First ascenders!

I spent the last month climbing at Tensleep. I like the area and the climbs are pretty fun. One thing I did notice though was that there were a lot of poorly drilled routes that really distracted from the climbing. For example, the person drilled the bolts where he wanted the route to go but the route simply just did not naturally go there so now you have to climb the route and traverse three or 4 feet left and right to clip the bolts. The bolts are not permanent and they could be pulled and moved but the first ascenionist should realize that they simply made a mistake and the bolts need to be moved. Don’t you have a responsibility to do a good job?

On another but similar topic I climbed a few routes where the threads of the bolt were sticking proud of the nut by an inch or an inch and a half. Now I can’t imagine that this is a well-placed bolt and I certainly can imagine a rope getting looped over those threads and causing serious damage.

Again aren’t you first ascensionists supposed to be proud of your routes? It’s traditional to ask the first ascensionist if bolts can be moved or replaced. Therefore the first ascensionist has some level of ownership of the route. If you have ownership of the route shouldn’t you all also have some sort of responsibility for the route?

Did you reach out to any of the Ten sleep locals?

There are very few "locals" and most vanlifers treat TS like cheap beer.

That place is a bolting timebomb.  Ive rebolted several routes there and almost every 5 piece broke upon extraction.  Not to mention the sketchy grooved out cold shuts.  

Not very many early routes were established in Stainless in TS and that canyon certainly sees some moisture. 

With the development ban in place hopefully Louie and team CO are taking this moratorium to fix old hardware.  I bet they are, they're an ambitious group.

The Bighorn Climbing Coalition is a great organization and may even have hardware if your interested doing the work.

Additionally if you want to "fix" bolts in bad places just go for it when you upgrade the hardware... its pretty freaking far from a ethical stronghold.

What Morse said, Mark. if you want to fix it, go right ahead. And that means relocating bolts.  

Also, the Hiebler ascender was the first mechanical ascender.

Tim Stichwrote:

What Morse said, Mark. if you want to fix it, go right ahead. And that means relocating bolts.  

Also, the Hiebler ascender was the first mechanical ascender.

Whoa, cool! 

People there are more concerned with putting their name on a cliff than taking the time to really focus on the natural line and obvious clipping stances. Quantity over quality. It happens everywhere though. There are countless sport routes that would benefit greatly from a complete make over. Someone is always going to hate you though when you start moving bolts on a "classic" 

Mark, I agree with you, and I've seen those issues in many places.  

Most of the issues you mention are due to laziness.  It takes a lot of time and a lot of work to produce a quality route.  It also takes time, and work, to learn how to do it right.

The rest of the issues are due to selfishness.  The FA is putting the route up for themselves and not the people who will climb it afterwards.   And BTW, the common whine of "It's too expensive" falls under selfishness.

In defense of the ten sleep developers, some of those routes may have evolved over time. I could see a lot of the classics on Shinto climbing differently when they were first put up/bolted than they do now, so some of the issue may be that the bolts followed the original line but now most climbers go out left or right as holds broke or new holds were discovered.

Routes like Wyoming Flower Child really highlight the issue. That thing is considerably more difficult with the bolts where they are and not in line with the climbing.