That end boiled down to that? No, that was the beginning too. If we talked TRs with removable gear, no one would care. It's a valid discussion. How we talk about it is important. Issues around limited resources are valid. Appeals to elitism to prevent mediocre climbers from enjoying the same rock is wrong headed.
I thought so, looking at what other put in. I do not think it is the level of routes going in. It is how many, how fast, and concerns of quality.
This was my last post. I am a bit familiar with the 11's out there so I used that as a reference point. My post below basically just shows that this is not the fist time this discussion has come up and the previous time the "old guard" was involved.
Mud's fully entitled to just reminisce and bullshit now and then.
Well, if you cannot climb ya gotta do something. I do not know if I am part of the old guard, but perhaps longevity does have its merits.
But to throw fuel on the fire. Should Gagner been given a hard time for putting up Feeding Frenzy, Here comes the Judge and Pill Box. All of them are 5.11 all have more than their share of loose rock. Well Pill Box just has 15 to 20 feet of junk ( the crux of course ). Or, does he get a pass just because he put up hard routes that no one else was willing or capable of bolting? Gagner was the master of choss.
I can see the other side as well though. There was some discussion back in the day before the Rubine books came out because of the number of routes that were going up. Most of the plums were plucked back then. I even remember discussions of the route approval committee being thrown around.
Having read through this and basically looking at it as an outsider since I have no real position but to know most of the folks involved and having been a part of the pins for a while, I would say the argument mostly boils down to this
a. There are a lot of routes going up. (this has been a concern in the past even though most of that stuff was on the harder side)
b. Were not sure the quality or the difficulty ( I think if the quality is there no one will argue ) warrants some of these routes and perhaps folks need to step back and ask should this be done.
My take on a. this is the first time since the old Santa Cruz crew and the Bay Area crew that there has been a "crew" working together to put up routes. So of course the routes are going up quickly and there is a deliberate focus on moderate routes which just has not really existed in a while. Previous examples that I can think of ( Gerdies and Flumes ) both short lived both relatively popular.
My take on b. yeah we should always think about what were bolting. I have done routes that in retrospect I perhaps should have passed on. But, I have also walked past routes that got bolted that turned out fairly well.
