Rap/Ground-up bolting at the Pinns

[Atomizer]

This was just posted over on the Facebook Mud n'crud page by Mittens in relation to Bellizi's inquiry about who is going to chop the two routes in question.

I forgot to mention, but I got on this route a while back. I broke 2 key holds (among others) and generally felt that it was poorly bolted. There is a huge jug before the final crux boulder problem and the crux bolt is impossible to clip from it, even with a prehung draw. Instead you have to clip off of very suspect, crimpy knobs. Definitely a rap bolt specialty. The climbing is not very sustained, with hard boulder problems between fat rests with huge edges. Would have gone on hooks super easily. Much more easily than daddy long legs, vigilante, or other hard ground up testpieces. I also rapped down the "project" and I'm 90% sure that the crux crimp is chiseled. Now, I'm not the style police- I enjoy climbing hard rap bolted routes as much as the next sportf@*k (as Angelo would say), but I will readily make the distinction between well an poorly bolted routes. If a route is bolted logically so as to maximize the utility of all who climb it, all is well (even if established on rap). I feel like these routes were poorly bolted, and the crag is worse off for it.

[cobbledik]

what's the link for the Mudn'Crud Facebook Page?

edit: Mucci let me in. Thanks guys. Now we're facebook official!

[Atomizer]

It's private, if you add me as a friend I can than add you. Or Mungeclimber can add you too. I shouldn't be too hard to find. Adam Long

[mynameismud]

That Mittens is a beast.  Has he lead UberMunch yet?

Sad to hear about the bolting jobs, oh well I think time will take care of that.

[F4?]

which route?

[Atomizer]

Mittens hasn't done ubermensh yet or Ranger Bolts, but neither have I...

[mynameismud]

GETRDONE

[clink]

Found this today and read a bit of it.

One thing I will agree with you on is that the social atmosphere of the Pinnacles blows... nothing has changed in the last 25 years, still lots of egomanical tough guy talk from a small group of Pinnacles "locals" who feel it is their duty to tell everyone else how they should climb.

 If 25 years hasn't changed the culture, it will likely prevail for the next couple hundred.

 If you rapbolt at Pinnacles may the cold wind of the social atmosphere that "blows" always be at your back.

 Rules? Well for me. No chipping (except at quarries or fitting rocks in masonry). No chopping bolts, (Who made you God?), in my book as bad as chipping. If a FA can be done by stance, do it on stance. If a route can possibly be done ground up, do it ground up. Stay away from the hospital and out of the morgue. The #1 rule is, rules are made to be broken.

 Pinnacles has a history of the coolest and most awesome rap bolting trashy climbers on the planet, and a whole hell of a lot(thank God) of great ground up routes. Glad I climb there.

[cobbledik]

Rules? Well for me. No chipping... No chopping bolts..., in my book as bad as chipping.

Care to expand on this ethical comparison? If bolts are "chopped" and the mangled remains are left out like a corpse to fester, I can see your point of view. What about proper chopping where the bolt is pulled, the hole is patched, and usually (one can argue) the slow slide down that slippery slope is prevented for one more day? (I tried to hide my own feelings about this... did it work?)

No chopping bolts, (Who made you God?)

Pinnacles has ... a whole hell of a lot (thank God) of great ground up routes. Glad I climb there.

I'm not sure if I caught the joke, caught the troll, or just caught the irony. Without answering "who" made the bolt chopper a god, you did manage to thank said god for the very routes that exist because local ethic (and action) prevented anyone from rapping in to bolt those testpieces into a nice, safe, outdoor gym.

[mungeclimber]

Yesh

[F4?]

Can't we just get along?

[clink]

What about proper chopping where the bolt is pulled, the hole is patched, and usually (one can argue) the slow slide down that slippery slope is prevented for one more day? (I tried to hide my own feelings about this... did it work?)

 As in Wall of Early Morning Light and The Compressor Route? Is P.O.D. chopped yet? Why is it the self righteous bastards are the ones that end up chopping. Or is it the chopping that makes them dicks? I personally put in bolts ground up and only drilled on stance, and detest chippers and choppers and raw onions.

 In my glorious youth and at the height of my stance induced resentment toward ground up climbers who placed bolts from hooks, I admit to considering chopping every route in the Pinns that wasn't done to my all wise and knowing personal style. Not wanting to be a complete ass-O I reconsidered.

 As for explaining the 2 references to God, the first was a mortal who thinks he is the Great Judge and Executor. The second is the Almighty who rewards the faithful(especially ground up stance climbers) Just my opinion.

 In the Pinnacles the community has let higher difficulty rap bolted routes be, but discouraged the practice.. The prevailing ground up ethic stands as the prefered means to establish a new route, and the vast majority of FAs are GU. This is the climbing history of Pinnacles National Park-you-meant.

[Brad Young]

We do all get along. That doesn't mean we can't debate a few points though.

Nice post Kevin, nice post.

(And, just in case people aren't aware, Clink is the literal inheritor of the extremely proud Tom Higgins/Jack Holmgren sense of first ascent style - he's created many, many routes at Pinns and always done them with a strict "free-stance" only ethic. Having said that though, I'm not sure where his post is coming from either; maybe he will expand.)

EDIT: Oh, he did. I'll read that now.

[F4?]

raw onions.

Really? You don't like to cry?

[clink]

Oh shucks, caught again.

[Brad Young]

... Why is it the self righteous bastards are the ones that end up chopping. Or is it the chopping that makes them dicks?

Are they? I don't think so. The only bolt removal ("chopping" isn't the right word) that I am aware of in the last ten years at Pinnacles was done quietly and invisibly. How can a person be self righteous without a peep about what they've done?

... In the Pinnacles the community has let higher difficulty rap bolted routes be, but discouraged the practice.. The prevailing ground up ethic stands as the prefered means to establish a new route, and the vast majority of FAs are GU. This is the climbing history of Pinnacles National Park-you-meant.

This is all true. And it is all in the past ("history").

In a more recent sense, after years and years of "discouragement," of the vast majority (vast) of first ascentionists there establishing a norm, some people made choices such that their own desires/glory/values mattered more than what a whole community wanted and had agreed to. Self righteous? Dicks?

So others acted quietly, letting their desires and values govern their actions.

I see, at worst, equivalence, and at best, quiet, concerned actors seeking to quash self righteous (arrogant, selfish) dicks.

[clink]

I see, at worst, equivalence, and at best, quiet, concerned actors seeking to quash self righteous (arrogant, selfish) dicks.

 Metaphornication.

[Atomizer]

The bolts are gone.
I didn't do it.
And nobody knows who.

Good stuff here. But I'm moving to somewhere that power drills and rap bolting are allowed. I just want to put up good routes. Style doesn't matter in the larger sense for me.

[clink]

Thanks for the discussion, and yes I can take it as well as dish it out.
I hope I haven't offended any of you with my views on chopping.
If  bolts are removed on routes that were manufactured(chiseled), unredpointed lines per the details described, then it doesn't matter.
Removal of a rouge bolt placed on an existing line is understandable. For instance if some one placed an additional protection bolt on Dos Equis I would probably remove it myself, quietly.

Route removal is a different thing.

Hypothetically (hypocritically),
Today I woke up in an arrogant mood. I am going to start  a "fair means" ascent of an existing route that I had eyed as possible by stance, but was done by hanging on hooks to place protection bolts on this free line. My reasoning is the same as this,

The fallacy in this argument is saying that the physical GU FAist would be pushed out (to another crag or whathaveyou)

But if GU is partly (or wholly) about preserving a limited recourse, then the use of rap bolting effectively denies the ability of GU philosophy to preserve. In that way, the GU FAist are not pushed out, but by "pushing out" the limited resources, the effect is the same.

The feeling was mutual among fs climbers, watching routes go up in a week that would have been multi month(or year) long projects by free stance "fair means" ethics.

The interesting fact of the above argument it was the guys hanging from hooks that did the most to preserve the Park from becoming a sport playground by adapting a fierce ground up ethic applied to difficult FAs that the natural, better quality rock allowed.Rich and co.

Others produced great routes by both styles.

Tradition, tradition. Here we are today at this point of evolution and I may even get over myself, or not.

[cobbledik]

I can understand the intent to show that hooks versus stance is a similar argument to GU versus Rap in order to point to the shifting dynamics of community perception over time, but I was unaware that there was a strong or vocal (since those two are not always one and the same) opinion of hooks being an unacceptable method of GU by the Pinnacles community.

IMO the argument is about what the climbing community as a whole seems currently AND historically comfortable with and rap bolting seems to be something that only the self-important and arrogant seem comfortable with both currently and historically at the Pinns.