Calling Of The Bolt Chopping.

[Alex-the-Alex]

I tried to wade through the the some of the P-bolt debate on UKC and it was as dire as could be expected. Very little reasoned debate and the usual noise and shouty angry people.

.. sayeth the lords looking down on the house of commons

Both discussions are needed. Can't decide everything from the shadows of the smoking parlour anymore, even if a lot of the actors are in that room. I agree it's painful, but there's a few topics where it's worth adding a voice on there. I thought this was one of them.

 

[Johnny Brown]

5. What's the incentive not to openly call these bolts even though they are? Who benefits?

My point is I don't have a problem, in principle, with pegs existing or pegs being replaced. As I've said, many pegs were trad gear when they were placed. My Dad's rack included pegs, and I've carried them myself in winter, and have placed them on lead on a couple of occasions including a hand-placed peg on possibly my hardest flash. I don't see them as any way equivalent to a bolt drilled into blank rock.

In general, I agree we should avoid leaving them in place and remove or ignore their decay where possible but I don't have a big issue with replacement if their decline will change the route and they can be removed and replaced without drilling. I'm generally against the use of glue but I don't see gluing a peg in a natural placement as equivalent to drilling a hole in blank rock.

Conflating pegs with the bolting of blank rock will only result in more blank rock being bolted in places where only pegs previously existed. I agree that some of the Gogarth bolts have crossed the line here but I think insisting on referring to e.g. the Strand belay as bolted will only result in actual 100% not grey bolted belays e.g. at Castell Helen.

(...where people are desperate to place one. Ethical issues aside, I'm not aware of any accidents with the current belay but I'll be surprised if it doesn't become an blackspot if it is bolted.)

2. A glued peg that goes in without needing drilling is a glued peg (stainless or otherwise).

4. The twisted semantics around these bolts tells its own story. You don't have this kind of obfuscation and deliberately-veiled language such as 'battery operated hammer-action chisel with a rotary option' or 'eco peg' if there's nothing to hide. A drill is a drill, not a 'battery operated hammer-action chisel with a rotary option'. Drilling is drilling, not 'enhancing depth'. This is the language of bullshit.

The point I'm trying to make is there is some continuum here - between a peg, a glued peg, a removed with peg or chisel and replaced with glued peg, and a drilled out and replaced glued peg. I agree the use of a power drill is an inflection point but unless Chris is lying and they are all simply drilled I can get his point that there isn't always a huge leap between spending two hours pissing around with manual tools vs two minutes with a drill. I can easily imagine too, having tried similar, that the drill would mostly be removing rusted metal and not creating a placement from nothing as is normal with a bolt. I would - as I think you suggest - prefer power drills were unacceptable at places like Gogarth and the act of replacing a peg should therefore require pissing around with manual tools (but here we come up against the reality of me not being the one doing it).

Again, taking Chris' word as truth, he has replaced the 'crucial' peg on Byzantium several times. As much as an ab-placed peg is a compromise here it does make a good route. I'd prefer not to know the history - which I didn't on the 3 occasions I did it - and assumed it was a) lead placed and b) not 100% reliable. Were it to go it might be fun to try to replace it on lead. But I'd be quick to chop a bolt if it appeared nearby.

 

[abarro81]

But I'd be quick to chop a bolt if it appeared nearby.

So why the lack of bolt-chopping plans for the bolts that do seem to have been placed next to/over old pegs?
It seems like maybe there's a desire to not see them as bolts so that no-one has to have a shit faffy day going and taking them out!

 

[Johnny Brown]

Clearly if we're talking mountaineering territory, that's different.

Why and how is it different in 'mountaineering territory'? How do you define such? UK cliffs I've been on include many I would consider 'mountaineering territory', e.g. Ben Nevis, Black Ladders, St' John's Head, Strone etc etc.

But on all UK cliffs, if someone is placing fixed gear, it should be placed well and if that requires placing it from abseil, that's no issue.

Why should it be placed well? Lots of it, on these cliffs and others, it is the legacy of people trying to get up it in an adventurous manner. It wasn't placed to be bomber gear for future generations.

Lots of such cliffs are not easily accessible from abseil. In fact if you wanted to draw a line around 'mountaineering territory' that would be an obvious way to do it. On Gogarth main cliff too it would generally be far easier to access a specific peg by climbing up than abbing down.

For me the key difference between sport and trad is the mindset. In trad climbing I want and expect my safety to be entirely down to my own judgement. In sport you sub-contract that bit out.

JB and various others get terribly excited about fixed gear going "where the rock allows". Which is largely bollocks

I suspect you've not placed many pegs. It really isn't bollocks. You can't hammer a peg into blank rock.

The enlargement of cracks by repeated placing and removal is a seperate ethical issue which was wholly addressed in my childhood. It doesn't happen any more. This is not the issue here.

On easier stuff I just see it as a historical quirk that trad climbing came along first and snapped up all the good quality rock. Whereas it didn't get there first on the blanker harder stuff, so that got bolted.

This is not a 'quirk' it is how the sport evolved. Originally, there was just what we now call trad climbing. That begat the sub-genres we have now. I find the history and evolution part of what makes the sport interesting, and often adds character to routes where features allow us to read that history as we climb.

So just decide which areas and routes need fixed gear, and which don't, and where using fixed gear, use long lasting good quality bolts and stop pratting about with pegs.

I'd personally strip the Cave Routes at Goredale, as they are or should be to me at least absolutely classic trad routes that people can aspire to. As sport routes, meh.

Just when you were threatening to pull together a cogent position, you deliver this spectacular contradiction! Has anyone ever actually climbed the Cave routes without any fixed gear? Almost certainly not, they were aid routes bristling with pegs where the aid was whittled away while providing innumerable fixed points for the 'trad' climber to aim for. What you are actually saying here is everything in the UK should henceforth be black and white except for the memorable routes of my teenage years, which should stay exactly the grey they were! LOL.

 

[Fultonius]

I tried to wade through the the some of the P-bolt debate on UKC and it was as dire as could be expected. Very little reasoned debate and the usual noise and shouty angry people.

.. sayeth the lords looking down on the house of commons

Both discussions are needed. Can't decide everything from the shadows of the smoking parlour anymore, even if a lot of the actors are in that room. I agree it's painful, but there's a few topics where it's worth adding a voice on there. I thought this was one of them.

Oowdeeeerrr ooowwwdddeeeerrrr.

 

[cheque]

I'm pretty surprised someone hasn't gone and unilaterally debolted Gogarth. It would be interesting to know how much that's because
…. people just can't be bothered (fair enough - it's would be a right ballache!!)

It would be an absolute ballache!

People are very quick to start talking about chopping bolts but part of the reason that hardly anyone ever does it is surely because hardly anyone has the wherewithal to actually do it, or do it tidily at least. Most of us (including me, don’t think I’m trying to take some sort of moral high ground here ;D ) have opinions on bolts and pegs but have never placed either and therefore wouldn’t know how to go about removing them either.

 

[Potash]

JB

Am I correct in understanding that you fear that conflating drilled out pegbolts will bolts will further legitimise the bolting of few "wild" places.

Others may see the categorization of peg-bolts as bolts being a useful step in getting them removed.

In general I feel that they arrise out of a project of dishonest deception and need to be removed. I think that getting them well understood to be bolts has been a useful first step. Further steps now need to happen to really make clear how unwanted these are and to prevent their proliferation.

I now know about other routes which have now been regularly climbed without pegs in N Wales which have also been repegged based on the "tradition" of there being pegs. To me this is undesirable as it effectively retro pegs the routes as they are/were a year ago and leaves it open to further pegbolts in the future.

 

[Neil F]

I now know about other routes which have now been regularly climbed without pegs in N Wales which have also been repegged based on the "tradition" of there being pegs.

… and might we be allowed to know which routes you are referring to…. :-\

 

[Potash]

It's second hand information but esoteric'ish classic big E5s.

It is indeed a continuum and I'd suggest that the "inappropriate" replacement of fixed gear has happened across the whole range because of a reluctance to accept that things get harder but that's ok because, people are better, gear is better and bold is ok.

 

[Teaboy]

It's second hand information but esoteric'ish classic big E5s.

Which ones?

 

[Johnny Brown]

But I'd be quick to chop a bolt if it appeared nearby.

So why the lack of bolt-chopping plans for the bolts that do seem to have been placed next to/over old pegs?
It seems like maybe there's a desire to not see them as bolts so that no-one has to have a shit faffy day going and taking them out!

The only ones I've seen are the Strand belay and the Rhoscolyn ones. I'm not going to chop anything I'm not very sure of the history of.

The Strand ones were quite a surprise as it was the first I've heard of the whole thing. All three appeared to be in the old peg placements (I don't know it well enough to be sure) and one of them is not glued at all and could be wobbled. I thought them an outrage on the one hand - clearly drilled and glued - but also carefully crafted to give at a glance the appearance of an old, in-situ belay even down to the wobbly peg.

I would prefer it hadn't happened but the deed has been done and the old belay is gone. Pragmatically one has to consider the likely result of chopping them, which I think would soon be a bolt belay, which would probably get chopped, replaced, perhaps repeatedly before enduring. If holes were drilled here I'm sure others would follow. Fundamentally I don't want to precipitate more holes being drilled at Gogarth, so I haven't rushed back with the grinder.

At Rhoscolyn the issue is similar - I don't know it well enough to know if the new peg-bolts are in peg placements or not. I've never felt a need to belay off them or the old secret bolt that all the guides knew about - sufficient gear placements exist. I would be more supportive of the removal of these, but the existence of the old bolt and the new ones - now chopped - suggests it would again only precipitate more drilled holes. Reality can be a bind.

 

[Potash]

Great Arete on Llech Ddu.

 

[Nemo]

Just when you were threatening to pull together a cogent position, you deliver this spectacular contradiction! - JB

Haha, but no, you just misunderstood me. I thought I'd been pretty clear, but obviously not clear enough.

Has anyone ever actually climbed the Cave routes without any fixed gear? Almost certainly not, they were aid routes bristling with pegs where the aid was whittled away while providing innumerable fixed points for the 'trad' climber to aim for. - JB

No.
My point was that I'd be happy to see them stripped entirely of all fixed gear. Not put back to some bonkers mess as it was back when I was learning to climb. I'd put Dominatrix in the same category.
ie: I think there's various routes with a daft history, that have ended up getting bolted as they previously had lots of pegs / tatt. Which actually could / would make fantastic trad routes if completely stripped (and I'd have thought you would probably have been on board with that had I said it a little clearer).

"What you are actually saying here is everything in the UK should henceforth be black and white except for the memorable routes of my teenage years, which should stay exactly the grey they were! LOL." - JB

As above, not arguing for that in any way whatsoever. When I learned to climb, loads of routes were a complete hybrid mess, going back to that not even remotely a good idea.

"I find the history and evolution part of what makes the sport interesting, and often adds character to routes where features allow us to read that history as we climb." - JB

So do I. Doesn't mean I think that the way things have evolved have resulted in a completely sensible outcome everywhere.

"Why should it be placed well?" - JB

Because if it isn't, it will need replacing in the not too distant future. I don't want to see pegs (or bolts for that matter) having to be re hammered in or re drilled every few years. We've seen the outcome of that over the past half dozen decades. There's sport routes with loads of holes, where if one good quality long lasting bolt had been placed there'd only be one hole. The rock is a finite resource. We can't keep doing that forever, it's not sustainable. If you're placing fixed gear, to me, it should last for a very long time before needing replacing.

"Why and how is it different in 'mountaineering territory'? How do you define such?" - JB

Here's one area I'll concede is not at all clear cut. I'd happily see hammered pegs banned everywhere in the UK and in places like Yosemite. Whilst I've no problems with them in Patagonia or the Himalayas for example.
Admittedly if I did more winter climbing in Scotland / elsewhere I'd probably feel slightly differently (although not very).
Short version though, on pretty much all cliffs primarily used for rock climbing in the UK, rather than winter climbing, I'd ban pegs (with the occasional exception as said previously for belays in really soft rock).

 

[Teaboy]

Great Arete on Llech Ddu.

Ah right, I misunderstood, I thought you meant with p-bolts . If new pegs are unacceptable then face of adversity is going to look very different.

As an aside, this isn’t really an esoteric route more an indication of the issue. Here we have a super classic that was neglected partly due to question marks over it’s fixed gear. If people were regularly climbing it without fixed gear then we’re back to the issue of advertising what’s good and what’s being done as none of the comments on UKC logbook mention it being climbed pegless.

 

[Neil F]

Great Arete on Llech Ddu.

I’m sorry, Potash, but that’s typical of so many people who have been only too ready to pontificate on this matter without having direct experience of what is involved. That is why I called you out on what I thought was probably heresay just then…

For the record, I know who replaced some of the important, but badly rotted pegs on Great Arête. And, because I hate this uninformed speculation, I asked him directly whether he’d used drilled pegs on this route. And he replied, categorically, that he hadn’t.

And, just so I’m consistent in my own pronouncements on this subject - no, I haven’t done Great Arête. And yes, I do aspire to lead it one day.

Neil

 

[Potash]

I'm suggesting that the there has been a wave of fixed gear replacement that is not needed as these routes are climbable without the fixed gear and in my opinion, avoiding fixed gear on trad routes is optimal.

On routes like the great arete this is conventional pegs.

On routes like Horrorshow it's ended up with pegbolts.

I think both are undesirable as adding fixed gear to trad routes seems like stepping back in time.

People have been climbing these routes without trustworthy fixed gear and replacing the gear leaves open the possibility that it is seen crucial and thus needs sanitising with even better fixed gear. Thus in a few years it gets a bolt.

 

[Neil F]

Great Arete on Llech Ddu.

And, whilst we’re at it, can we be allowed to know the names of those people who have made the (presumably on sight?) regular, peg-free ascents of Great Arête on Llech Ddu…?

Thanks

 

[Potash]

Neil,

I was not suggesting pegbolts on GA and apologies if it read like that.

I'm just highlighting that people had climbed this as it was and I think the replacement of historical pegs is a mistake.

I will confess to assuming that the people I know who climbed it in 2006-2015 and described it as having shit pegs but ok anyway we're providing a reasonably objective description.

 

[Neil F]

Neil,

I was not suggesting pegbolts on GA and apologies if it read like that.

Okay, I thought you were implying that GA had had pegbolts added.

But I'm still interested in the assertion you made earlier. To quote you directly

I now know about other routes which have now been regularly climbed without pegs in N Wales which have also been repegged based on the "tradition" of there being pegs. To me this is undesirable as it effectively retro pegs the routes as they are/were a year ago and leaves it open to further pegbolts in the future.

Please can you tell me which "other routes which have now been regularly climbed without pegs in N Wales which have also been repegged" you are referring to, and who had been making the "regular" peg-free ascents, prior to the pegs being replaced, that you refer to?

Thanks

 

[Potash]

Neil,

Other routes can in my mind be singular and I was referring to GA.

I have previously spoken with three people who climbed it in this period and in addition to this when I look on UKC (not gospel I know) I can see a steady trickle of accents. This to me is regularly climbed.

I spent a long time plotting to climb this and spoke to anyone I knew who had been on it. I never had the opportunity before hurting myself and moving away.