Climbing video with 1.5M views in 2 days

You’re right. I shouldn’t have assumed anything. I was debating what I assumed was your point of view. I don’t know you obviously so I wasn’t attacking you as a person, just the ideas that were presented. When I asked “how many people YOU willing to gatekeep”, I was trying to present an imaginary scenario in which you were a climbing guide, I wasn’t questioning your actual character. Sorry for the confusion. I stand by the point I was trying to make minus the assumptions I made about you.
It’s a hard subject to debate because it’s a vague concept and we’re both probably imagining different things. My bad. 

Ethical guiding is neither.

Daniel Shivelywrote:

You’re making a lot of assumptions about how I operate and what my intentions are. You’ve also missed where I said that “some” guiding may not be ethically appropriate. I also acknowledged that ethical guides and guiding does exist, but I guess your emotional lack of comprehension prevented you from remembering this. I don’t discount the positive impacts of nature and climbing but that doesn’t cause me to ignore the possibility and reality of unethical behavior. I certainly don’t include being discreet about pot smoking or choosing to smoke as a “bad“action either. It’s weird for such a freedom loving open minded individual such as yourself to believe this. Also, I’m not personally “gatekeeping” anyone from doing anything since I don’t guide people for profit on public lands.And over my 30 plus years of climbing, I have introduced many to our activity to include taking a friend up the Muir Wall for his first experience in Yosemite. I have also taken two respected co workers and friends up the Triple Direct as a gift for their years of mentorship.  What have you done to foster a love for climbing, climbers and people in general? My position is simply that not all reasons for hiring a guide seem ethical to me, and that possibly other people who enjoy climbing have a similar opinion, and a willingness to have a calm and open conversation hardly rises to a level of “fear and hate”. I don’t fear or hate anyone or anyone’s ideas and your comments reek of a projection of your own values and narrow view of the world. 

He's making assumptions and throwing some serious psychobabble/online speak sprinkled on top. Whatever is firmly in the middle of what either of you THINK you're arguing against is probably the right answer. Oy vey.

Another ethical question for you guys - is it okay for guides to take people with zero mountain skills and lacking fitness up popular, chossy alpine routes? My partner and I were almost killed by a guide’s client who was dropping multiple huge rocks straight at us.

In an area that should be shared and respected by all, is it ethical or fair that people without the requisite skills to safely partake in that environment  be allowed to endanger others simply because they have enough money?

Daniel Shivelywrote:

See my reply to Big Country above.  And consider that your attempt at stifling conversation is not a good look and illustrates your authoritarian tendencies. And what takes place on public land is mine and everyone’s business. 

Authoritarian haha right. You don’t get to tell others what to do AND THEN turn around and say THEYRE authoritarian. 

Tony Danzawrote:

Authoritarian haha right. You don’t get to tell others what to do AND THEN turn around and say THEYRE authoritarian. 

Please quote from this thread where I told anyone what to do, aside from suggesting having a conversation regarding what constitutes ethical guiding practices , and asking you to look at my reply to BC, and asking you to consider how your attempt to stifle conversation is an indicator of your authoritarian tendencies. Also consider that your deflection is another method used by authoritarians to avoid conversations that THEY don’t like. 

Jon Hartmannwrote:

Who are you or anyone to have the right to determine the motivation of the of the client and attach your ethical code to it?

I'll point out you never answered this. Basically the 1st and most important question.

BigCountrywrote:

I'll point out you never answered this. Basically the 1st and most important question.

It’s called vetting, and guides already do this when ascertaining what climbs are appropriate for their prospective clients. Do you think that guides just hang around cliffs then someone hands them money then points at a climb grunting in an interested manner prompting the guide to fix ropes for them? 

An example of this is as follows. I knew and was friends with Fred Beckey, we climbed together when he was in his 80’s. Fred was still an ambitious climber but his age was catching up with him but his motivation for certain routes was strong, and he wanted to climb some specific routes to finish a book project he was working on. One route in particular was “Lucky Streaks”. This is a very classic and popular route in Tuolumne Meadows. Having climbed many routes with Fred including Cucumbers, 5.10 on the Cardinal Pinnacle, I knew that climbing “Lucky Streaks” with Fred would probably require one or maybe two bivies. I’ll freely admit that the idea of hanging out with Fred for a couple of nights on the Fairview Dome was appealing in a weird way, but I ultimately decided that it would be unethical for me to facilitate this ascent for several reasons to include inconveniencing other climbers with our portaledge and hauling. Fred was a bit frustrated with my decision but our friendship and partnership remained strong until his passing.

It’s clear that I understood Fred’s motivation for wanting to climb “Lucky Streaks” and I did in fact determine that no matter his motivation it would be unethical for me to guide him up that route. I hope that this story can help you to understand the concept that I’m alluding to. It’s really not that complex and already takes place in most guide/client interactions. 

Fred Beckey and my dog Bear psyched for climbing at Rock Creek, California. 

As a footnote to my story, I believe that Fred Beckey should be credited with the oldest top rope ascent of the “Advanced Rockcraft Arete” on Grandpa Peabody, and the downclimb of the Sunshine boulder at  the Buttermilk main area. He was 84 at the time of these climbs. 

Edit to reply to Jon: once again you are making assumptions about my decision about “Lucky Streaks” and Fred. We actually climbed the first pitch of “Lucky Streaks” and with all due respect to Fred, it really took the piss out of him. Some other climbers present thought it was semi cool but most seemed to think my actions were bordering on elder abuse. As you can see in my photo his skin was really thin and due to him being on Prednisone he bled easily and sometimes profusely. When we climbed ”Cucumbers”, at his stubborn insistence, he became so exhausted that I practically had to carry him down the talus. Cucumbers is a 350’ climb. Lucky Streaks is a 600’ climb with much tougher climbing than the single 5.10 pitch on Cucumbers. I knew Fred’s limitations and in some ways understood them possibly better than he seemed to at times. I happily accepted all of the responsibilities of climbing with an old legend. He often told me that he was happy to still be climbing, but didn’t want to die doing it. Conversely, when we climbed together on single pitch routes and top ropes at the Peabodies, he seemed psyched and well within himself and every person we met thought it was cool and enjoyed the interaction. Back to Lucky Streaks, the potential inconvenience had nothing to do with my decision, it was more about respecting others and Fred. While your rose colored hypotheticals sound good, you should consider the reality of Fred passing away mid route and necessitating a rescue and impacting any climber present. I mean, we are talking about a man who already lived well past average life expectancy, so I don’t think my caution is overly negative or unreasonable. So to answer your question, my ethics start with an honest assessment of the climbers motivations that I learn from talking with them, it’s not some feeling or guess on my part either, coupled with an understanding of their physical capabilities, and whether the impact to other climbers and the cliff will be a net positive or negative for climbers and climbing in general. If this is too much to expect from a guide, then yeah an examination of their ethics seem reasonable.

Edit to reply to Big Country: read my reply above for a more detailed explanation of what I call “vetting”. No, I’m not a certified professional guide, but I have facilitated a lot of climbing for inexperienced people. What guiding certifications have you earned? It seems like a pretty involved process and I never had the required time to do it.

Edit to reply to Jon: once again you missed a key word “several”, and for me, inconveniencing others experience is an ethical consideration, and I didn’t change my reply, I added context to expand on my previous reply. Your assertion would be accurate if I changed my initial reply but I didn’t. I replied with the additional information here because I’m limited to 3 posts per day per thread.  What are your thoughts on my answer to your question responded to in the penultimate sentence of my previous reply? I’m genuinely curious and interested in if you believe that any ethics exist in climbing or guiding.

Daniel Shivelywrote:

Please quote from this thread where I told anyone what to do, aside from suggesting having a conversation regarding what constitutes ethical guiding practices , and asking you to look at my reply to BC, and asking you to consider how your attempt to stifle conversation is an indicator of your authoritarian tendencies. Also consider that your deflection is another method used by authoritarians to avoid conversations that THEY don’t like. 

I’m not stifling anyone’s conversation. I’m not an authoritarian, far fucking from it my friend. I’m further left than you can possibly imagine. I’m just saying it’s none of your f’ing business what the reasons behind someone’s desire to climb or hire a guide. You can talk about it till the sun goes down for all I care, but I’m not valuing your input one iota. Just like with the Joe baker guy you’ve referenced. I think what he’s doing with his kids seems pretty lame, but it’s also not my concern what he does with his kids, or if he hires a guide or whatever.

Did Fred hire you to be a guide, have you ever worked as a guide? BTW I was a guide for a number of years. 

And to simply say "vetting" is a weak ass answer

Tony Danzawrote:

I’m not stifling anyone’s conversation. I’m not an authoritarian, far fucking from it my friend. I’m further left than you can possibly imagine. I’m just saying it’s none of your f’ing business what the reasons behind someone’s desire to climb or hire a guide. You can talk about it till the sun goes down for all I care, but I’m not valuing your input one iota. Just like with the Joe baker guy you’ve referenced. I think what he’s doing with his kids seems pretty lame, but it’s also not my concern what he does with his kids, or if he hires a guide or whatever.

It wasn’t unethical to take Fred up Lucky Streaks. I’m sure I’m assuming too much but it seems that it was just inconvenient for you and you didn’t want to deal with communicating with other parties that they should pass at the next belay station. Fred had a right to climb anything he wanted and hauling up a portaledge would be an inconvenience for others to navigate. Other people also would have had the privilege of meeting Fred on the route, you would have had the privilege of helping an older man accomplish something he only had a few more years to do. People would have had crazy stories of the guy who was biving on Lucky Streaks etc. So if it was a decision you made on ethics, you had it all wrong. You shot down so many positive interactions because of your “ethical” decision which again I’ll call it out that you were actually concerned with being an inconvenience to others and not willing to confront those situations as they climbed behind or around you. Do you think it’s unethical for an extremely slow party to clog up a route? I don’t think it’s unethical, it just sucks for the person behind them but that’s happened to all of us and we’ve all learned from it. Your definition of ethical needs to be defined better if you want to use it as an argument point. Please define your ethical code so that we all know what your talking about in order to eliminate miscommunication.

• P.S. I also climbed with Fred Becky in Joshua tree, we climbed the moose dog tower and during the climb, which took two hours, he changed his shoes and took a nap on the route. Other people were also wanting to climb the route, but as soon as they saw that it was an older man having a good time on it they were all extremely happy that he was on the route and went off to find something else. No unethical behavior there. If nothing else people were impressed and happy that he was climbing it. So same person, similar situation, different results because I didn’t shut him down for “ethical” reasons.
  (Hey Andy. To alleviate your assumptions I actually climbed with him. He camped with our group on New Years of 2007. I didn’t make up a fake story to prove a point. It was an entirely relevant story since it was a perfect juxtaposition to Daniel’s story. Thanks for calling me a troll though)

I watched the video.  

The "bonus climb" at the end was kind of funny.

"This is my Russian girlfriend, who lives in Dubai."

Who's going to tell him?  

I must not feed trolls.

I must not feed trolls.

I must not feed trolls.

I must not feed trolls.

I must not feed trolls.

I must not feed trolls.

P.S. I ALSO climbed with Fred.  At Index.  So I'm cool too.

P.P.S. Ok, fine, I didn't climb with him.  But he was at the crag.  And we talked for like 20 minutes about sandwiches.

Every time 'ethics' discussions come up, it's like stepping in a pile of dogshit. No matter how hard you try, you can't seem to get all of it off your shoe.

Tony Danzawrote:

I’m not stifling anyone’s conversation. I’m not an authoritarian, far fucking from it my friend. I’m further left than you can possibly imagine. 

How I'm picturing you now

guiding schmuiding did anyone see the hiking assist exoskeleton guy was using

Daniel: “but I ultimately decided that it would be unethical for me to facilitate this ascent for several reasons to include inconveniencing other climbers with our portaledge and hauling” 

So weird that I “assumed” that you were thinking it was unethical to inconvenience other climbers. It’s almost like I read what you wrote and responded to it. Remember everyone, the key to debating an argument is to change or add facts after you’re called out.

Okay okay.  0 more comments from me. 

Pretty funny video, very YouTube. Peeing upstream of the bow hunter dude was pretty funny!

Chris Mwrote:

How I'm picturing you now

Haha hell yea