[chris j]

I can quite happily maintain my local's indifference if it was to revert to the two bolt status it had until last year. I think it would be a shame if it was totally debolted as jcm suggests in his wilder moments on t'other channel, as I think the number of ascents it would receive would then drop to near zero.

I do like the hybrid ethic we seem to manage down in the SW, whether at Ansteys, GO wall or Avon and it would be a shame to lose that and end up with an all or nothing approach for each crag.

[mrjonathanr]

C'mon Stu, your point about Chee Tor is surely null as it's the same point people made 25 years ago when the Cornice was bolted..... and yet the crag is still the same, with the same fantastic trad routes and with a few bolts.

The three star E4 White Gold was fully retro-bolted not so long back and with little public outcry. Plus a number of bolted fillers have been quietly added, mostly to the upper section. Not a huge change of status, but I'd wager it would sport more bolts were it not for the access situation.

I'd be in favour of leaving something like that to quietly become a bolder trad route, whether it got more traffic or less would be irrelevant in my view. I haven't done it for 20 yrs+ but I seem to recall a golot somewhere. I don't think this should have been rebolted, but will have to reclimb it this summmer to be secure in that judgment.

After all, if it were to then be VERY bold, you'd have a 3* E6/7 instead of E4. Hard to object to that, surely?

[Oldmanmatt]

I can quite happily maintain my local's indifference if it was to revert to the two bolt status it had until last year. I think it would be a shame if it was totally debolted as jcm suggests in his wilder moments on t'other channel, as I think the number of ascents it would receive would then drop to near zero.

I do like the hybrid ethic we seem to manage down in the SW, whether at Ansteys, GO wall or Avon and it would be a shame to lose that and end up with an all or nothing approach for each crag.

+1

With the rider, that the world would be a better place without egotistical, vigilante, self appointed avenging angels (not the posters here, who have had a civil (ish) debate).

And it's pretty hard to get me worked up about anything.

I shall be checking out the route this summer, assuming I ever find time to climb again.

And that's all I have to say about that...

[Bonjoy]

With the rider, that the world would be a better place without egotistical, vigilante, self appointed avenging angels (not the posters here, who have had a civil (ish) debate).

I haven't read the UKC thread in question, but couldn't the same adjectives be used to describe whoever retrobolted the route, if you happen to hold the opposing view? I'm not suggesting they'd apply, just that demonising either side doesn't seem that useful.

[Oldmanmatt]

Yep, and I forgot to say much of Stu's arguments resonated with me.

Not all, most.

I think the difference, for me, is the rhetoric and posturing.

I don't support the unilateral action of the bolter either.
The correct response to that, though, should have been through the BMC area meet, etc.

[SA Chris]

He's not demonising them he's angelicising.

[Bonjoy]

Demand v supply provides the drive for sportification, but whether the demand gets supplied or not depends on the context. I'm sure at some level there is demand for bolted grit but the supply will not be met any time soon because the context is not permissive. It's reasonable to say assume that every route retro-bolted (especially so if nobody challenges the action) changes the context somewhat in favour of further retro-bolting. The more important the route the greater the change. Stu's take on the significance of Cocytus seems credible to me, (it's certainly I trad route I'd heard/read of as a none-local and wanted to do) and as such it does change the tone. Put another way, would it be more or less likely to have been retro-bolted now if classic routes up north like Darl, Countdown, Directisima and Yosemite Wall hadn't?

[ianv]

To be fair, Yosemite wall, directisima even the cave routes L/RH are ONLY classic because someone stripped them of the piles of crappy tat and put some bolts in.

[T_B]

The three star E4 White Gold was fully retro-bolted not so long back and with little public outcry. Plus a number of bolted fillers have been quietly added, mostly to the upper section. Not a huge change of status, but I'd wager it would sport more bolts were it not for the access situation.

Whilst I don't agree with it being retro-bolted it was pretty much a clip-up on pegs before anyway.

Hmm 

[shark]

The three star E4 White Gold was fully retro-bolted not so long back and with little public outcry. Plus a number of bolted fillers have been quietly added, mostly to the upper section. Not a huge change of status, but I'd wager it would sport more bolts were it not for the access situation.

Whilst I don't agree with it being retro-bolted it was pretty much a clip-up on pegs before anyway.

Hmm 

Am I misremembering again?   

[jcm]

First of all, well done Ianv and Jasper. It takes a big man to call unpopular people names when surrounded by your mates.

Secondly, *would* the world be a better place without egotistical, vigilante, self-appointed, avenging angels, I wonder? Pembroke and Lundy would be full of Gibson’s bolts, that’s for sure.

Thirdly, it didn’t occur to me that KP had placed these bolts. It seemed like the sort of crass thing that gets done by wannabes, not someone of his status, and anyway I supposed that if he thought the route ought to be made into a sport route he’d have done that in 2001, or indeed 1995 (the last two times he put bolts in it). I agree of course that KP deserves respect and before doing anything I will indeed try to talk to him.

I don’t agree with Ianv however that KP isn’t the sort to do this sort of thing without consultation. There’ve been a fair few UKC threads recently with locals coming on and asking about new bolts around Torbay, and I’ve never seen anyone saying they’ve been consulted about them. The UKC thread about this now has a post from a local I know who knows KP pretty well and was there when KP bolted Cocytus, and he doesn’t say he (or anyone else) was consulted; instead he says that ‘you can’t get 100% consensus about these things. Consultation isn’t asking your mates; it’s asking people who might disagree with you.

Nor is it KP’s practice to announce when he does these things; the first time his bolts on Cocytus were chopped it was by someone who’d driven down to do the route and found unannounced bolts in it, and I had the same experience myself in 2002. I'd like to climb without people telling me how I can as well, Matt, but it ain't like that. My son climbs too - I'd like him to be able to climb routes like Cocytus unretroed. It doesn't help much talking about our children.

Fourth, I agree with Stu that when the 2001 bolts were placed they were controversial and they survived largely because their supporters, including Stu (and AFAIK KP didn’t engage in public debate, so it wouldn’t be right to blame him), said that everyone knew Cocytus was a trad route and shouldn’t become a sport route, and so forth. It’s inglorious, to say the least, to retro it fully now having advanced that argument then.

Fifth, Cocytus is not of course as Ianv suggested ‘the one random trad route’ at Ansteys. The Mitre, Blonde Bombshell, Devonshire Cream, Moonshot, Acheron and St Gregory, for example.

As to its status as a trad route, here is a link to a Climber article about Torbay trad.

http://www.climber.co.uk/categories/articleitem.asp?cate=2&topic=13&item=93

Here is the link to Rockfax’s Devon Top 50 routes (sport and trad).

http://www.rockfax.com/databases/best50.php?area=1024

In West Country Climbs it is given three stars.

In Nick White’s guide to Devon it is given two stars (this was when it had the remains of KP’s 1995 bolts in it). There are six E3s given three stars, five of them (all bar the now-banned Feasibility Study) put up by the same first ascentionist as Cocytus. One of those, The Mitre, is on the same crag, also has two old bolts and is no doubt in line to get fully retroed if the present water-testing goes well.

In PRL’s own SouthWest Climbs it is given two stars; on a rough calculation that puts it, in PRL’s opinion, among the top 200 routes in the whole SW.

I don’t think we should be retroing this route for the sake of ten feet of new climbing, a bit of convenience and a new lower-off.

[TobyD]

...
I don’t think we should be retroing this route for the sake of ten feet of new climbing, a bit of convenience and a new lower-off.

Originally i posted on the ukc thread stating that i was fairly ambivalent, having read that, and stu's posts, I'd probably go and tidy the route up myself. Standard UK sea cliff ethics are currently leaving pegs to go and doing routes with as little fixed stuff as possible on the grounds that it is often a lot more rotten than you think it is. Maybe this is how we should see cocytus, rather than as an extra 6b+ to warm up on. It'd be a great E5, and you wouldn't hurt yourself binning it onto a decent pad + spotter. I am partially being flippant, but perhaps (as jcm and stu say) its worth it to stop folk thinking its ok to start turning the mitre / stoney / chee tor into mediocre sport routes.

[Jaspersharpe]

First of all, well done Ianv and Jasper. It takes a big man to call unpopular people names when surrounded by your mates.

Ah go on then I'll bite. Where did I call you names? Oh yeah, I didn't. You could always try using the quote function of the forum to prove me wrong though. It's dead easy to use.

[tomrainbow]

The ironic thing, it seems to me, is that the character of Empire has been much more significantly affected by its new bolt than the character of Cocytus, which feels more or less exactly the same as it ever did (I first climbed it in 1990 on pegs, then in its two other incarnations). Yet no-one is banging on about the new bolt in Empire!

When I climbed Empire for the first time having waited 20 years to feel fit enough to flash it, the start was a real mental hurdle for me to overcome and added greatly to the character of the route. I am glad I climbed it before its new bolt and was saddened when it was placed but I couldn't justify removing the bolt as that would be a pretty selfish act on my part...I'm sure that if I started a forum thread about it I could find a few likeminded individuals but most people seem to be pretty happy with the new situation, just as they do with Cocytus' current state (a thread on UKC was started about a year ago and there were no serious objections to the retroing of Cocytus as far as I can recall).

I know that Empire was already bolted up when it had its new bolt placed, but to my mind retroing a route is far more contentious when the character of the climbing is significantly altered. I feel you're barking up the wrong tree here! Cocytus has a good wire on the relatively easy start to reach the first peg which was a bolt equivalent on the first ascent, but (as with all pegs) became increasingly untrustworthy over time. Not wanting to criticise one of my climbing heros but placing pegs on sea-cliffs on first ascents and then expecting future generations to risk life and limb in the name of some cock-eyed notion of ethics as they gradually and inevitably corrode is a pretty selfish thing to do (I'm not, for a minute, saying that Pat expects climbers to risk life and limb - I have no idea how he feels about the situation). I'm sure that back in the 70s things seemed pretty different but with our limited reserves of rock and over-populated (to the point of risking access - I'm thinking Torbryan) crags, I think that Ken has been remarkably selfless spending time, effort and funds bolting lines that he has no particular interest in doing himself but that he hopes will give pleasure to others and relieve the pressure on some of the more popular Devon crags.

Please do think carefully about what you intend to do John - I would urge you to talk to Ken before you travel South.

[jcm]

Tom

I agree with all you say about Empire. I've not been on it but I intend to and I would have preferred it not get the new bolt either. It just happens that Cocytus is the one I feel strongly about.

I agree too that Cocytus probably doesn't feel very different. But if it doesn't feel very different, what was the point of the retroing? That's what I don't get; it just seems like an unnecessary slap in the face for people who are fond of the existing route.

Do we know that PL placed the pegs? I'm pretty sure he didn't place the bolts on The Mitre! I'd think it was at least as likely that he just clipped what was left there from the aid days. Otherwise I can't see what they were using to aid it with.

I've already said I'll talk to Ken if I can, though I'm not sure how into public debate of these things he is.

Jasper: well, you suggested I was prone to talk 'ego-driven nonsense'. Was I wrong to take that personally?!

[crimp]

The perfect thread to remind people of this

http://community.thebmc.co.uk/Event.aspx?id=2897

come along if you have an opinion. Retro bolting is bound to come up.

[Oldmanmatt]

Damn!
Can't believe I've been drawn into this.

The bolts are not endangering access?

They are surely placed on "clean" rock and not blocking the potential wire placement?
(Yeah, yeah, I'll try to take look over the weekend, but we're kinda busy right now).

I'm NOT arguing for retro bolting here, nor condoning it in this case.

But the "changes the character" argument?

Clip it, don't clip it.

Use the wire, don't use the wire.

These are the choices of each climber.

Do you mean "allows it to be climbed by people who are not macho enough"?

Stu is right and reasoned, he has presented an argument which has real implications for the national scene and if I lay aside my desire to see some easy end sport in the Shire, I can agree with him.

To better illustrate what I mean.

Along way Pre the car jack.

As a young teenager, we drove all night, just to take turns leading "Right Unconquerable".
With hex's, because cams didn't exist.
And Ron Heart told us that was cheating!
My kids will never be able to do that.

And that's a shame.

I wouldn't want to see it bolted.

Even in this SPECIFIC case, even though I personally don't see it as a "thin edge" moment (I think Anstey's is just fine as a sports crag), I can concede Stu the argument. Because he might be right.

So, as I said earlier, take it to the BMC...


Keep the Egos in check.

[ianv]

First of all, well done Ianv and Jasper. It takes a big man to call unpopular people names when surrounded by your mates

I don't post on UKC so there was nowhere else to say it

Anyway, this does seem to me to be some ego driven rabble rousing. How long have the bolts been in? why didn't you do something when they first appeared if you are so incensed? Was it a quiet day at work and you fancied a bit of trolling?

It annoys me when you get people from outside an area feeling that they can impose their supposed superior ethics on the locals. There were a few reasoned responses from locals which you ignored, Ken will have gauged opinion and this is being ignored, Ken (and Nick) made Ansteys what it is today so his/their opinions hold a fair bit of weight as well (and apparently the first ascentist isn't overly bothered either). Who gives you the right to ride roughshod over all this for a bit of internet glory?

The fact that you want to take out some bolts and leave the convenient new lower off just highlights the whole hypocrisy of the situation.

As for Empire, Nick would have bolted it if he had the resources so the state of the gear was a historical accident. It didn't seem that bad in its original state so I cant see how tidying it up is a big deal as it was always intended to be a sport route.

[chris j]

Do we know that PL placed the pegs?

From Pat's South West Climbs, Cocytus** E2 E. Grindley and P. Littlejohn (2pts) 1968

[shark]

First of all, well done Ianv and Jasper. It takes a big man to call unpopular people names when surrounded by your mates.

Ah go on then I'll bite. Where did I call you names? Oh yeah, I didn't. You could always try using the quote function of the forum to prove me wrong though. It's dead easy to use.

Jasper: well, you suggested I was prone to talk 'ego-driven nonsense'. Was I wrong to take that personally?!

You were wrong to describe it as name calling and it was unnecessarily inflammatory

[crimp]

Before anybody takes any more unilateral action, be it retrobolting, debolting, rebolting, whatever. (I imagine people are giving themselves coronaries on the other channel over this).

There is a bolt policy debate this Thursday for the south west in bristol. If you feel strongly, come along, raise your point. Get a consensus from the faithful. Propose a motion. I know only certain people will turn up. It's widely advertised. I post such regional meetings on here. Those who care will be there.

I know it might be a way for some south west activists. You can email appropriate person with your thoughts to be discussed. Hell, if you're a known UKBer and its a long trek for you but you want a say, I'll put you up for the night.

I don't really have much opinion on this one myself. But there is an avenue to resolve it, or at least get some consensus for your proposed actions

[petejh]

JCM - in general, what is it about fixed gear in climbing you are against?
More specifically - do you regard hammered fixed gear differently to drilled fixed gear?; if you do regard them differently - does hammered fixed gear have more validity to you than drilled fixed gear? If so, why?

[crimp]

There is a bolt policy debate this Thursday for the south west in bristol.

I have said this before in the context of the Carn Vellan issue, but I think it is worth someone making the point frequently. Why are Bristol climbers setting policy for the South-West? Certainly not because of proximity. By road, Bristol is closer to Sheffield than West Cornwall. I accept that Bristol is a bit closer to Ansteys but it is still further than, say, Sheffield to Malham! Do Sheffield climbers vote on Malham issues at BMC Peak meetings: I am guessing not.

bristol climbers aren't the only south west climbers aren't setting policy.

I have already offered a place to crash, if anyone cares, but it's a trek.

Maybe, we just give more of a shit?

Come to meet. Tell us bristol folk to fuck off. 

[Oldmanmatt]

With the greatest respect Matt, what on earth are you talking about? Do you want to dis-invent cams?

My tongue was so far into my cheek I could hardly type!

It was meant as a "things change, get over it" comment.

And a lament about the damage caused by cam removal...

Just come back from Long Quarry point. I'd intended to take a look, give the dog a run and the kids a scramble at sea level etc.

Except the dog decided to fall from the approach path (50 foot, straight in), so we got sidetracked.

Thanks to Dave and his RIB and some impromptu DWS by me, we pulled her out.

 
Untitled (2013-05-04 14:36:59) by oldmanmatt, on Flickr

Which pretty much ended the day.

So I'll try again another day...

[Oldmanmatt]

On the off chance...

Does anyone recognise Dave or his RIB?

Fortunate that he was passing and responded to our waving, sounded local and dropped his dive knife in the struggle with a panicked mutt, so I owe him twice!


Untitled (2013-05-04 14:38:19) by oldmanmatt, on Flickr

I know.. Off topic.