[nik at work]

11 pages of this, brilliant. Nice one on the route Franco, and if you are an attention seeking narcissist then you’ve played a blinder here…

Who was it who said storm in a teacup? Ferret? Spot on, nonsense squared.

Anyway, carry on….

[Kingy]

No, I wouldn't have. I think that would have been respected as a trad project.

IMO this is much different to a lead with knotted ropes continuing up a lead of the Meltdown Direct. Im not referring to the lack of drilling in the rock on the bottom bit, rather the leading of the whole route as a sport climb.

[petejh]

If it had been top roped and publicised as a top rope problem and an open trad project, would any of you have had a problem with that?

Would you have felt the same about it then being promptly bolted by someone else?

(I'm asking as someone who likes sport climbing, doesn't trad climb, would respect a cutting edge feat of top rope climbing and also doesn't see much a problem with knotted ropes on slabs)

I think you have to ask yourself a few different things about that.

What does 'publicise' mean? Is it mentioning to one other person that you've done something; to, on the other end of a spectrum, pre-announcing on your instagram feed that you're trying something, then announcing when you do it and chatting to 'media' about it for news pieces. 'Publicise' is a very wide term encompassing many different motivations and incentives.
Why do people 'publicise' climbs?
What is a top-rope problem and does this style exist as anything significant of note except as a personal challenge*, outside of very few top-roping areas such as southern sandstone for preservation reasons?
Why would anyone 'publicise' a top-rope problem?

Thinking through the above questions I think makes your hypothetical moot in all but very limited climbing areas. But I suppose if someone started claiming TR ascents as something of note, then it would likely be ignored. Which is more or less what's happened in this case - the 'dangly ropes style' has been ignored, but not the ascent. And I'd have sympathy with someone if they thought that putting effort into bolting this line properly then leading it cleanly constituted an improvement in style over Franco's effort and perhaps made it more significant. Grey area though isn't it.

If top-roping something cleanly in an area where sport/trad/mixed routes co-exist ever becomes a justification for ownership over the style it subsequently should be led in, then imo climbing is borked and headed for complete polished and scuffed obscurity.


* don't get me wrong - I think all of climbing is just 'a personal challenge' not just top-roping!

[stone]

Can I put my hand up as one of the (perhaps tiny) minority who would/does respect a top roped ascent as much as a sport climb lead.

I applaud people making every effort to publicise their climbing achievements. I don't begrudge people keeping quiet if they feel they must, but spraying gives us punters inspiration, so I'm always thankful for it.

[petejh]

If those are your views then fair enough. Personally I believe the different lead styles - os, flash, red point, ground up, are much more difficult to execute cleanly than a TR ascent. And this extra challenge in executing carries with it more significance - if we’re going to have a system that ‘publicises’ climbs that are deemed significant then such a system has to have a foundation based on calculating merit.

And what about trad TR where, even more so than sport, psychology of risk is at play?

We can’t all be winners…

[stone]

I was v impressed when Zippy said he had top-rope flashed some hard grit.

[Franco]

Fixing holds aside I don't really see how using a knotted rope instead of bolts is such a big issue to people. At this level of difficulty nobody is putting the draws in as they go anyway right? So by that logic you're already going to have done some faff to put them all in in the first place. How is adding a rope to one of the draws considered such an additional effort that it would hinder someone else trying it?

This misunderstands the issue. Which is this:

First ascent claimed of a route. Route claimed with a sport grade because the climber couldn't climb it as a trad route (this is not said as any sort jibe it's said as statement of fact, nothing wrong with sport). No bolts placed, which is odd, a dangly rope used instead of bolts.

OK.. weird, but no big deal. It's a really poor style but the world is imperfect.. It's lazy - just make the effort to put the bolts in. It's unhelpful to other climbers who want to try it - bolt-to-bolting from the ground versus bringing extra rope and faffing arranging hanging dangleberries which just isn't necessary or desirable. It sets a very bad precedent for other new routers -  if this style is extended to trad (and why wouldn't it be?) it makes an already contrived and vulnerable set of ethical guidelines even harder to justify as all hard trad can get done in the next week in this batshit dangly rope style by attention-hungry individuals. Also loads more 'sport' routes could be put up really quickly using dangleberries without needing to do the hard bit of bolting - very tempting to us new routers.. but these routes would be a total pig for future climbers to enjoy without bolts.

But no biggie. The line will probably just end up getting bolted because it's been claimed as a new sport route by the first ascensionist, protected by in-situ protection positioned wherever the climber wants at the climber's discretion as opposed to protection dictated by the rock.
And this is exactly what happened, because it had to happen Unless the last 40 years of evolution of the ethics guiding the use of fixed gear during new route development gets thrown out the window because one attention-hungry individual wants the rest of the world to bend to his vision of how climbing should be.

But wait there's more!

Climber does not want their sport route bolted. And cries foul when it is, playing the victim role. Because climber is ALSO laying claim to the route as a trad project. Climber says they're also laying claim to other nearby unclimbed routes as trad projects, but intends to climb them as sport routes in new flawed dangly rope style and claim them as new sport routes in the interim.

This is the issue people have problems with - this is a totally new style of developing new routes, that appears at its core to involve a huge dose of entitlement and ownership extending beyond the point in time at which you finish a new route and it gets presented to the rest of the community for others to experience.

This is wanting the hit of achievement, attention, publicity or whatever, for doing a good new route which you needed to use fixed protection because doing it trad was too hard (no shame in that); but then trying to ethically cordon off the route as a trad project so that every other climber who'd like to try this sport climb has to abide by this individual's awful retrograde style of arranging fixed protection. Even though the first ascensionist failed to climb it as trad and there appears no likelihood on the horizon of it happening.

There's no outrage required here and I don't see much, because it's just obviously so much a load of bollocks that it won't get accepted by other climbers. I do think it's selfish, disrespectful to other climbers and disrespectful to the evolved traditions and ethics of new route development which is the lifeblood of climbing. * Not that ethics and traditions can't change they can and do, but usually in a progressively better style not backwards.   

The hold repairs etc. are a sideshow. Hold repair not ideal but far less of a bollocks than the above.

So it's entitled to leave the rock as it is, but not to drill holes in it, so no one can ever climb it as a trad route? Okay... that seems a fairly strange view point to me.

To try the meltdown you either have to scramble up to the top of twll Mawr and abseil 3 pitches, down the whole quarryman face to set up a top rope, or ab down a loose corner on the other side of the quarry, scramble across a loose system of ledges and then clip stick/ bolt to bolt up the meltdown (from the last bolt to the anchor is a long way, I'd be surprised if you could clip stick it even with the massive clip stick). But the real thing that's going to put people off it is extending a bolt with an 8m bit of rope, which takes 5 mins max?

With the line debates in the county, I could see both sides of the argument (and said as much), but with this, I just think you're plain wrong. The rope is very little hassle and let's both types of climbing coexist. It looks stupid, I grant you, but I envisaged it just being one of those little curiosities in climbing,  that may put some people off, but is definitely not the weirdest thing to have happened in the quarries.

It's got nothing to do with effort or the cost of bolts, I just don't see why things should be default bolted, even if the majority think so. Who climbed the line first is irrelevant and it's not about ownership. I don't own the rock, the person who bolted it doesn't own it, but there is only one amphitheatre we can all play in and if it's bolted, one half of the climbing world is excluded (and there's already a fully bolted line in the Meltdown).

The project names and stuff aren't about ownership. Anyone's free to do that and give projects their own names. It gets people psyched and these things happen all over the place - wizard ridge, la dura dura, project big whatever... it only looks like ownership because I'm the only one trying these routes. I'd welcome 100 other climbers exploring what's possible and getting excited.

[teestub]

Franco, from what you’ve written in here, does your trad project involve soloing this bottom bit, then clipping the bolts in the Meltdown section, then the massive run out at the top? I think that’s what you’d said but wasn’t sure whether there was some gear somewhere to make the bolts redundant.

[Franco]

There are various projects on this wall. You can climb this line with rps, ball nut and low cam to the groove of the Meltdown,  then clipping the bolts to the top. You'd be touch ane go decking as you reached the meltdown groove. You could then do the same, but remove the bolts (hangers? Not really sure that works...) of Meltdown to produce something exceptional bold, where for all of the redpoint cruxes of this line, you'd be facing a ground fall.

There's also possibility of climbing out of the quarryman, with lots of good rps and sliders, higher up, missing the low crux of this new line and then doing the Meltdown groove and headwall with no more pro. You'd be decking from the foot pick up upwards on that, so in the middle of the other two lines in terms of difficulty (E13 I reckon, even though the climbing would be less sustained - cause you'd started up quarryman).

Same with the project on the right. You could blast out from the meltdown bolts, or solo the bottom wall and place a tricam in the mini roof, at a much higher grade. The climbing on that is far far harder than Meltdown or Dewin Stone (and really cool), so those will be really exceptional lines.

It really is worth saying again how good and difficult these trad routes would be. They're unique in the UK and the left one has now (obviously) been linked, so is possible.

[petejh]

So it's entitled to leave the rock as it is, but not to drill holes in it, so no one can ever climb it as a trad route? Okay... that seems a fairly strange view point to me.

You’re deliberately misrepresenting what I wrote in an effort to play the troll, or you genuinely don’t get it. Only you know which.

It’s not entitled to ‘leave the rock as it is’ and undrilled. That’s the normal state - a trad route. Or a line that hasn’t been climbed yet.

I said it’s entitled to believe you can get to claim a new sport route and to continue to say that the route must not be bolted, because you want it preserved as a trad project. If you want a trad route then do a trad route, don’t claim a first ascent of a sport route, because the trad ascent eluded you, and expect it not to be treated like a sport route.
Why exactly did you report a first ascent of a sport route? 

You don’t get to choose both, that’s partly why new routing involves facing difficult choices by the FA. You’re dodging the difficult choices. We’re just going over old ground here. You don’t accept it, many, many other experienced climbers think your style in this case is bogus to put it mildly. Nobody’s going to accept non-bolted sport routes.

Those other trad projects, just do them then. But it isn’t a trad-only area, if it was they’d never get bolted. You have to accept other people’s views on what style of climbs work best in non-trad areas and sometimes/often it’s messy and not to everyone’s ideal. You’re clearly trying to control the narrative here to preserve them as trad, that borders on ownership.

Twll mawr access - I’ve climbed in twll mawr and the walls above/around around it, you’re describing a standard case of ball-ache access that could be made miles easier by a shorter direct ab from near the Watford gap track combined with a short bit of hand lining traverse to the base of meltdown wall. This would require a few bolts. But instead, your ‘must not add bolts’ ideology blinds you to this possibility and makes you think it has to be an epic long ab in from the top, or a crappy approach from below. So this situation - which could be easily improved with some lateral thinking, a drill, and some elbow grease - leads to you justifying rigging your dangleberries knotted rope ‘because it’s nothing in comparison to the approach’. Hello! That’s the kind of hair shirt backwards thinking that saw Scott dying of exposure while Amundsen sailed past pulled by dogs.
Based on this perhaps I should have left the diamond approach as the complete epic that makes getting to meltdown wall look like pulling up in your car at castle inn quarry in comparison. And therefore all the Diamond routes could be done by an eccentric in a whack style on a mixture of old aid pegs and wooden wedges and pre-placed knotted ropes, because ‘well the faff pales in comparison to the approach’. 


Seb why did you not bother bolting Pic St Loup and instead use whack dangly knotted ropes..? ‘Well it’s such a ball ache to approach innit’:

[Bonjoy]

Put gaffer over the hangers for the trad ascent, then chop them afterwards  . Is this more contrived than clipping knots?
It might feel a bit weird, but that's the price of pre-claiming the line as a sport route.
Within the standard etiquette of sport climbing it's totally fair and normal (not to mention charitable) for someone to re-equip an existing sport route if and when the gear is unusable. This is just an unusual anomaly where the re-equipment is immediately necessary for the route to be the thing it was defined as by the first ascentionist. Otherwise it's standard stuff. If you call a route a sport route like this you are responsible for the bolts,even if someone else held the drill. But it is reversible, if you're willing to climb the route without and (only) then chop the bolts.

[Franco]

I'm not trolling. I know what you mean, but I disagree with it. What I did/ didn't do allows people to climb it as a funny sport route or a 'natural designer danger line. I get that most people on here think all sport routes must be fully bolted the whole way up. I disagree. It really doesn't take loads of imagination to extend some bolts with a rope.

I 'claimed' a new sport route because I climbed a new sport route. I climbed a new sport route in a way that didn't ruin the trad challenge any further. Why can't i/ we have both?

What I really don't get is why having to hang a rope on some bolts ruins the experience for sport climbers. It just makes perfect sense to me. You still have falls, quickdraws in fixed positions and no one clip sticks this route anyway. Why do you need more bolts? It's not really any more convenient, it's not really any safer, it's not really any less clear as to where the boundary between this and top roping lies. The main argument seems to be "sport routes have bolts in. This is how things are. Stop trying to be controversial". I really wish we could have this debate face to face - I just think your argument is non-existent.

I didn't say the route must not be bolted. I said my vote was for it not to be bolted (and in this argument I don't think it can come down to a simple show of hands, as this really would be the end of trad everywhere).


And who decides what area is a trad or a sport area? What's gone before is a terrible test of what's right for a crag. Not to want to sound elitist, but there aren't loads of people who know what plausible really futuristic trad lines even look like, so how is there ever going to be a balanced arrangement that protects the future of both sport and trad? Sure the bolters got on all the blank rock first, that's the nature of being able to go anywhere with bolts, but that doesn't mean it should always stay that way. Tbh, I increasingly struggle to see a future for trad without retro tradding/ removing bolts. This discussion has just proved the flaws with the current arrangement even further.

You've described the normal approach to Twll Mawr. Its an ab from the gap and then a scramble. It's a bit annoying, not the end of the world, but hardly your normal sport approach and I'm sure puts people off. How popular is Twll Mawr compared with the rainbow? The scrambling way wouldn't be easier than a bolted line I think. I agree it's not a big deal, bit neither is a rope off a bolt.

[Hoseyb]

Twll Mawr Access.
What I remember is the the ledge meltdown goes off is reached from an ab point in the alcove, accessed
by a relatively simple scramble from the tourist path. Has this changed? Been years since I played in Twll Mawr. The scramble up from the bottom to this point ( opening gambit P1) is also pretty straightforward.
That's the joy of Twll Mawr, easy access to deep adventure. There's bolt ab points hidden all over the place

[Franco]

I can't imagine Ondra approaching via either of those approaches. The traverse across that death dry stone wall  is really not pleasant and still requires an ab (and then clip stick up)

[Bonjoy]

...increasingly struggle to see a future for trad without retro tradding/ removing bolts. This discussion has just proved the flaws with the current arrangement even further.

You must surely see the irony of this statement, given that you are directly responsible for the line being bolted by declaring it a sport route. I think there are grounds for retro tradding stuff, especially if you did the sport FA. It's a debate worth having. Hammer out some ground rules in advance though, so it doesn't end up being a shitshow. For my money the cheif rules would be that the bolts are rendered properly unusable during the ascent (hangers temporarily removed or eye heavily taped over) and no bolts fully removed until after a clean trad ascent. Deciding what is fair game for this approach would be the contentious part in most cases, but not this case I think.

[andy moles]

The main argument seems to be "sport routes have bolts in. This is how things are. Stop trying to be controversial".

I think you're not seeing the bigger picture. If we give a pass to sport routes being claimed with knotted ropes instead of being properly equipped, it opens up even more scope than there is already for bolt/anti-bolt controversy. Look what's happened here in a sample of literally one! Let your imagination run with it...if suddenly we have lots of routes with sport grades that are partly bolted or not bolted, someone takes it upon themselves to add bolts, someone else gets offended because they also wanted to keep it as a trad project...how is that a good way forward? What is even gained? Fixed protection is a perennially hot topic in climbing as it is, and adding another layer of complication to that seems extremely unlikely to help.

Out of interest, what do you think makes this route so suited to being a trad project, any more than any number of other hard lines with limited trad protection? By grade it's an order of magnitude harder than anything anyone has ever done with an equivalent level of danger, which does make it look from most people's perspective a bit improbable that it would ever get done...

[Franco]

I just don't see that. My actions maintained the status quo - It made me sad that there were any bolts in such an usually blank (but still climbable) wall, but the first bolts appeared there before I was born, because people couldn't imagine it being climbed on trad, so I just semi-accepted that and moved on, doing the best I could with what I found. This conversation is only really relevant to slabby and vert routes, as hanging ropes aren't likely to work on steep things, but I really don't see how it complicates matters. The argument "not bolting things makes things complicated, so we best bolt anything that hasn't been done on trad yet" is in any case, not particularly strong.

The first point regarding what makes a good futuristic trad project, is that there aren't many lines with poor protection. Bold routes (in my opinion) have to be particularly pure in line to make sense, so you're looking for something with hard climbing, bad gear and which is a great line. There's not many of them around... Certain rock types generally top out at certain grades because of this: grit ~E10, sandstone ~E11, Lakes rock ~E10 etc. You can climb harder than this on the rock types, but you're soon going to be compromising on quality. Slate has the potential to go way harder because it is so compact and still maintains inescapability. Unfortunately there aren't many good bits of slate that haven't already been bolted.

[andy moles]

The argument "not bolting things makes things complicated, so we best bolt anything that hasn't been done on trad yet" is in any case, not particularly strong.

That's not the argument though - no one's arguing against keeping trad projects unbolted (well, no doubt some people would in any given case, but it's not really the point of contention here), but rather against claiming them as unbolted sport routes in the interim. Basically, I think that muddying their status is far more likely to end up not pleasing anyone than being the best of both worlds. A simpler way of having the best of both would be to do what Bonjoy suggests, and taping up the bolts or removing the hangers.

Anyway, fuck knows what I'm doing still weighing in on this, it long since passed an acceptable point of circularity 

[Stu Littlefair]

I get that most people on here think all sport routes must be fully bolted the whole way up. I disagree.

This is pretty much the definition of a sport route, which is agreed upon by everyone. Disagreeing is like trying to change what colour orange is.

You can’t claim a “sport route” and then say, “hang on, not what everyone else means by a sport route”.

The main argument seems to be "sport routes have bolts in. This is how things are. Stop trying to be controversial". I really wish we could have this debate face to face - I just think your argument is non-existent.

I agree, this is the main argument, and I can see your frustration because to some extent your knitted rope does work in this one instance.

What you are refusing to do though is to consider the implications if it was adopted as a sensible practice more widely.

Suppose a hypothetical area is developed like this, and I want to visit as a sport climber? That should be ok right - it’s supposed to be a sport venue…

Ok. I’ll need some knotted ropes. How long? Well it will be different for each route so I’ll take a selection of rope lengths with me on my walk in…

Not great.

Ok then - I can just take an extra 40m rope with me. Bit of a hit on the baggage allowance, but fine. But now the section with the knotted rope is 2/3rds of the way up and the rope gets in the way on the crux foot swap. And I get tangled up in it turning the roof at the bottom and feel like I’m going to hang myself.

Not great.

Ok - I’ll try a different route. I fancy an onsight burn on the area classic 8b. How do I get the knotted rope up there?

Fucking shambles.

So what you’re advocating might be ok as a one off, but would lead to a completely shit climbing experience if applied more widely.

There’s a reason sport routes have bolts in them. It’s because it’s the best way to provide a safe climbing experience that people enjoy.

The status quo often exists for a reason and it’s not a non-existent argument to defend it. It’s for people who want to break the status quo to show that their alternative is better and doesn’t lead to adverse consequences for everyone else.

[remus]

What you are refusing to do though is to consider the implications if it was adopted as a sensible practice more widely.

How likely is it for that to actually happen, though? I don't think there are many people out there who are establishing sport routes with a view to then doing them as trad routes. I agree it'd be rubbish if it became the status quo, but in this niche I think it's just a nice bit of colour for the history section.

[Bonjoy]

A negative implication/precedent here is that pre-claiming a trad line as a sport route can be (and arguably has been) used as a means of claiming a level of ownership of the line which precludes it being bolted. Having the sport FA cake and claiming the right to come back later and eat the trad cake too.

[Stu Littlefair]

What you are refusing to do though is to consider the implications if it was adopted as a sensible practice more widely.

How likely is it for that to actually happen, though? I don't think there are many people out there who are establishing sport routes with a view to then doing them as trad routes. I agree it'd be rubbish if it became the status quo, but in this niche I think it's just a nice bit of colour for the history section.

That rather depends on the reception it gets, doesn’t it? Franco himself has said he plans to use this approach again on the slate. If the general response to Franco’s ascent was “great idea” you might see it adopted wider still.

It’s why it is worthwhile to point out how rubbish it is, even tho at times it must feel like a pile on to Franco, but I guess that’s what happens when you do something nearly everyone disagrees with.

[Wellsy]

Plenty of crags and/or rock types have certain rules to preserve the feel of the climbing, you can't bolt grit for example, it only seems fair that other crags/rock types have generally accepted rules that you should bolt it. In my (v humble) opinion

[abarro81]

It's also fine to have hybrid crags - Taipan has trad, normal sport, trad-sport hybrid, and "designer runout" sport. I doubt anyone dropped knotted ropes to climb, claim the FA of, name, and grade the routes before actually climbing the trad route. Because they would have got laughed at (or, by the sounds of some characters back in the day, punched).

Plus everything Stu said.

[Fiend]

A negative implication/precedent here is that pre-claiming a trad line as a sport route can be (and arguably has been) used as a means of claiming a level of ownership of the line which precludes it being bolted. Having the sport FA cake and claiming the right to come back later and eat the trad cake too.

What about if both cakes are made of hats? Or perhaps served in a hat each? Would that affect the consumption??

It does seem that there are a few sensible options dealing with a project like this:
1. Bolt it, or get someone else to bolt it, as is quite normal on slate, and climb it as a sport route.
2. Partly bolt it but with some runouts, as is quite normal on slate, and climb it as a designer scare hybrid route.
3. Leave it unbolted and continue working on it as a (closed) trad project, as is quite normal, with or without working attempts next to a hanging rope / tyrolean traverse / via ferrata / extendible ladder, and with or without flamboyant hullabaloo about H12 / E14 grades.

Any one of those could have happened....