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Tiger Wall - Dribble Bolting? 31-Aug-2009 At 5:16:06 PM robertsonja

Message

On 25/08/2009 mikepatt wrote:
>On 24/08/2009 brendan wrote:
>>so just to ease everyones mind, roberstonja (jason) is not a bolt nazi
>>we have been in the Blue mountains for the last 3 days and have had fun
>>climbing and clipping bolts, however that is the blue mountains, and
>every
>>area has there own ethics and i think this is where the intial problem
>>is. Jason is not complaining about someone painting numbers on a boulder
>>in Fontainebleu or bolting a climb in Nowra, he is complaining about
>someone
>>bolting a belay in a traditional climbing area, he obviously feels pissed
>>off as someone has taken it upon themselves to bolt a belay on a trad
>route
>>that was not bolted on the first ascent, the route sounds like a peice
>>of shit anyway. Its the principal, just like when Robert McMahon & Gerry
>>Narkowicz chopped there own abseil anchor on Ben Lomond to prove a principal
>>about not bolting on Ben Lomond, if the belay was fiddly and gear hard
>>to find when he was preparing the route for the guidebook maybe he should
>>have included that in the guidebook, at the end of the day i don't really
>>care, i just want araplies to be a trad cliff with strong ethics, look
>>at the UK they have tiny little cliffs that are not world class but there
>>ethics are what makes the place what it is, its the principle of the
>debate
>>not the actual climb or bolts
>
>Have you visited Gimmer crag in the Lake District Brendan? Deepest trad
>teritory, yet even there they've installed a bloody great chain to abseil
>off.. to minimise gully ersosion. Read a bit more about the history of
>Gimmer and the other Lake District cargs and you'll find lots of abseil
>inspection, top roing before leading, chipping etc etc... and since when
>have ethics ever been applied to Arapiles???

I think the point Brendan was making was the general anti-bolting ethics in the UK (gritstone) as opposed to specific bolting cases. YES - I am sure you can point out a specific bolt(s) (only for an abseil off with environmental considerations) or cases of people top-roping.

It is interesting that a damp little island, with little cliffs can become a world renowned hard climbing venue that has produced innumerable world class climbers, in part due to strong ethics.