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Bolting at Piddo 13-May-2011 At 12:05:17 PM tnd

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Well said Mike (garbie). But according to some who've contributed to this thread, beginners, kids and pensioners should stay at home if they don't want to climb trad.

I must be having a slow day...I'll write some more on this subject, to indicate where the demand is.

In the last several years I've FA'd, among other harder stuff, two ground up trad routes - 13M1 (13 with a grade 20 start) and 17 - and three easy bolted routes - 14 and two 15's (both of which are mostly grade 12). The 13 trad has had two repeats, one by me, and the 17 trad a handful. The easy bolted routes have had people swarming all over them. Rock quality of all of them is similar - not great, but ok by Blue Mountains standards.

Then there's Bellbird Wall, the 100m multi-pitch Mikl, Bundy and I bolted. A few relatively hard moves in the middle, but mostly grade 15. A popular outing now, and provides good multi-pitch practice for people before they have a crack at the hard stuff, bolted or trad.

I reckon a lot of those people will gain confidence on those easy bolted routes and go on to participate in trad climbing anyway, so it's not the start of some slippery slope as some would have it.

The fact is that there aren't many rock faces in the BM's that climb at the easy grade. It's either broken chossy crap at about grade 10 or suddenly it's 18. So there'll never be a proliferation of these easy routes.