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Bolted lower-offs on select trad routes?? (Read 17865 times)

Fiend

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Yes, and to fool ourselves that it's so special and we're so good at trad, by deliberately sticking to a peculiar grading system that obfuscates that we still think that a mere F8a/+ R/R+ is something to be proud of  ::) ::) ::)

northern yob

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Is it perhaps British exceptionalism to think that British trad is *so* unique?

I’m under no illusion as to the uniqueness of British trad climbing, our climbing culture and its direction is unique to us though. Whilst it has many similarities to other places that doesn’t really have much bearing on what’s happening here and now. I really wish we could have a more pragmatic view towards lower offs and fixed gear on trad routes, unfortunately I don’t believe we can, it’s only gonna be abused and get worse.

Im also very aware that I’m in the minority and that over time it’s only gonna go one way.

abarro81

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Im also very aware that I’m in the minority and that over time it’s only gonna go one way.
Maybe, but as a sport climber I don't think all these peg-bolts should be being placed. Makes a mockery of "trad" climbing and is a hugely slippery slope IMO... so you may find more support among sport climbers for debolting this stuff than you think! Probably needs some vigilante action...

Johnny Brown

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Loweroffs and ab stations are quite common in Australia. They have a very strong trad climbing ethic still. It does help that they have always had a more open relationship to 'mixed' routes,

Local ethics largely evolve to make best use of the local rock. Oz sandstone frequently lacks sufficient gear, so it's not surprising bolts are more common. Agree the mix often works better than the alternatives. Likewise sport climbing evolved on French limestone for good reasons.

There are also lots of granite areas where it has become acceptable to add bolt belays, rap-lines etc. I'm not a huge fan but can see how, on big cliffs with an aid climbing heritage, they've been part of the furniture for ever. However it does tend to end up with an ethic where bold sections get more bolts, then 'tricky' to protect sections get an easy to clip bolt mid-crux. At that point it's a bit like trad climbing for toddlers, heavily supervised and not very satisfying. The ever-expanding wedge has become a hoary old cliche but remains a fact not an inflated threat.

The point of trad climbing is to accept the challenge of the rock on its own terms. It does concern me that that principle seems to have been lost. As DT says, that doesn't really include convenience,  but that is slightly to miss the point. I simply don't see expediting the move from the top of one route to the bottom of the next as adding to the experience. Topping out is frequently one of the best bits. Lower-offs are importing a sport climbing mindset of mileage and convenience into context where it doesn't really make sense to me.

One problem is the bolters are generally highly motivated, convinced they are right and not very interested in discussion. Because they don't really think the sort of people who get involved are as informed or as competent as them. So the bolts go in and if you value the rock you can't get them out without making a mess. It's often a bigger job than placing them, and removal risks replacement and more mess. So perhaps requires consensus as much as bolting, and removal typically done by people who care more about consensus.

northern yob

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I couldn’t agree more with this ^^^

Unfortunately I don’t think the whole vigilante thing is constructive or the way forward, maybe it’s a symptom of my current mood but I can’t really see a way that the things I think are truly special and worth preserving can survive on the trad crags of Britain, because they aren’t convenient and they aren’t easy. It’s more a symptom of society and it’s general direction I suppose which is a bit depressing……

Fuck me this post is depressing! Gonna pull myself together.

petejh

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I think your post has the appearance of accuracy JB but I think some of your points don't add up.

Firstly, it isn't true in my opinion that trad climbing in Britain ever accepted the rock on its own terms. This is a popular trope used every time trad and bolts are discussed. Perhaps in small sections of the whole country the rock was climbed 'cleanly' but that's not the history of British trad climbing. I think many of the issues surrounding British trad climbing and bolts have their roots in the choices made by first ascentionists and the dubious practice of hammering pegs into trad routes. This has been compounded by us history-loving Brits making up a falsely virtuous narrative and calling it 'bending a knee to the rock'*, 'accepting what the rock offers', or some other complete bollocks made up by climbers to make the practice of smashing in a bomber piece of in-situ steel with a hammer, knowing full well the unprotected mild steel would rust and leave unsightly stains and become unsafe, sound virtuous to the congregation.

It can't have gone unnoticed that the majority of issues surrounding 'trad' routes and bolts - Welsh deception bolt or otherwise - occur on routes where pegs were placed by the first ascensionist. Correlation doesn't equal causation but you don't need to be statistician to see there's a strong link between peg then and bolt today. Without examining and discussing the ethical choices of past ascents it seems to me that it'll be difficult to ever properly and sensibly discuss ethical choices today because the two are directly linked. It doesn't help in the UK that people have such a strong narrative in their imaginations about routes being in a pigeon-hole we call 'trad'.. whatever that means.
Nothing in that infers I think anyone is morally superior or inferior or that pegs should have never been placed. Nor that I think bolts should be placed now. It's just obvious to me at least that the issues today have their roots in the placement of pegs in the past.

Also, labelling climbers today as wanting convenience, consumer culture, sport climbers etc. might have some merit as an argument; but is also a bit of a red herring and casts a false distinction imo. Because the attitudes today are just an extension from decisions made back in the day by climbers who, by their actions in placing pegs, themselves clearly wanted to make climbs *more convenient* for themselves and who had that same *consumer culture* for the first ascent. They achieved it in the only way they were capable of, by smashing in steel pegs which would have been as bomber as a bolt on the FA. What's the saying: 'history doesn't repeat but it does rhyme'..



* Next time I'm doing some DIY I'll perhaps make it a more spiritual experience by telling myself that I'm bending my knee to what the house is offering as I repeatedly smash a steel spike into its facade using a lump hammer.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2021, 12:53:18 pm by petejh »

grimer

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I went to Clogwyn Yr Adar at the weekend and clipped some of these peg bolts.

Tricky one. I guess they are drilled and glued like a bolt. I checked back to the old Merionydd guide for one of the routes I did and the pegs are all mentioned, so I guess the new ones replace the old ones like for like. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have got on the routes if they were still crucially protected by 40-year-old pegs, and definitely not if there were no pegs at all and just groundfall options.

But I am ethically conflicted by how much I enjoyed the climbs.

northern yob

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IMHO it should be an evolution, we should now be trying to step up to the challenge the rock presents.

Agreed that the past and pegs have a lot to answer for both good and bad.

All the like for like bollocks is just bullshit, the pegs were put in in a different era, we should now be better than that

Johnny Brown

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Not denying any of that Pete, but I think you need to be careful not to conflate pegs placed on lead with those placed on ab, and pegs placed in natural placements with drilled. Even if the differences may now be hard to discern.

It is easy to look at a peg nowadays and just see it, as many do, as a primitive form of insitu gear that needs replacing wtih something more reliable. However the reality on many cliffs is that these are relics from very ballsy ground-up ascents, placed on lead, in an era where the alternative was a drilled out machine nut and lead falls were inadvisable. Using a drill on abseil to replace them with a bolt is in complete anathema to the spirit in which they were placed, where the idea was to have an adventure not to create something popular.

mrjonathanr

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All the like for like bollocks is just bullshit, the pegs were put in in a different era, we should now be better than that

Exactly.

Good post pjh.

Edit JB’s post - like a lot of Brown routes. As said, different era. Requires a different approach now, not using as an excuse for abseiling in to place a bolt.

teestub

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What is the solution for all these 3* classics with slowly rotting crucial peg protection then? Remove all the relics, hope there’s some poor placements left in their stead, and then wait for the routes to be reclimbed in their new state, at a similar difficulty but with (probably) a higher E grade?

I don’t have any personal experience of this but it’s a really interesting situation left by the FA’s.

petejh

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Your point about placing pegs on lead is correct but it's perhaps even more troublesome than your original point (that 'trad climbing accepts the challenge of the rock on its own terms'). 
Because I'm struggling to work out what you're trying to get at - that we should respect history and climb only according to the style of the FA because once upon a time someone ballsy went up on lead carrying a hammer dangling on a cord, hung off a skyhook or other piece of gear, and hammered in a peg? It happened a lot all over the world.

Some nutters even do it with drills on FAs today.. I know a guy who lead rope solos FAs in the Canadian Rockies and drills bolts on lead. It isn't *that* hard to place bolts on lead now we have lightweight 18v hammer drills, I mean it's not easy and it's not for most people. I wouldn't like to do it but I *would* do it if that was the game.

I can't work out if you're trying to say we should respect a certain history and see it as more virtuous. So virtue in trad climbing today consists of doing what the FA's did back then?  Should I direct the lead-solo drilling-on-lead nutter to Gogarth?

If it's only pegs that are virtuous to be placed on lead then we're into the winter climbing game, where it still happens a lot. Easily enough done when part of your usual rack consists of hammer.

I doubt that's what you're getting at, but maybe it is.


edit: when I think more about it, the FAs you're talking about who placed pegs on lead back then were playing the same game winter climbing FAs are playing today. The game's moved on in rock climbing, but in winter climbing the game's changed more slowly (for understandable reasons of it being much more difficult to get gear, even sometimes just to retreat).
The obvious problem is that unlike winter climbs, of which there are still loads of newies to do, so many good rock climbs were 'done' first according to old rules which we no-longer play by, and which led to loads of 'ballsy' rock climbs being made possible by using an unsustainable practice of smashing in steel that would rapidly corrode and become unsightly and unsafe. 
« Last Edit: October 20, 2021, 02:04:02 pm by petejh »

northern yob

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What is the solution for all these 3* classics with slowly rotting crucial peg protection then? Remove all the relics, hope there’s some poor placements left in their stead, and then wait for the routes to be reclimbed in their new state, at a similar difficulty but with (probably) a higher E grade?

I don’t have any personal experience of this but it’s a really interesting situation left by the FA’s.

I think they should be left! No need to rip anything out, im against replacing them, but essentially yes step up to the challenge or find a different challenge.

Wellsy

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I've barely done any trad

But it does seem to me that it's called accepting the rock on it's own turns but what that means in practice is the first ascensionist can basically do whatever they fancy and then everyone else has to follow that contrived standard.

If they whacked a peg in, then pegs are fine, if not then they aren't. If they bolted a lower off that's fine except if they didn't then it isn't. If they solo'd it without gear then you can use gear but if you whack a bolt in you're ruining it even if the ascensionist bolts the top of everything else but didn't in this case cos it's piss! In situ gear isn't okay unless everyone uses it, then it is.

Seems a bit contradictory is all I'm saying as a total newbie to the ethics of trad.

Potash

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Most of these three star challenges have been climbed without the new drilled peg-bolts.

It seems like there are a group of older gentlemen who are attempting to turn the clock back to some imaginary hayday when their routes were well protected by new pegs rather than accepting them in their new better peg free state.

To me retro stealth peg bolting bold trad routes is a totally different thing to having convenience lower offs at the top of the Stoney Electricity Quarry.

Potash

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And despite what some people are saying, I don't think this is driven by the young climbing wall trained sport climbing crowd.

mrjonathanr

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I've barely done any trad

But it does seem to me that it's called accepting the rock on it's own turns but what that means in practice is the first ascensionist can basically do whatever they fancy and then everyone else has to follow that contrived standard.

If they whacked a peg in, then pegs are fine, if not then they aren't. If they bolted a lower off that's fine except if they didn't then it isn't. If they solo'd it without gear then you can use gear but if you whack a bolt in you're ruining it even if the ascensionist bolts the top of everything else but didn't in this case cos it's piss! In situ gear isn't okay unless everyone uses it, then it is.

Seems a bit contradictory is all I'm saying as a total newbie to the ethics of trad.

Like asking for directions and being told “You don’t want to start from here.” The debate starts from a very messy place. There has never been a perfectly ethically pure consensus that has always been applied, different ascentionists, places, rock types and times have led to all sorts of compromise accommodations with what constitutes trad ethics.

Historically, there has been a trend to look for improvement- eliminating aid points, no longer bolting or pegging on grit, for example- but it isn’t consistent across areas and rock types.

The concern is that looking to improve ethically is going full speed into reverse in some cases and how normalised that might become.

cheque

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If they whacked a peg in, then pegs are fine, if not then they aren't.

Loads of pegs were placed back when other protection options were extremely limited though. There are tons of rotting pegs on (for example) Peak lime that are next to bomber placements for modern gear.

teestub

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I think they should be left! No need to rip anything out, im against replacing them, but essentially yes step up to the challenge or find a different challenge.

As far as I can see, all this means though is that you end up with a steady decrease in the reliability of the protection over the years, so what was a bomber peg on a lakes mountain crag in the 90s is now potentially a rusty nightmare that might hold a bodyweight slump (or whatever). I can imagine this process is a lot faster next to the sea.

Maybe this isn’t a problem and just something to be accepted?

northern yob

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I think they should be left! No need to rip anything out, im against replacing them, but essentially yes step up to the challenge or find a different challenge.

As far as I can see, all this means though is that you end up with a steady decrease in the reliability of the protection over the years, so what was a bomber peg on a lakes mountain crag in the 90s is now potentially a rusty nightmare that might hold a bodyweight slump (or whatever). I can imagine this process is a lot faster next to the sea.

Maybe this isn’t a problem and just something to be accepted?

Exactly you keep answering your own questions, at least as far as my opinion is concerned.

The alternatives are another peg (will rot again, British mountain crags shouldn’t be a place where hammers are used) a stealth bolt/bolt( drills aren’t welcome at my mountain crags either) or we accept the challenge laid out by the rock.

Protection has improved, climbing standards have improved. It would be good if our ethics could improve also.

Maybe a handful of routes get lost or changed radically. The vast majority are pretty similar. If we replace fixed protection it gets abused and the wedge gets thicker. 50 years down the line peg bolts are accepted and trad climbing is different.

I’m not against bolts, I’ve placed them with a hand drill and a battery drill.

I want to protect what I experienced in my formative years learning to climb, the sense of adventure, the challenge, the skills involved in making something dangerous as safe as possible, to the point that it becomes a viable option to climb it. There are reasons British climbers have traveled the world and left their mark everywhere, we bat way above our average not because we are better or stronger but because we have learnt the skills required in a relatively safe environment close to home. I think that is important and something we should be proud of, and something we should preserve.

The proliferation of peg/bolts and to a lesser degree lower offs on trad routes doesn’t do this.




Paul B

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It's pretty amazing what you can get in a peg scar as well. Offset cams FTW!

Johnny Brown

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I can't work out if you're trying to say we should respect a certain history and see it as more virtuous. So virtue in trad climbing today consists of doing what the FA's did back then?  Should I direct the lead-solo drilling-on-lead nutter to Gogarth?

Interesting. I’d taken it for granted that my point was obvious, clearly not the case!

The point was that when considering replacing pegs with bolts, the context in which they were placed is, i think, important. So the logic that ‘the FA enjoyed a bomber runner so so should we’ has more currency when you’re talking about a headpoint where the pegs were placed on ab. It doesn’t apply, imho, where some fifties hero was banging in a mild steel bendy peg while way strung out on lead with a filed-out machine nut their only alternative. In one case the ethic is like for like, the other is an erasure.

And yes, I do still believe that ‘bending a knee to the rock’ remains a valid argument. A peg has to go in a crack, where the rock allows. A bolt can go anywhere, ideally (as far as safety is concerned) in the most flawless bit of rock possible. Again, stating the obvious but seemingly worth reiterating.

Fiend

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Christ this is some debate to catch up on....

IMHO it should be an evolution, we should now be trying to step up to the challenge the rock presents.
essentially yes step up to the challenge or find a different challenge.
Protection has improved, climbing standards have improved. It would be good if our ethics could improve also.
Does this also apply to accepting the onsight challenge and improving ethics from headpointing to ground-upping to flashing to onsighting??

Or is it still the case that people who argue for improving those climbing style ethics and argue against the converse challenge-avoidance are fair game to be made pariahs and a big juicy target for all the "WAAAH WAAAH I CAN DO WHAT I LIKE YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO" pitchfork crowd??  ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)


Anyway back to lower-offs....


The ever-expanding wedge has become a hoary old cliche but remains a fact not an inflated threat.
I concur.

Quote
I simply don't see expediting the move from the top of one route to the bottom of the next as adding to the experience.
I do, I love it. Sometimes topping out is great and spectacular. Sometimes the sheer horror of it is rewarding. Sometimes it's just plain tedious or so incongruous it merely detracts from the quality of the preceding climb. But anyway I do like the convenience of easy on / easy off routes (and have done for years, in 2004 I made a cats cradle of a spare rope to anchors above the Larbrax slab to make it easier to rattle of routes there when it was time to climb, in 2021 we had a static rope fixed to the trees of Adar to provide easy abbing for gear and as much climbing mileage potential as possible). Just my 0:02.

There are reasons British climbers have traveled the world and left their mark everywhere, we bat way above our average not because we are better or stronger but because we have learnt the skills required in a relatively safe environment close to home.
But....but but TEAM AMERICA  :'(

(joking)

Back to the serious point....

I want to protect what I experienced in my formative years learning to climb, the sense of adventure, the challenge, the skills involved in making something dangerous as safe as possible, to the point that it becomes a viable option to climb it.... I think that is important and something we should be proud of, and something we should preserve.
I dunno how much you and JB have seen out there, but from what I've seen, trad is in decline, and in particular neglected non-honeypot trad, especially with shitty top-outs and descents, is in decline, to the point that routes are becoming effectively unclimbable. And on limestone, many of these are being retro-bolted with "neglect" as the justification. Trad is not being preserved, it's being neglected or it's being destroyed by being turned into sport.

The question I have: In cases where the shitty top-outs and descents are highly likely to contribute to that neglect, and where lower-offs / ab points are likely to solve that issue - if you're not going to put those lower-offs / ab points in, HOW are you going to halt the neglect and preserve the trad??

(Genuine question, not baiting)

« Last Edit: October 20, 2021, 09:20:30 pm by Fiend »

teestub

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Isn’t there enough good trad around for you to let these somewhat second class sounding venues return to nature? Rewilding is so hot right now. 😄

Kingy

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The question I have: In cases where the shitty top-outs and descents are highly likely to contribute to that neglect, and where lower-offs / ab points are likely to solve that issue - if you're not going to put those lower-offs / ab points in, HOW are you going to halt the neglect and preserve the trad??

I agree with Teeshub, you can't halt the neglect and preserve everything without installing loweroffs. Certain routes were cleaned and done and became fashionable for a time and then dropped off the standard ticklist and are now starting to return to nature. At the time these routes were developed, other routes had not yet been developed which are now popular. There are only so many trad climbers now (arguably less active than in the past) and there are a lot more trad routes now than there were in the past due to said development. There just isn't the small army of trad activists climbing every single obscure route out there to prevent some of them falling back into obscurity. I don't think this is a bad thing in and of itself. Nature will take its course, why mess with it? Routes can be rediscovered by future generations. No doubt they will see a footnote in some guide saying what routes were done in the past and use this as a basis for their own redevelopment in the future.

 

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