Red Tagging Sport Routes

Shane,

Most bolted climbs are put up by 5.12+ climbers. This might add one more reason that you might pass on something w/ a red tag. It could keep your precious ass from being embarrassed or even injured. Try to find a bit of respect for those that provide you with the safety of climbing there in the first place.

Does it every occur to any of you self absorbed bottom feeding twits that unless someone(read not you) hadn't taken the time and spent the money to clean and bolt that route, there wouldn't be a route for you to steal the FA on in the first place!!
Without all the guys and gals that put these routes up, you would be doing nothing but top roping for the rest of your climbing career. (Trad climbers not included)
I've done hundreds of FA's, sport and trad, over the years and I've never red tagged one of them. But I damn well respect a red tag when I see one.
There's plenty of other routes to do at the local crag, you should be able to stay off the red tagged one until the person who bolted it red points it.
How about showing some frigging respect and demonstrating some common courtesy for all the folks that put up the routes you get to climb for free!!

P.S. When the red tag has turned a light pink it's probably time to let someone else nab the F.A.

Jimbo wrote:Does it every occur to any of you self absorbed bottom feeding twits that unless someone(read not you) hadn't taken the time and spent the money to clean and bolt that route, there wouldn't ..... P.S. When the red tag has turned a light pink it's probably time to let someone else nab the F.A.

Exactly. Well said.

You sport climberz is funny. Everybody knows the only reason you do a first ascent is so's you gets to put your clever name on it like "Dick's Amazing Woody", or "Mines Bigger Than Yours".

The latter name probably refers to ego, not gear.

Shane Z wrote:...Shouldn’t the bolter of the route offer the first ascent to whoever is capable of leading it even if they can’t? Seems like the most civil and gracious thing to do rather than placing a red tag on the first bolt and claiming a route for yourself in an established amount of time before someone else makes an attempt.

By all means...feel free to start doing that after YOU have bolted a route.

As for me, I still respect the red tag on others routes, because I know what a job it is to put a new route. Respectfully honoring a red tag and respectfully opening up a project that has sat too long and could be done by someone else is what I practice...

I frequently offer the FA to whoever is there with me that day helping me out. Mike Carrington actually has an onsight FA of a .10B of mine, how oftetn do you think a sport route gets an onsight FA?
For the most part, the Head Crew engages in reserving the FA to the primary hardware provider who in turn also has to actually place them bolts. Its a courtesy we share, and it gets a little funny when you have to kind of nag that person to get it done so you can get on it too.
But with sport routes, it is really a minor distinction. Funny how we have developed these nefarious rules over time.
Occasionally, I'll find a face at or above my ability. Then, it becomes a personal project. I like the idea of nailing the FA, but the simple act of sending it is really the achievement, not necessarily the timing of when. Thus, I personally don't red tag it once its fully ready to go. If someone comes along and does the route while I'm away, how would I even know they did it? Likewise, how would they know they actually got the FA unless they are really dialed into the developing crew. There's bolts up to an anchor already there.

Sport Climbing is neither. Take your time and money and buy trad gear and a hand drill. Put in bolts when needed and anchors if necessary -ground up. It may not go all free but you get the FA. And if somebody comes by feeling randy, by all means let 'em have a go at it. If they get the FFA then so what. If you want it that bad then put up routes within your limit or go so far back in the deep that only you and your team know where it is. If your bolting routes at a established crag, 90% of the time its either a squeeze job or a link up. And if you come across some red tat on a bolt, that is littering plain and simple. A better plan would be to just remove the first bolt all together, because you are probably rap bolting with a power drill anyway. Nobody had this conversation 30 years ago. Blame it on gyms and poster children. If your goal in life is to FA clip ups then take up golf.
PS If you hand drill Sport routes ground up then, this rant is not meant for you.

Respect the Red Tag (for a season).

Why?

-Sport routes take time and effort to put up. If the person who put in the effort to bolt it wants a season to get the FA, you should be respectful of that wish. Without people putting in time and effort to bolt routes, you wouldn't get to go sport climbing.

-If you think FAs don't really matter (and thus feel no need to respect someone's desire to do an FA), then why waste your time trying to climb a red-tagged route first?

-If the route has a red tag, you didn't come to the cliff to do that route. Why change your plan for the day?

-If you have done every route at the cliff and are really bored, you have several other options:
a. put up another new route of your own
b. give the bolter some belays on his project and kindly ask if you can try
c. wander around in the woods until your find your own secret crag that will keep you entertained for years to come

-If you hate all of this sport climbing nonsense, go climb a crack or a boulder. Those shouldn't have any red-tags.

-Come back next year and give it a go!

In the event that none of this makes any sense to you, you most likely have a superiority or entitlement complex. I would suggest volunteering for a local non-profit or taking up bouldering.

KHall wrote:Sport Climbing is neither. Take your time and money and buy trad gear and a hand drill. Put in bolts when needed and anchors if necessary -ground up. It may not go all free but you get the FA. And if somebody comes by feeling randy, by all means let 'em have a go at it. If they get the FFA then so what. If you want it that bad then put up routes within your limit or go so far back in the deep that only you and your team know where it is. If your bolting routes at a established crag, 90% of the time its either a squeeze job or a link up. And if you come across some red tat on a bolt, that is littering plain and simple. A better plan would be to just remove the first bolt all together, because you are probably rap bolting with a power drill anyway. Nobody had this conversation 30 years ago. Blame it on gyms and poster children. If your goal in life is to FA clip ups then take up golf. PS If you hand drill Sport routes ground up then, this rant is not meant for you.

Lame.

J. Albers wrote: Lame.

Yeah maybe. But I don't piss and whine if someone else gets my FFA. Or post up and spray about the ones I get. Or steal somebody's route. Or call somebody lame for their personal view. All FA's are a lot of hard work trad or otherwise and nobody deserves to have their work stolen.

johnL wrote:This is retarded. It's a bunch of people who've probably never drilled a hole and certainly never put up a sport route trying to tell the (few) people who actually put in the routes. Basically there are two things. -The bolter climbs way the fuck harder than you so you're not going to get anything done on his tagged route. -The bolter found a pristine crag in the wilderness somewhere and is ticking them off before going public. There just isn't a bunch of "project 11a's at your local crag. You aren't going to find a bunch of routes that you, n00b, can get up that still have the red tag. The occurrence of strong climbers sniping red tagged routes is extremely rare and almost always has underlying issue. Still, this retarded thread makes me glad that there is a climbing community of 10 here.

excellent

I would actually respect the climber who says "Sport climbing is neither" if he/she could actually climb all of them without much effort. But that simply isn't the case, is it? To bolt or not to be sat here in this country for 5 years before an american could do it. I didn't see anybody hiking that as if it were beneath them at the time. Where were all of you strong trad climbers then? I'll tell you where.....hiding on some classic trad route that has a 1 hour wait just to get on it.

to me, red tags simply mean "work in progress". that can be interpreted however you like. whether the bolt equipping is incomplete, more cleaning, or just that the developer is "testing" out the fall zones, clips, etc.

the "respect" everyone mentions, is allowing the special connection between artist and his piece before its opened to the public. (it would kind of be like if someone else blew out your birthday candles before you share the cake with everyone at the party). if you put up enough routes you will know what i mean. and if you put up enough hard routes, you will understand this intimate journey (from initial vision to first redpoint).

i dont think it really has anything to do with "first ascent" - by the mere fact that most sport routes are rap bolted (except for the steep ones), its really recognizing the equipper/developer is working on it. i dont think red tags have much to do with the first-free-ascent either. if its closed off as "project" and only one or two guys are even trying it, there is not really a competition or glory for the "first" (Mike Lane's post was well put). but rather, gives the route developer the first shot at the proj in its virgin state.

Sure you could ignore the red tag, but you should be ready to pay for the hardware, and the man-hours spent equipping the route, and then maybe tip the equipper if it is a good route. I think this would make my last sport route I put up be worth somewhere around $500 (not including tip).

In the end, if someone were to steal the FA, what incentive would I have to ever put in this kind of time and effort?

Coeus wrote:In the end, if someone were to steal the FA, what incentive would I have to ever put in this kind of time and effort?

The enjoyment of hours spent in the harness and the creation of a new route?

Or maybe its just about having your name down as the first person to climb up some rock somewhere. No matter how you slice it rock climbing is kind of a dumb pursuit that we all, for some reason, enjoy. Lets not make it out to be more or less than that.

This thread is sooooo 1992!

Seriously, I would much rather people spend this much time considering if the "super-classic" choss heap they are bolting is actually adding something to the crag, or in fact detracting from it. Most routes put up these days, especially in 'rado fall into the latter category.

Unless you climb 5.14+, it is highly unlikely that you have uncovered some primo new line that dozens of other developers didn't already pass up. Is it wise to lower the standard so far just to get your name attached to a shitty route?

Mike A.

You have got to be kidding. CCC has just begun to be developed, and that's just the start. Glenwood Canyon is in it's infancy. Probably tons to do in Black Canyon. Not to mention crags that aren't even touched yet. How many crags like the Fortress of Solitude are out there and not even been touched yet. I use to think the same way as you about 20 years ago. That was before most anything in Upper Dream Canyon even existed.

......Let's read it again....

Brian Abram wrote:Edited: If you put a red tag on a route just to keep people off your project, you are a giant douche. You should probably make it one of the first things you tell people when you meet them, so that they don't waste time talking to such a horribly dorky douchebag ball sucker. If you climb a route with someone else's red tag on it, knowing it was placed there to guard the FA, then you're a douche the likes of which is rarely seen in the real world. You're truly a douche's douche, a go-getter douche, the kind of douche Godzilla would use if he for some reason grew a radioactive vagina and then wanted the only douche big enough to clean him out. If you get the FA on a route only because you didn't allow anyone else to try it before you, then it is not an accomplishment. If you put a red tag on a route, you think a contrived FA will be something worth having. Douche. If you find a red tag on a route you've never seen before, why would you take away some other douche's goal in life? You haven't climbed everything else available to you. If you just happened by it, you were going somewhere else to climb anyway. Move on, douche.

Jim Gloeckler wrote:You have got to be kidding. CCC has just begun to be developed, and that's just the start. Glenwood Canyon is in it's infancy. Probably tons to do in Black Canyon. Not to mention crags that aren't even touched yet. How many crags like the Fortress of Solitude are out there and not even been touched yet. I use to think the same way as you about 20 years ago. That was before most anything in Upper Dream Canyon even existed.

Oh, I see now. It's not that the developers lack restraint, it's that they don't know what "choss" is.

A sport route should not change during every ascent, or need buckets of glue to hold it together. Holds should (ideally) not crumble in your hand.

Mike Anderson wrote:it is highly unlikely that you have uncovered some primo new line that dozens of other developers didn't already pass up.

ya sure about that? ;)