Advice for trad first ascents?

David Gibbs wrote:

King Tut, I don't think most of us are arguing that the "testpieces", that the "crux cutting edge" climbs were put up un-cleaned ground-up.

We're arguing that there are a lot of trad FAs put up that are done ground-up, uncleaned.  BUT these are not "cutting edge climbs".  

When we're saying "we've done a bunch of ground-up un-cleaned FAs" and we don't think we're unusual, we're not (generally) talking test-pieces for ourselves, or for climbing at the time.  

And I don't mean to suggest that you haven't done what you have stated.

My posts were in response to Ted Pinson's who suggested there was a strong "ground up" ethic in Yosemite which, while true for face climbs not needing cleaning, was rarely true for any of the famous hard crack routes.

The days of Royal and Liz Robbins doing the Nutcracker one afternoon through dirt are gone, all those routes have been done in the Valley and Meadows. But people are still doing new routes in the High Sierra Backcountry that can be done no other way than in the best Alpine style...but are rarely the combination of dirty and hard.

FAists mostly recognize that if a route isn't cleaned up it will never get a second ascent until enough time passes that it gets "rediscovered" by another would-be FA party.

If you want it to get done by others it has to be cleaned. 

If you are seeking only your own adventure, have at it. :)

King Tut wrote:

FAists mostly recognize that if a route isn't cleaned up it will never get a second ascent until enough time passes that it gets "rediscovered" by another would-be FA party.

If you want it to get done by others it has to be cleaned. 

If you are seeking only your own adventure, have at it. :)

Oh, absolutely, if it is going to get climbed again in any reasonable time, it needs to be cleaned.  I've gone back and cleaned some of the routes I did ground-up; others were an interesting adventure, but ended up not being worth the effort of cleaning.

Well. We have one other option, if you are geologically patient, and prepared to be bold: one of our new routes locally is a crack climb, revealed when an entire face fell off! New rock!

Best, OLH