climbers doing the gaslighting, it’s the government doing the gaslighting. There is literal industrial scale mining and drilling being done on public lands. And yet the public land managers are giving climbers hard times about bolts.