[spidermonkey09]

Fuck it then…. Knotted ropes it is! It’s not Taipan no! It’s the quarryman face.

Everyone is free to do whatever they like, personally I hate rules. However there are parameters within climbing that the game is played within. We all play by different rules ultimately.

You might be happy with your ascent with a 20ft daisy chain at the bottom of the crag and a 50ft runout at the top!

I think the two things are in complete contradiction of each other and it just sets a precedent for people to do what ever they fancy.

And those aren’t the rules of the game I play. I’m happy to concede climbing is moving on and obviously leaving me behind and this is ok these days.

You've got the wrong end of the stick. I'm not saying the Quarryman Face is shit or that because its slate anything goes. I'm saying that its not a crag where the ethic is to not bolt 'proper' sport routes, ie routes where there are plenty of bolts and any run outs are titillating rather than dangerous. As such its not actually 'a long way from a sport crag' at all; it is very much a sport crag, albeit one with a face where some of the old school designer danger slate routes live (which I love, and should never be gridbolted). It might be valid to say that you think that properly bolted sport routes shouldn't exist on the Quarryman Face, which would be logical apart from the fact that Meltdown already exists and is presumably normally bolted, cause who wants to try and climb 9a while worrying about taking monster spills down a slab?

[Nemo]

If Franco wanted it to be a trad route, he should have stayed quiet and kept working it until he'd done it as such. 
If Franco wanted it to be a sport route, he should have either bolted it or got someone else to bolt it if he didn't think he was capable of doing a good job.

He didn't do either of those things, hence the controversy.
You can't claim a new sport route (which is potentially the hardest slab in the world), take the applause from the news coverage etc, without expecting anyone else is going to want to come and try it.  And noone else can really try it without either bolting it, or engaging in the same knot silliness that noone else is interested in doing.

Or rather you can make such a claim, but the outcome was inevitably going to be threads on the internet like this one.  As it's kind of rubbish saying I've climbed the hardest slab in the world, but no, you can't come and try it for the next few decades as I want to keep it as a trad project.

All of which seems like a shame for what looks like an amazing route.  Thankfully, if Caff's now bolted it, it may become the classic hard slab testpiece that it should be.

All that being said, he's still in the hero camp for me, for running down Tryfan in under ten minutes   

[wasbeen]

I love that Franco seems to care a lot less about the semantics than everyone else. Much more dignified than a Gresham justification thesis.  I wouldn't be surprised if if he doesn't mind that Caff has bolted it either.

[mrjonathanr]

It’s not just semantics though, it’s being up front about what you did and how you did it. That’s  transparency and honesty, and Gresham is leagues ahead on that.

[Bradders]

To be fair not a single person on this thread has actually approved of the knotted rope. I think we all agree that it's shit practice.

Err....

I agree, I think it's excellent news and I'm looking forward to starting my gritstone sport climbing career using this method!

I am not joking...I genuinely think it's a great idea and I really don't get what the problem is. It's just a different style, as long as people are honest about what they've done then why the hell not? It has no impact on the rock, in fact if anything it's likely to be less damaging than using trad gear, leaves no permanent or even temporary trace, infringes on no one else's experience and allows people who are more risk averse to climb dangerous but otherwise high quality routes, which they don't otherwise have access to, in a safe and sensible way. So what's the problem?

I'll caveat that in this specific case describing it as a sport climb without placing bolts does infringe on future aspirant's experiences, but only insofar as the unwritten expectation that sport climbs should essentially be handed on a platter to repeaters.

[webbo]

If you don’t want the danger just top rope things. If you want a bit more spice do it with 5 or 10 feet of slack.

[Will Hunt]

To offer the counterpoint, Bradders, the reason this has never caught on is that it's not necessary. If you want to do the climb but don't want the challenge of doing it on gear/soloing then you can always chuck a top rope on it.

People don't get their knickers in such a twist about top roping any more but one of the reasons this has been historically discouraged is to protect the rock. Not such an issue at Widdop but I'd bet lots of bold Peak slabs would be ruined by excessive top roping.

It would probably be disingenuous to pretend that protecting the cachet of hard trad routes doesn't also have something to do with it!

[remus]

If you don’t want the danger just top rope things. If you want a bit more spice do it with 5 or 10 feet of slack.

Tell that to the sport climbers! They'll save a fortune on clipsticks and quickdraws.

[ali k]

If I was Franco I’d just go back and lead it again if it’s now bolted and put it to bed.

It’s a bit like Century Crack. IIRC Pete & Tom did the FA with some gear left in from a previous attempt. They then got some gyp on the internet about it not being proper so just went back and did it placing all on lead. Sorted.

[Paul B]

I am not joking...I genuinely think it's a great idea and I really don't get what the problem is. It's just a different style, as long as people are honest about what they've done then why the hell not? It has no impact on the rock, in fact if anything it's likely to be less damaging than using trad gear, leaves no permanent or even temporary trace, infringes on no one else's experience and allows people who are more risk averse to climb dangerous but otherwise high quality routes, which they don't otherwise have access to, in a safe and sensible way. So what's the problem?

Just go TR soloing. You can have a lot of fun with a single rope and a micro-traxion. People do this on anything from gritstone buttresses to the height of the Verdon and to work pitches on Freerider etc.

The only problem I see was if this was to become very common practice, some routes wouldn't fare so well, as Will has suggested.

[SA Chris]

If I was Franco I’d just go back and lead it again if it’s now bolted and put it to bed.

I really hope he does. I think the route this?

[abarro81]

If you don’t want the danger just top rope things. If you want a bit more spice do it with 5 or 10 feet of slack.

Tell that to the sport climbers! They'll save a fortune on clipsticks and quickdraws.

I'll doff my cap to anyone who fancies top roping some of the big steep euro routes. Guaranteed broken ankles if you drop the first 20m of Chilam Balam I reckon 

[jwi]

A friend of mine likes to top-rope at a crag where the ground slopes away. "Try or fly" he calls it. It looks fucking terrifying.

[Kingy]

Yes I rather like this practical aspect to the debate. Knotted ropes ain't happening on anything 10 degrees overhanging or over.

[shark]

I used a knotted rope once on a new  route that I wasn’t sure was worth bolting as it was squeezed in between two existing routes. Didn’t appreciate how much stretch there was and nearly ended up on the ground falling on the first knot.

[northern yob]

who wants to try and climb 9a while worrying about taking monster spills down a slab?

Exactly or a 9a+ with a knotted rope at the bottom and the prospect of a monster spill at the top….. as I said the two things are a total contradiction, either bolt it properly(I don’t have a problem with that at all) or bolt the bottom and have some slate designer danger at the top… in keeping with many things on the slate. What he’s done is put politely, fucking lazy.

And then there’s the whole other filled in hold bullshit, which needs some clarification…..

[cheque]

As someone who’s tried recreational leading by clipping knots in a hanging rope let me assure you that it absolutely sucks.

• You don’t feel like you’re really leading so you don’t get the psyche to commit between knots.
  
  You don’t have the “just take me there” comfort that a top rope gives you either.
  
  As Ted says, if the route is even vaguely steep or 3D then the rope’s in space some of the way rather than being “in and around” the rock like normal gear which feels really freaky, makes the clips weird and is generally nothing like clipping gear or bolts.
  
  As Shark says, the rope’s stretchy too (even statics stretch a bit of course) which makes it all feel mad- really hard to predict how far you’ll fall or how you’ll swing.
  
  It’s faff to set up even if you tie the knots in arbitrary places. If you want the knots spaced in useful places like a well-bolted sport route then it’s mega faff.
  
  You feel like an idiot.

The result is that you grab the rope rather than committing to doing tricky moves between the knots, swing around disconcertingly whenever you weight the system and very quickly say “what the fuck are we doing?l” and sack it off.

I can see why a psyched and eccentric pro climber who wants to preserve a dangerous trad project but also get a sponsor-friendly FA story on the books in the meantime would decide to use such shenanigans (funny how we moan about how there are no “proper characters” in climbing any more but when Franco gets up to his mischief everyone’s up in arms) but if the average climber goes out for what they envisage to be a pleasant afternoons knot-clipping they’ll probably be disappointed.

[Kingy]

I would argue that using knotted ropes on a slab has little to do with character.

[Johnny Brown]

As Shark says, the rope’s stretchy too (even statics stretch a bit of course) which makes it all feel mad- really hard to predict how far you’ll fall or how you’ll swing.

It’s faff to set up even if you tie the knots in arbitrary places. If you want the knots spaced in useful places like a well-bolted sport route then it’s mega faff.

I assumed this was why, as quoted above, he'd rigged a 'spider's web art installation of fixed ropes'. Although getting around also seems to have been a consideration.

[Fiend]

funny how we moan about how there are no “proper characters” in climbing any more but when Franco gets up to his mischief everyone’s up in arms

The "proper character" aspect would be more interesting if it wasn't so painfully contrived as a Redhead-Dawes-hybrid-wannabe performance-art attention-seeking "character", as is well summed up by the Uneaten Hat Department:

Or maybe we just don't break the entire paradigm of UK climbing in order to accommodate one person's perverse addiction to controversy.

I can see that there is a (eye-rollingly tiresome)controversy booby trap rigged to this action in Franco’s statement about wanting to do this as a trad route.

Franco as someone moving very impressively on rock has always been more interesting than Franco the oh-so-wacky character, and I'd like to see more of the former. Imagine if this whole scenario had actually been "The Dewin Stone - New 9a+ Slab from Franco".....

[Johnny Brown]

Franco as someone moving very impressively on rock has always been more interesting than Franco the oh-so-wacky character, and I'd like to see more of the former. Imagine if this whole scenario had actually been "The Dewin Stone - New 9a+ Slab from Franco".....

Exactly. I suspect he'd have been on safer territory too if he'd given it 9a but said it was harder than the Meltdown. Still the hardest slab in the country, but much less likely to get a witheringly rapid repeat and embarrassing downgrade from Caff. Anyway, he's off to the Dawn Wall next, I look forward to Siebe's perspective.

[SA Chris]

The "spontaneous" call (videoed on both sides) is great.

[remus]

Franco as someone moving very impressively on rock has always been more interesting than Franco the oh-so-wacky character, and I'd like to see more of the former. Imagine if this whole scenario had actually been "The Dewin Stone - New 9a+ Slab from Franco".....

Exactly. I suspect he'd have been on safer territory too if he'd given it 9a but said it was harder than the Meltdown. Still the hardest slab in the country, but much less likely to get a witheringly rapid repeat and embarrassing downgrade from Caff. Anyway, he's off to the Dawn Wall next, I look forward to Siebe's perspective.

Or he could just give it the grade he thought it was and let repeaters share their opinion when they do it, and a grade will come out of the consensus. Personally I think this whole spiel about "witheringly quick repeats" and "embarrassing downgrades" is silly. So what if one of the best climbers in the country repeats it and thinks it's slightly easier? I much prefer that than everyone getting wound up about minor differences of grade opinion when everyone knows grading is a crap shoot at the best of times.

p.s. if Caff had repeated meltdown rather than making the FA I reckon he'd have suggested 8c/+

[wasbeen]

...in twenty years time, the hard "adventure" routes will be become relics only living in fading memories and UKC logbooks. Climbers will be afraid to do routes in anything but the most orthodox way in to avoid a circular cantankerous dressing down from UKB. In response, the UKTR (UK top route) forum will be created and seen as the voice of reason.

[edshakey]

Or he could just give it the grade he thought it was and let repeaters share their opinion when they do it, and a grade will come out of the consensus. Personally I think this whole spiel about "witheringly quick repeats" and "embarrassing downgrades" is silly. So what if one of the best climbers in the country repeats it and thinks it's slightly easier? I much prefer that than everyone getting wound up about minor differences of grade opinion when everyone knows grading is a crap shoot at the best of times.

Completely agree. How can we give someone stick for giving a high grade to something and then it gets downgraded, while also getting annoyed when people opt to not grade routes? Because that's what'll happen if their only choice is public ridicule, or sandbag it to the point the grade is meaningless.