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General Climbing Discussion

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Thorpey says top roping is fully sick. 4-Feb-2005 At 7:02:16 PM maxots

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I personally think that toproping should be thought of as acceptable. though I understand that on overhung routes it is not an option, for slabs/vertical/slightly over I think it is.
My reasons are as follows.......
> If bolted well (safely) there should be no 'real' danger when falling. Apart from the thrill of falling, essentially (to me) leading a climb at say Nowra is as safe as toproping it. The worst you can get is a grazed knee, maybe a broken ankle, even an upside down fall (I wear a helmet) but these are rare and, though I still get the wobbles on sport climbs, as soon as I fall its "what was the big deal"
> If it is badly bolted then you would only attempt it if looking for a scare, in which case trad climbing offers a far better fix (obviously the line blurs on multipitchs with bolts 'filling the gaps' between placements)
> If we accept that a bolted sport climb offers a short, challenging and safe experience, with the emphasis on technical diffuculty, not seriousness or exposure (again I'm not talking booroomba bolted routes) then it seems to me that by toproping the route, you get the same experience and that if we did this everyone would just climb a couple of grades harder.
> if you really want the 'thrill' of falling then leave a pile of slack in your top rope belay !
> This would also take away the problem of lines being bolted that someone with more balls would climb on shitty gear (I don't know about the first-come first-serve idea on style of the first ascent. It takes a lot longer to work the headpoint on a poorly protected grade 28 than to rap bolt, work the route and claim the first ascent. And once its bolted there is no going back)
> this issue really bugs me as if was to toprope a bunch of 18s through 22s on a 10m crag. Awesome face climbing. I'm willing to bet that someone would bolt those suckers. I really don't think we should bolt lots of new routes for conveniece when they could be amazing bold trad testpeices. (and don't pull the "you're being elitist" shot on me, first, i don't climb hard runout trad, but still feel it should be left available, and second, climbing is by its very nature elitist, lets keep it that way)

anyway flame away ! (im bored, and no i dont take my post that seriously)

oh and why the F%*k do people bolt 6 metre climbs. These are boulder problems ! ! !