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Fixed gear guidelines in the Grampians 15-May-2018 At 5:49:14 AM Wendy

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On 14-May-2018 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 14-May-2018 Wendy wrote:
>>Why do I feel like people have PV paranoia? PV know we place bolts. They
>>know there are lots of them. They have had the public complain about
>them
>>before. If they were going to blanket ban climbing because of the mere
>>existing of bolting, they would have done so already.
>
>This is incredibly naive. I honestly think a bolt war is less harmful
>than involving the authorities.
>
>Fatboy pretty much covered the basics, I'll add a dash of harshness.
>
>People who are bolting highly visible crags in national parks are playing
>chicken with a train, and the rest of us are stuck in the car with them.
>For example, I know you reckon Joe Goding is a nice bloke, but he's developing
> junk which offends lots of climbers, and could potentially affect broader
>access. The risk vs reward is unbelievable. It's selfish, stupid, and I
>frankly struggle to see how he can be a good person.

I don't know that people's bolting behaviour reflects their intrinsic goodness....

If Joe's development is offending lots of climbers, why aren't they approaching him to have a constructive conversation about it? How about people don't put the crags in guidebooks and don't go to the crags as well? Instead, I would say he is getting a lot of positive feedback from the hoards that dream of easy sport crags (another pet bug bear of mine). Hence he continues. I don't think Joe bites. I think Joe actually likes to make people happy and would be upset that people were angry at his work.

Maybe we aren't really expressing the views of lots of climbers. Maybe it's actually just a few of us (with varying degrees of extremism about it). Perhaps calling to "climbing ethics" is no longer really going to be a very effective call, because the population and the culture is changing. What the majority consider normal has shifted. Can we really insist they all shift back to what it once was for the arbitrary reason that it is how it was (in some idealised view of the past)? Or maybe we need to ground our concerns in more concrete terms such as environmental, cultural, aesthetic, safety and legal issues?