Mixed climbing wisdom

[pigsteak]

COOL..thanks for the history lesson. We sporties can get so myopic and self important at times. Good to know there are old curmudgeons like you still around to school us

One more question. If I place gear on lead, and then sit on it to drill my bolts, is this considered a trad lead?

[alien2]

if you have nuts on the wall what would they be?
wallnuts

if you have nuts on your chest what would they be called?
chestnuts

if you had nuts on my chin would the be called?
chinnuts


hell no boy ud have a dick in ur mouth.

[rhunt]

great history lesson L K Day.

We can continue with...then came Smith Rocks and rap bolting....nothing more to say after that. It's all just climbing now.

Pigsteak...answer to your 'ground up" lead question. Sure why not.

[ynot]

You have to think about it in terms of numbers. With the pursuit of higher grades came a decline in "ethics". Won't be long and it will be cool to clip preplaced trad gear.

[L K Day]

Piggie, remember what I said about blurring the lines? Certainly it would be possible to put up a route in "trad style" (even if it's big wall aid style as you described it) that everyone would recognize as a sport route. Lots of bolts have been placed on big walls while hanging from a hook. Nobody would call the resulting route a sport climb, even after someone frees it. Put up a line of bolts on a short overhanging crag, and everyone will see the result as a sport climb when it goes free, no matter how you put it up.

[rhunt]

You have to think about it in terms of numbers. With the pursuit of higher grades came a decline in "ethics". Won't be long and it will be cool to clip preplaced trad gear.

Wasn't it cool like 20 years ago to clip pre-placed gear on the hard "trad" routes at the Gunks? Isn't that how much of those hard lines went up? Clipping pre-placed gear is so Lynn Hill circa 1989.

[rhunt]

so it seems "sport climbing" has more to do with how big the cliff is than if the route is all bolts. I guess I can agree. Piggy and I did some long routes in a mexico that were in my mind trad lines with bolts.

Game Boy at Long Wall, is that a "sport" route or a "trad" route with bolts?.

[L K Day]

rhunt, I don't know when the term "sport climbing" first came into vogue. But, for sure, people had been sport climbing for a long time before anyone labeled it as such. Looking back, those short fierce free climbs with pre-placed gear were the first sport routes..., first ones in America anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if visiting climbers brought the term with them from the limestone crags of Europe. Or maybe it's a homegrown term from Smith Rocks, anybody know?

Generally, sport routes will be short, steep, and have pre-placed pro, pro that was placed on rappel. Most of the world's routes that are currently at the upper limits of the best climbers ability will be sport routes.

Trad routes can be short or long, low angled to overhanging, easy to very hard, have pro that was placed on lead, whether that pro is gear, bolts, pins, or any combination of these. The bolts on trad routes will frequently be very far apart. At least a few of America's best face climbers could stand on 5.10+ nubbins, maybe harder, and drill holes in the hardest granite with a hammer and hand-held drill. Anyone that can stand for twenty minutes on minute holds and drill earns full style points in my book. Trying to carry this approach to overhanging pocketed walls (drilling by hand whiles hanging from a sky hook) would just be silly.

[Shamis]

I think mixed routes are typically put up by cheap route setters. Or avid trad climbers who don't like death.

I love sport climbing, but if a route can be safely done on gear by a climber who normally climbs at that grade...then perhaps it should be left alone.

I don't mind bolts, but the rock doesn't exactly heal itself, so a little reservation about bolting seems like a good thing.

[anticlmber]

I don't mind bolts I love sport climbing,

I think mixed routes are typically put up by cheap route setters. so a little reservation about bolting seems like a good thing

but if a route can be safely done on gear by avid trad climbers who don't like death, a climber who normally climbs at that grade... then perhaps it should be left alone.

the rock doesn't exactly heal itself,

I don't mind bolts I love sport climbing
.

Is thas what you meant to say? So... if you get there first is what it comes down to. You run up to it, bolt and call it good. An 5.X climber, (who only uses bolts) can bolt a crack, (blasphemy, well maybe not) then that route is being done by someone who climbs at that grade with the gear THEY use. Why should trad climbers get all the fun? Talk out of one end or the other, not both.
.

[ynot]

It'sa moral delima sometimes. All those R and X routes could be made safe with the addition of a couple bolts, but then you violate the style that they were established in. At the same time very few people are going to get on what may be a great route.
I got off route one day and ened up on one of Haas's routes at Purgatory. It was sweet, So I rapped down and started up it. I took the nasty swing into the death boulder when I peeled. I still want to climb that thing. It's just a cool route. I dream of better pro.

[rhunt]

then again if we add bolts to these X and R rated climbs we wouldn't need to open up new cliffs every year just to make room for all the new climbers coming to the Red. We could leave these virgin, pristine cliffs alone and make more room at the already exciting overpopulated cliffs.

Just another way to look at it.

[anticlmber]

Or people can just suck it up or climb something else. Climbing, (and some climbs)like so many other things, aren't for everyone.

[rhunt]

tell that to the gym bred climbers that flock to the Red every spring...

[pigsteak]

why you hatin on the money makers rhunt?