Hot Takes 2024

grug gwrote:

I don't understand the mindset that EVERYTHING has to be bolted to the lowest common denominator of risk. Can you please explain?

Because that mindset isn't very far from thinking every route needs bolts 3 feet apart and you might as well be top roping at that point.

Note the location of the user….Bay Area. All coming together now?

I've never bought the slippery slope (heh) argument saying that adding safer bolting eventually leads to bolts every 3ft apart. I recently did my first go up Shagadelic, and though the first bolt off the deck was spicy and the rest of it I was scared during, I recognized that it was very safely bolted at ~10-15ft apart. I think 99% of the community would quickly put down any potential <1% who would say otherwise. Snake Dike too, I think there's a reachable, acceptable number of added bolts that could make it Not-R, without devolving into "every 3 ft", that we could as a community could get behind. 

My Hot Take: The up-to-date info, maps, pictures, recent ticks and trip reports make mountainproject a more valuable tool than guidebooks which say "normal rack, rap anchor, techy 5.9".

(Caveat that guidebooks are great and I have several)

Jacob Mintzwrote:

My Hot Take: The up-to-date info, maps, pictures, recent ticks and trip reports make mountainproject a more valuable tool than guidebooks which say "normal rack, rap anchor, techy 5.9".

(Caveat that guidebooks are great and I have several)

Another hot take: Guidebooks are a dying art, and should serve a critical purpose of providing only the necessary information about the climb itself (general grade suggestion, route location, necessary protection, route length) while providing maximum information on area history, beta on non-climbing local surroundings, stoke building via glamor shots, and general entertainment.

Online databases provide an insane amount of information that often cheapen the feelings of adventure/discovery at best, and at worst, alter the sport to a gym climbing experience with beta videos and descriptions of specific sequences, highlighting of the route holds via chalk, etc. I’m not making a value judgement on the indoor climbing experience, just pointing out the loss of the historic “outdoor climbing” experience.

Good guidebooks thread the needle between “completely useless” and “overly useful”, assuming a certain level of survival instinct and skills of the climber without making it a full blown FA imitation

Any fixed gear in Eldorado Canyon should be replaced by a bolt.

Jacob Mintzwrote:

I've never bought the slippery slope (heh) argument saying that adding safer bolting eventually leads to bolts every 3ft apart. I recently did my first go up Shagadelic, and though the first bolt off the deck was spicy and the rest of it I was scared during, I recognized that it was very safely bolted at ~10-15ft apart. I think 99% of the community would quickly put down any potential <1% who would say otherwise. Snake Dike too, I think there's a reachable, acceptable number of added bolts that could make it Not-R, without devolving into "every 3 ft", that we could as a community could get behind. 

My Hot Take: The up-to-date info, maps, pictures, recent ticks and trip reports make mountainproject a more valuable tool than guidebooks which say "normal rack, rap anchor, techy 5.9".

(Caveat that guidebooks are great and I have several)

NO. NO. NO. Snake Dike does NOT need more bolts. Its NOT for entry level 5.7 climbers

Its not a slippery slope argument. People who support More Bolts Everywhere seem to be intolerant of the idea that there are people with different levels of risk acceptance. And at a certain point its borderline laziness if you refuse to search out climbs that fit your skill and risk acceptance.

9 pages to get to bolting snake dike? Impressive.

Hot take: Comp style coordination dynos are real climbing and people who say otherwise are just yelling at clouds.

I've drilled by hand several times. It's a pain. It's not really an excuse to put up poorly protected stuff. Less closely bolted than you might otherwise? Sure. Dangerous? No.

I don't agree any excuse is needed whatsoever.

grug gwrote:

NO. NO. NO. Snake Dike does NOT need more bolts. Its NOT for entry level 5.7 climbers

Snake dike is totally fine for entry level 5.7 climbers. As long as you’re solid on 5.2 X it’s pretty safe. 

Hart Fuffer wrote:

Not having a beta video, and then another one 'for the tall peeps', and then another one for 5'2" negative ape index shorties, and then another one that skips the hard move, and so on, forces you to figure it out yourself; and it's extremely rewarding.

For what it's worth, you could just not look at those videos and be rewarded with the same experience even on popular crags. I don't browse Instagram much, use guidebooks just to locate climbs, and that's about it.

Won't stop someone from spraying beta in-person though, I guess.

F r i t zwrote:

Gym bolting outdoors is a disservice to all. If you can clip two bolts from one stance, they're too close.

Touché. 

I recently added a bolt on a route to make it safer for the person leading at the grade. The next weekend a very tall friend clipped it and the one beneath it from a single stance. I was deeply ashamed. Have offered to remove the lower of the two, but there isn't much enthusiasm for that. However, you have my permission to do so. It would be an honor.

With you in spirit, Fritz.

grug gwrote:

NO. NO. NO. Snake Dike does NOT need more bolts. Its NOT for entry level 5.7 climbers

Its not a slippery slope argument. People who support More Bolts Everywhere seem to be intolerant of the idea that there are people with different levels of risk acceptance. And at a certain point its borderline laziness if you refuse to search out climbs that fit your skill and risk acceptance.

"More Bolts Everywhere" is not the same as making safer the ONE moderate route up (one of) the most photographed natural features on the planet. Last I remember reading (though the sources seemed fuzzy), one of the original FAs said they placed what bolts they had, had planned to add more bolts themselves, and had okay'd someone else putting more in. I would love an extra bolt here or there on the R routes I've led/been led up - there's really fun climbing to be had that I'm much less likely to do because the likelihood of death/injury is high (something I generally try to avoid). But I wouldn't advocate for those to have added bolts because I can understand that mental challenge can go hand-in-hand with route difficulty (and to some extent history too). I'm stoked to work up to the day I can have the mental headspace to lead Aqua Knobby; following it a few weeks ago was a blast.

Snake Dike is different - people come from all over the world to climb in Yosemite, some literally just to climb half dome. As much as you may yell "it's not for entry level 5.7 climbers", budding 5.7 climbers will try to climb it and potentially get in hot water. No one is advocating for making the climbing itself any different - the rock is still the rock and the movements and difficulty will be the same. An "R/X" of any difficulty for a highly trafficked route of that magnitude is just silly. Looking at MP's Classic Climbs (1000+ votes), there's gotta be some correlation for why SD is one of the only ones rated R and the other 99% are not.

At the end of the day, my voice here matters little. I haven't put in the time to learn how to drill / glue bolts (I appreciate those who have). And I am not in yosemite every day or every weekend to be part of the decision-making crew. So don't worry, I'm not about to go start adding anything to anywhere.

tl;dr: Whatever route developer's do / have done to prepare a route, I'll be grateful and it is what is. But if I had a vote in the matter, Snake Dike would have a few more bolts since it's vastly different than all the other R rated climbs out there. Back to your hot cakes.

Israel Rwrote:

9 pages to get to bolting snake dike? Impressive.

Hot take: Comp style coordination dynos are real climbing and people who say otherwise are just yelling at clouds.

Does this mean slab is not real climbing? Cause I can get on board with that 

grug gwrote:

I don't understand the mindset that EVERYTHING has to be bolted to the lowest common denominator of risk. Can you please explain?

Because that mindset isn't very far from thinking every route needs bolts 3 feet apart and you might as well be top roping at that point.

Where in my post did I say things should be bolted to the lowest common denominator, let along "EVERYTHING" as you so boldly capitalized? I explicitly stated that spacing things out even a bit more than you might otherwise when hand drilling. That's absolutely not common denominator. If you look back you'll also notice that I suggested old runout routes should stay as they are. No need to go back and grid bolt Yosemite Valley. Putting words in my mouth much?

John Clarkwrote:

Note the location of the user….Bay Area. All coming together now?

Here's the real hot take. Yes, everyone in the Bay Area climbs like a bunch of babies, obviously. I can just file your opinions away as "ignore from now on". Go back and critically read what I said again. Where did I suggest things need to be extremely closely bolted?

Natalie Blackburnwrote:

Here's the real hot take. Yes, everyone in the Bay Area climbs like a bunch of babies, obviously. I can just file your opinions away as "ignore from now on". Go back and critically read what I said again. Where did I suggest things need to be extremely closely bolted?

I know, I used to live in the bay. Lot of hard climbers come out of there, but some stereotypes exist for a reason.

You never explicitly say “shit needs to be 3ft apart”, but you do make an allusion that the comfort of any climber coming to a route should not be disturbed by the spacing of protection.

Natalie Blackburnwrote:

Here's the real hot take. Yes, everyone in the Bay Area climbs like a bunch of babies, obviously. I can just file your opinions away as "ignore from now on". Go back and critically read what I said again. Where did I suggest things need to be extremely closely bolted?

It's a very subjective term that can't be defined here and you know that.  What you may deem a very appropriate amount of bolts, others may see as over bolted, and others may still find sections that they deem scary or dangerous.  What bugs me about this sentiment and why I'm chiming in here again after many other threads is the tone of entitlement that always comes from the "there's no need for run out climbs anymore" crowd.

Most of us agree that routes that get developed top down shouldn't be dangerous in general, I'll leave that alone.  Routes that go up in a true ground up style (regardless of how the bolts go in) are fair game for however the FA wants it.  Their experience trumps all those that come to the route after.  The old guys putting up heady routes weren't just doing that cause they didn't have bolts, or cause they were on easy terrain.  There's a hefty amount of rock climbs that sport run outs on hard climbing. Sometimes the crux of the route.  There's lots of reasons this can happen but one of them is that the party was looking for a mentally engaging experience.

I'm probably 60/40 these days on which end I start on a new route but every once in a while I want to get out there and vision quest.  And if anyone doesn't come and repeat it because it's outside of their risk tolerance, I don't care at all.  Top rope it. find another rock climb.  There's plenty of routes that I'll never do because of those reasons, and I don't deserve to at my current level either.

You, me, and everyone else that goes rock climbing aren't entitled to climb every route, or climb at every area.

Natalie Blackburnwrote:

 Where did I suggest things need to be extremely closely bolted?

When you said "putting up sparsely protected routes in the modern era is ridiculous" 

Jaren W wrote:

What you’re quoting here is not the equivalent of saying every route needs to be extremely closely bolted.

See nuance, people. It exists, even if we have to squint.

What I'm quoting is someone saying exactly what they're saying

Let's get this thread back on track

HT: if you aren't bouldering regularly, you aren't really trying to get better. That goes for you too trad climbers. 

Connor Dobsonwrote:

Let's get this thread back on track

HT: if you aren't bouldering regularly, you aren't really trying to get better. That goes for you too trad climbers. 

Exactly, because bouldering is training. Also why if I send a boulder on TR I’m counting it. The only reason to boulder is to get better at climbing so if the pro is pads or a rope as long as you’ve done  the moves you’ve accomplished the goal.