So Munge sent me this link - interesting comments and topic, though I don't know why someone would place a hook and climb past it. When we were first putting up routes we hand drilled from stances. However, what we learned is that, in general, the steeper the rock in Pinnacles, the better the rock quality, so we started pursuing steeper lines that either didn't have stances to drill from, or we just ran it out to where there was a stance where we could drill. We were always, I think, extremely conscious of the climbing, and where the bolt needed to be to clip. In other words, we didn't get on a hook, and then ratchet up higher just to get the bolt higher. Sometimes we would put in a quarter inch bolt just to get something in fast. Really, back then we hardly thought many people would repeat many of our routes.
The alternative to hanging on hooks to place a bolt was to either not do the route, or rap bolt it, and most of us who were putting up routes at the time came from a pure ground up ethic. It seemed that, selfishly, rap bolting allowed lots of routes to be put in in a short period of time, with low/no commitment, and I had seen routes rap bolted where the bolts were placed in the wrong place for clipping.
When Bellizzi, Barbella, or the McConachi brothers and I would establish routes we would only call a route a free route once we red pointed it. It was a work-in-progress until that point, and we were always psyched to sandbag our friends from Santa Cruz on the 2nd ascent, usually done on sight.
Paul
