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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Manufacturing 8-Jul-2005 At 9:23:13 AM animaland

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Woohoo... what a mega-thread! My (probably unwelcome) 2 cents worth...

Up front :

* I've clipped bolts on the way up
* I've descended by rappelling from bolted chains
* I've not climbed any chipped holds (to my knowledge) or manufactured climbs (apart from at the gym).

The bolting and chipping "issue" is only such because we view the world as being available for our
exploitation (oh oh! here comes a green-coloured view.) As members of the "developed" world we have
long seen the environment as something we may (without concern) bend to our needs and wants. We may
divert and dam the river to feed our hydro scheme. We may mine the soil and chop down timber. We may
clear land of its vegetation and native inhabitants for our own agricultural needs.

As climbers we may make the rock climbable.

Sad. Whilst we decimate the planet just by our lifestyle, I hope that at least in a few activities we learn to
work within the world, rather than endeavour to turn it to meet our own desires. I would not be disappointed
to gaze up at many walls or mountains and think, "Wow, I guess nobody will ever climb them".

Why do we feel that if the world doesn't suit us we always have the "right" to change it so that it does? I
hope that those who climb feel awe for the billions of years of ongoing change that shape the forms we
climb. For us to chip, scratch and vandalize these forms in order to climb them is (to me) the utmost in
stupidity and arrogance.

Alan