[Stu Littlefair]

Your comment about inefficient use of resources highlights precisely the gulf between us (as you know, of course). To me, the countryside is not a resource we should be exploiting. It's a beautiful place which it's a privilege to go out and explore, and we should be careful to leave it as we found it so far as we can. To me, sticking a line of bolts up a cliff because you can't climb it otherwise is simply ludicrous, exactly on a level with leaving crisp packets behind.

Thanks for the reply John.

I'm interested in that paragraph. Of course, as you say, we all feel like that; it's just a matter of degree perhaps, and a difference about what we consider 'serious' littering. After all, we're both prepared to accept clifftop erosion and chalk as inevitable consequences of our climbing. If you had to list your reasons for disliking bolting in order of importance; would the damage to the natural environment be #1? I ask because it often seems to me that, first and foremost, anti-bolters dislike the idea of bolting and what it says about the nature of climbing, but perhaps express it as a form of environmental stewardship.

It's interesting because I can easily accept the former point of view as totally valid, if different to mine. The latter seems riddled with inconsistencies, both in thought and deed. Why so opposed to bolts, and not chalk? Chalk is more prevalent, is used to get you up things you couldn't do otherwise and does permanent damage to the rock. If you don't believe the last point take a look at the 'great white stripe' down Crescent Arete sometime. Likewise, Des Hannigan makes a massive play of how Cornwall's sea cliffs are a wilderness area that should remain inviolate. Given the importance he puts on this, why wasn't a more thorough job done of cleaning up Carn Vellan? I know it's a point raised before and won't get us further along. I know it might be that it was too hard, or that he's a busy man and it would have taken too long. It just makes me think that the environment argument is a red herring, and something more fundamental lies underneath it. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Thanks for posting, by the way. My impression is that the amount of unauthorised bolting is on the increase and I think friction between pro-bolt and no-bolt lobbies is going to increase in future. Maybe some action 'within camp' to clamp down on things like the rebolting of GiantSlayer might mitigate the pain of accepting sports routes at Carn Vellan?

[jcm]

>You are seriously comparing serial overgrader, liar, chipper, cheat and bullshit artist Medwards with Jerry

I don't see what many of those descriptions have to do with it. I thought I read you saying that Monster Munch couldn't be 8b+ because on the video of it ME was displaying poor footwork. I'm just pointing out that that isn't a very reliable criterion for grading routes, nor indeed climbers, because if you watch someone who obviously was very good, he doesn't look that stylish either.

Presumably quite a lot of people have been on Monster Munch, after all? Admittedly a lot of them Edwards acolytes, but still, it would be interesting to hear from someone else who was on it,

[jcm]

If I can pick up on this point I think this represents an overly precious view of the countryside (not untypical of townies). It also doesnt have the ring of truth given the pegs, tat and dare I say it chockstones left by trad climbers not to mention the gardening that goes on to unearth routes or even whole crags - all visually altering the rock in a litter-like manner. Both sport and trad climbs are artefactual. Sometimes that has visual consequences sometimes not. The visual aspect is a minor one in stirring emotion. Bolts are rarely easily picked out by the non-climber unless they are pointed to in the right direction. Its the climber who will pick them out and their visual impact will raise hairs on the back of the neck (of the anti-bolter) because of what they represent far more than as a pure eyesore. Chalk is many times over the most apparent visual pollution but embraced by sport and trad climbers alike.   
[/quote]

Blimey, Simon, I had no idea you were such a horny-handed son of toil yourself. Anyway, I'm afraid I can't be bothered to reply again to the other-climbers-have-placed-pegs-in-the-past-so-bolts-must-be-OK argument, nor the visual-impact straw man.

[jcm]

>Back a page or two: "Clearly all that's needed, tedious though it would be, is some tighter definition of who is and who isn't entitled to vote on this sort of stuff, based on location or whatever."

Oh, sorry, was that supposed to be a serious suggestion? I missed it.

Surely before Carn Vellan was debolted there was an area meeting at which it was decided that there should be no drilled placements in Cornish sea cliffs. I'd say that was pretty consensual. Clarion Call by comparison was rebolted within about five minutes.

Like Stuart I'm getting rather unclear now about the timeline on this (a familiar feeling when listening to Edwards apologists, of course). Can someone tell me if this is right?

1990 Meeting declares no bolts on Cornish granite

1991-3 Carn Vellan bolted

1993/4/5 Meeting declares no bolts on Cornish sea-cliffs. '100-signature petition'; second meeting declares no bolts on Cornish sea-cliffs.

1995 Bolts chopped.

2005 Monster Munch re-equipped by unknown climbers (is their identity public knowledge? Those involved seem to know it.)

2005 Car from Bristol decides further meeting which decides no more bolts on CV (and existing should be removed?

2005-10 Were they removed? If not then MM is still presently available and Jasper can nip down there and downgrade MM himself if he wants to.

Is that about right?

[Paul B]

Blimey, Simon, I had no idea you were such a horny-handed son of toil yourself. Anyway, I'm afraid I can't be bothered to reply again to the other-climbers-have-placed-pegs-in-the-past-so-bolts-must-be-OK argument, nor the visual-impact straw man.

Firstly, maybe at least you can be bothered to read and apply this? It really isn't that complicated and pressing the preview button before you post will allow you to rectify your quoting errors instead of posting post after post of unfathomable mess.

Maybe if you can't be bothered to humour Simon's point with a reply others won't be so bothered to hear your 'Guardian of the unspoilt countryside argument'? I can see a flaw in it, but then again that'd just be whining.

[jcm]

Stuart

I wouldn't even say it was the damage to the natural environment exactly, so much as the gratuitous nature of it. The pomposity, the self-obsession, the sheer absurdity of taking a drill to a cliff in order that you can climb up it, when there are so many cliffs to climb without doing that. To me it's got very little to do with the nature of climbing; if cliffs existed with bolts already in them, that would be fine.

After all, presumably you wouldn't like to see Stanage bolted. Why not?

Chalk is obviously deplorable too, and I didn't use it for many years, (nor did some famous anti-bolters of course). But nobody's perfect, and in the end you just give up when it's so apparent that the damage is being done anyway whatever you do. And as perhaps you know, climbing chalked holds without chalk is much more unpleasant than cllimbing unchalked holds without chalk.

I didn't think Des Hannigan actually did the bolt-chopping, but as I say I never understand this point. To me the visual aspect of the thing is a very small part of it, a straw man invented by bolters. The main point is the drilling; you can never undo that and whether you leave some metal or spend ages trying to get it out when you're no expert and may just leave even more unsightly holes in the rock isn't really the point. As I said in the first place, criticising those who cut the bolts really isn't going to help; considerably better would be to go and remove the stubs. Did the people who rebolted Monster Munch remove the old stumps, I wonder? After all, it would have far easier for them to do so with the new bolts in. If not, it wasn't very adroit of the 2005 probolters to publish pictures of the stumps and complain about it.

It would certainly improve relations generally if bolters could be persuaded not to carry on unilateral bolting outside the agreements. Unfortunately those who do these things seldom identify themselves (or perhaps they do, 'in camp'?), and in view of the BMC's present policy of teaching all and sundry how to place bolts and paying for them to do it with my money, without as far as I can see any sort of education at all on where they ought to do this, I don't see much hope of restraining it. On the contrary I think it's set to increase markedly.

Small trivia question, by the way, has any bolter at any time ever removed his own bolts once it was found that they were outside the agreed areas (except for the purpose of climbing their own route without bolts to show how clever they are, of course)? I can't think of one.

I will make a small prediction based on what I've seen on this thread, and that is that if the vote does go the bolters' way this time the bolts on CV will be chopped again. In fact, I wonder if those so minded shouldn't simply announce that that's what will happen and that no further debate will be entered into. It might save some trouble.

By the way, do you really think CV would be the end of it in Cornwall, if it were bolted? I don't. Four sport routes of 7c+ up, wet for most of the year?

[jcm]

>Firstly, maybe at least you can be bothered to read and apply this? It really isn't that complicated and pressing the preview button before you post will allow you to rectify your quoting errors instead of posting post after post of unfathomable mess.

I'm afraid I can't, actually. I'm posting on a website forum, not taking a GCSE in computer programming. Every other forum I post on has a intuitively operable system, and this one should get one too.

>Maybe if you can't be bothered to humour Simon's point with a reply others won't be so bothered to hear your 'Guardian of the unspoilt countryside argument'? I can see a flaw in it, but then again that'd just be whining.

Many people have replied to it before elsewhere on many occasions, and frankly everyone who has any interest in this topic knows the answers to it.  Anyway, you didn't think my reworking of it in my post gave you a tiny clue?

[account_inactive]

This would seem to be more of a rock atrocity no? Our impact bolting these cliff's falls into insignificance when considering our impact elsewhere.  It's worth stepping back a little bit John.

EDIT: This forum software if probably the most common forum style.  Hardly too much to ask that you learn to use it properly

[jcm]

Depends who you mean by 'our'. If you mean that humanity does other things I deplore to other cliffs (and indeed in contexts other than damaging cliffs at all), then naturally you're right. But that's just Simon's whataboutery; it's never an answer to being told you shouldn't do bad things to say that other bad things happen.

I don't know what forums you go on, but 've never seen another forum that has a load of program code appear on the screen when you try and quote someone else's post. It's absurd.

[account_inactive]

You know exactly who I mean by 'our'. 

Nice to see Stanage hasn't been bolted yet and our youth still know how to use nuts

[saltbeef]

wibble, wibble, wibble

I can use this stuff and i'm a fucking luddite. grow a brain.

can't see myself climbing at carn vellan. if it was bolted i might visit. (and i pick up litter.)

[ferret]

It's absurd.

u could alwaysgive up posting if its that irritating, doubt u'd be missed too much

[jcm]

>You know exactly who I mean by 'our'. 

I don't actually; I've no idea what you mean.

[tomtom]

Stuart

I wouldn't even say it was the damage to the natural environment exactly, so much as the gratuitous nature of it. The pomposity, the self-obsession, the sheer absurdity of taking a drill to a cliff in order that you can climb up it, when there are so many cliffs to climb without doing that. To me it's got very little to do with the nature of climbing; if cliffs existed with bolts already in them, that would be fine.

After all, presumably you wouldn't like to see Stanage bolted. Why not?

Chalk is obviously deplorable too, and I didn't use it for many years, (nor did some famous anti-bolters of course). But nobody's perfect, and in the end you just give up when it's so apparent that the damage is being done anyway whatever you do. And as perhaps you know, climbing chalked holds without chalk is much more unpleasant than cllimbing unchalked holds without chalk.

I didn't think Des Hannigan actually did the bolt-chopping, but as I say I never understand this point. To me the visual aspect of the thing is a very small part of it, a straw man invented by bolters. The main point is the drilling; you can never undo that and whether you leave some metal or spend ages trying to get it out when you're no expert and may just leave even more unsightly holes in the rock isn't really the point. As I said in the first place, criticising those who cut the bolts really isn't going to help; considerably better would be to go and remove the stubs. Did the people who rebolted Monster Munch remove the old stumps, I wonder? After all, it would have far easier for them to do so with the new bolts in. If not, it wasn't very adroit of the 2005 probolters to publish pictures of the stumps and complain about it.

It would certainly improve relations generally if bolters could be persuaded not to carry on unilateral bolting outside the agreements. Unfortunately those who do these things seldom identify themselves (or perhaps they do, 'in camp'?), and in view of the BMC's present policy of teaching all and sundry how to place bolts and paying for them to do it with my money, without as far as I can see any sort of education at all on where they ought to do this, I don't see much hope of restraining it. On the contrary I think it's set to increase markedly.

Small trivia question, by the way, has any bolter at any time ever removed his own bolts once it was found that they were outside the agreed areas (except for the purpose of climbing their own route without bolts to show how clever they are, of course)? I can't think of one.

I will make a small prediction based on what I've seen on this thread, and that is that if the vote does go the bolters' way this time the bolts on CV will be chopped again. In fact, I wonder if those so minded shouldn't simply announce that that's what will happen and that no further debate will be entered into. It might save some trouble.

By the way, do you really think CV would be the end of it in Cornwall, if it were bolted? I don't. Four sport routes of 7c+ up, wet for most of the year?

John, can I say that your post above (quoted) was very good - and conveyed your views well. I can see where you're coming from (I think) and agree with some of what you have said. But you've posted some real reactionary tripe earlier in this thread - which makes it hard to take you seriously...

Might it be an idea to leave or move this bolting/no bolting debate to UKC? where this type of debate is more commonplace - and this is after all a Bouldering forum (I know - theres lots of cross over/people who do both etc..). 

Finally, from a more Geological perspective, lets not be so naive (nay arrogant?) to presume that we are spoiling these environments forever by adding little bits of stainless steel to them.. sea cliffs will erode and tumble.. gritstone outcrops will weather and erode.. they are all just transient landforms... I'm not advocating do what the feck you want at any crag - as I dont want to see accelerated erosion spoil them uduly (e.g. southern sandstone) but lets get some perspective. If a block or chunk of cliff  comes down ruining a line etc.. (which happens regularly at sea/mountain cliffs) we dont all throw our arms up in the air and start blaming people etc.. its what happens..

Lets just remember that people do things at Stanage edge that I think are far more intrusive/damaging/unsightly than fixed gear...



 

Note - wishing to avoid the hate mail/terror campaign that may come with even vaguely suggesting by loosest inference Stanage should be bolted, I would like to point out that I was being hypotheical - and I had my fingers crossed.

[remus]

Small trivia question, by the way, has any bolter at any time ever removed his own bolts once it was found that they were outside the agreed areas (except for the purpose of climbing their own route without bolts to show how clever they are, of course)? I can't think of one.

Gibson on Lundy. Do i get a prize?

[jcm]

I don't know what forums you go on, but 've never seen another forum that has a load of program code appear on the screen when you try and quote someone else's post. It's absurd.

It's called bbcode. Once you realise that the text you're doing something with has to have a [whatever] before it matched to a [/whatever] after it, it's very simple. I post on five climbing forums fairly regularly and only one of them doesn't have bbcode (SuperTopo).

UKC doesn't.

[account_inactive]

I don't know what forums you go on, but 've never seen another forum that has a load of program code appear on the screen when you try and quote someone else's post. It's absurd.

I post on five climbing forums fairly regularly and only one of them doesn't have bbcode (SuperTopo).

[jcm]

Small trivia question, by the way, has any bolter at any time ever removed his own bolts once it was found that they were outside the agreed areas (except for the purpose of climbing their own route without bolts to show how clever they are, of course)? I can't think of one.

Gibson on Lundy. Do i get a prize?

I don't think so. Doesn't he come under the climbing-his-own-routes-without-bolts-to-show-how-clever-he-is exception? I didn't think he'd removed any other than the routes he reclimbed without the bolts. (unless you're suggesting that he never did actually reclimb his Black Crag routes 'at no change in grade' without the bolts, which would obviously be libellous, and I couldn't possibly associate myself with any such suggestion). But, if I'm wrong about that, then good for him.

[jcm]

> But you've posted some real reactionary tripe earlier in this thread - which makes it hard to take you seriously...

You'd have to help me on what that was, I'm afraid.

>Might it be an idea to leave or move this bolting/no bolting debate to UKC? where this type of debate is more commonplace

I didn't start the thread. I posted on it because I felt bolters needed a little advice on presenting their case. Having seen how they react, I imagine the debate at CV this time will be at least as bitter as last time and that, as I say, even if they win their bolts will be chopped again.

>Finally, from a more Geological perspective, lets not be so naive (nay arrogant?) to presume that we are spoiling these environments forever by adding little bits of stainless steel to them.. sea cliffs will erode and tumble.. gritstone outcrops will weather and erode.. they are all just transient landforms... I'm not advocating do what the feck you want at any crag - as I dont want to see accelerated erosion spoil them uduly (e.g. southern sandstone) but lets get some perspective. If a block or chunk of cliff  comes down ruining a line etc.. (which happens regularly at sea/mountain cliffs) we dont all throw our arms up in the air and start blaming people etc.. its what happens..

Of course I understand that. Whatever we do or don't do doesn't matter in the great scheme of things, but that's no reason not to behave properly. One crisp packet doesn't make a great deal of difference in the world.

>Lets just remember that people do things at Stanage edge that I think are far more intrusive/damaging/unsightly than fixed gear...

Couldn't agree more. Total MRs.

[shark]

Anyway, I'm afraid I can't be bothered to reply again to the other-climbers-have-placed-pegs-in-the-past-so-bolts-must-be-OK argument, nor the visual-impact straw man.

It was you that put forward the 'littering' visual impact aspect not me. Nice touch accusing me of constructing a straw-man when you put it their first.

To put it more straightforwardly - bolting is a matter of ethics not litter - end of. 

[jcm]

Anyway, I'm afraid I can't be bothered to reply again to the other-climbers-have-placed-pegs-in-the-past-so-bolts-must-be-OK argument, nor the visual-impact straw man.

>It was you that put forward the 'littering' visual impact aspect not me. Nice touch accusing me of constructing a straw-man when you put it their first.

Littering is bad for a good many reasons other than visual impact.

>To put it more straightforwardly - bolting is a matter of ethics not litter - end of.

'End of' is one of those expressions which are simply used in order to brand the poster a fool.

I do remind you, by the way, that my purpose in describing why anti-bolters dislike bolts was to suggest that bolters approach them differently. You aren't winning many prizes in that direction.

[Bubba]

I don't know what forums you go on, but 've never seen another forum that has a load of program code appear on the screen when you try and quote someone else's post. It's absurd.

Get a grip for fucks sake - bbcode has been around for years - pretty much every brand of forum software out there uses it. It's not complicated at all, you're just being lazy.

If you can be bothered to put a ">" in front of what you want to quote, then you could surround that same text with quote tags. Everyone else seems to manage it, don't they?

[jcm]

You reckon? I thought I'd read some message of welcome from someone else here saying that 'don't worry, some people never seem to manage it' (referring to getting a grip on the quotes system)? 

I dare say bbcode has been around for years. It was probably cutting edge when this forum was built, but others have better and simpler methods, and so should you. Or you could shoot the messenger, of course.

[shark]

I am interested in your answer in why bolt 'litter' is so unacceptable and trad 'litter' is acceptable which is implicit in what you are saying.

[jcm]

I am interested in your answer in why bolt 'litter' is so unacceptable and trad 'litter' is acceptable which is implicit in what you are saying.

Oh for God's sake. For a start, you seem to be confusing me with someone who thinks that placing pegs, fixed threads, chalk and digging crags out of hillsides are good things. They're not and if I was the only person climbing in the UK we wouldn't be doing any of them. It would be a lot better if we didn't use chalk, and I'm not at all sure we should have dug Sergeant Crag Slabs out of the hill either (to name but one).

However, there is this difference with leaving pegs and fixed threads behind; in principle they are removable at any time (or at least so it was thought; in practice we know that pegs are not sustainable and that's why we don't really use them any more). There is however some merit in leaving them there for the next person, so I certainly wouldn't condemn doing so; it's not necessarily what I would try to do, but I understand it.

As to all climbs being artefacts, this isn't nearly so true as bolters would like to pretend, although it has a certain ingenious literal truth to it at a molecular level.