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Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
VIC Grampians	(General)	(General)	(General)	[ Grampians Guide \| Images ]

Author

Big Cave


fatfairy

7-Jun-2006
7:20:37 PM

Hi all,

Just been doing a bit of exploration in the Victoria Range and went and checked out that big red cave you can see from Buandik. Man!!! that place is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!
So my question is (being new to this country) what's the local ethic as far as putting aid bolts in to equip these routes?


nmonteith

7-Jun-2006
7:37:33 PM

(surely this is a troll)

if not... that place is TRAD ONLY. ie Bolt free - and should stay that way. It is a popular wilderness bush
walking area thus bolts are a big no no. All first ascents so far have been on trad (quite runout in places!)
and the first ascent guys wanted to keep this as a special trad only area.

chris sharma!

7-Jun-2006
7:42:58 PM

any pics.
i say lets bolt it!!!

simey

7-Jun-2006
8:02:45 PM

No drilling has taken place at Red Cave.

The addition of bolted climbs and the subsequent impact of more chalk would severely change the feel of Red Cave, which is visited by bushwalkers as well as climbers. If you can do a climb there without drilling, go for it, as its impact will be minimal.

There are a stack of fantastic bolted climbs at plenty of other cliffs in the Gramps, so the lack of bolted climbs at Red Cave is hardly a loss to the climbing community.

As for putting in aid bolts to equip routes... well that seems to be something that has only happened in recent years (unfortunately). Not only does it happen, but on a couple of climbs I've seen it has happened to a ridiculous degree.

I've bolted a few steep climbs in my time and I have never needed to place a bolt that wasn't ultimately used as essential protection on the climb. Aid bolts can usually be avoided. Look at the number of steep climbs that Malcolm Matheson has bolted. I bet he would say the same thing.

I hope that answers your question.


fatfairy

7-Jun-2006
10:29:31 PM

On 7/06/2006 nmonteith wrote:
> It is a popular wilderness bush
>walking area thus bolts are a big no no.

No offence, but I saw little evidence of bush walkers when I was there? There's not even a obvious track in there.

>All first ascents so far have
>been on trad (quite runout in places!)

What routes have been done in there? There is one obvious roof line in the place with a peg in the start, but what are the other lines? There's a scarey choss trav up the back of the cave, looks about 7a, with E grade because it's questionable rock maybe serious??

But I'm with chris

>i say lets bolt it!!!


mousey

7-Jun-2006
11:05:13 PM

hehe i love a good bout of trollish behaviour

8-Jun-2006
8:37:10 AM

bushwalkers look more fondly on pegs than bolts. Just bash some pegs in man... it's the environmentally friendly way of equiping routes in Victoria.


nmonteith

8-Jun-2006
12:50:49 PM

Its home to the (unrepeated) Welcome To Barbados (29)


fatfairy

8-Jun-2006
1:11:22 PM

On 8/06/2006 KP wrote:
>bushwalkers look more fondly on pegs than bolts. Just bash some pegs in
>man... it's the environmentally friendly way of equiping routes in Victoria.

Might be able to bash in a peg here and there, but in general most of the routes would not take a placement.

Thanks for the photo nmonteith, that's the place. Gives you a good idea of the type of terrain that the routes would go through!!! Thought it was the route 'Welcome to Barbados" but wasn't sure. Heard about the route from a fellow englishman who did an ascent late last year, James I think his name was. Hank the Yank, I've been told onsighted it with no beta.

Back to the issue though, I can't see how you would be able to bolt these routes without aiding up or back aiding with small dyna bolts??


tmarsh

8-Jun-2006
2:34:54 PM

On 8/06/2006 fatfairy wrote:
>Back to the issue though, I can't see how you would be able to bolt these
>routes without aiding up or back aiding with small dyna bolts??

Perhaps you are missing the point. The point being no bolts. Seriously. If you bolted any routes in that cave I have no doubt they would be chopped. There would be only one loser if that happened: the rock.

If you're asking a more general question about how to equip really steep routes... The answer is it is a truly shit process and involves hooks, dodgy cams, marginal wires and tricams in pockets. And sometimes aid bolts as well. The need for aid bolts is probably greater if you're putting in glue-ins that can't be loaded immediately. If you're usign expansions you can free/aid climb to decent hook placements then drill off hooks and clip the bolt you've just placed. It is dodgy and dangerous. Especially if you forget to bring a skyhook and end up hanging off a nut tool instead.

But more to the point, if you were capable of putting up new routes in the Red Cave, you would know these answers already. Sounds like a troll to me.

simey

9-Jun-2006
8:24:39 PM

On 8/06/2006 KP wrote:
>Just bash some pegs in man... it's the environmentally friendly way of equiping routes in Victoria.

That is correct, although it seems that younger climbers like yourself are fairlessy clueless with the variety of approaches to climbing and equipping routes, hence the cynical attitude towards pegs.

Pegs utilise natural features of the rock and are usually less of an eye sore.

Well placed pegs are bloody solid.

Pegs can be replaced more easily than most bolts.

But hey what would I know, or Malcolm Matheson for that matter? Until we learn that we need to rap every new route beforehand, and place aid bolts to get into position, and maybe add a few dogging bolts (which we will might also clip on the redpoint ascent and remove afterwards)... then we might understand how much todays generation are really advancing the sport.

dalai

10-Jun-2006
11:36:23 AM

On 9/06/2006 simey wrote:
>But hey what would I know, or Malcolm Matheson for that matter?

Save the agro for the football field Simon!

Basing your example on HB for example, he is just one individual. And who still holds some bizarre ethical views.

I don't agree with all his decisions, a couple spring to mind -

The eyesore fixed sling on Monkey Puzzle (all the other pieces of tat at the Gallery have since been replaced with bolts) yet Malcolm won't agree to it's replacement with a less conspicuous bolt.

Also I recall some time ago that he would rather leave the tangled mess of slings on the belay ledge of Sirocco rather than two glue in rings...(unsure if this issue was since resolved)

And back on topic - the cave should not be bolted. There are enough steep bits of rock still undeveloped in the Grampians. Why not leave this one cave with it's own unique ethics?

uwhp510

10-Jun-2006
1:45:29 PM

The fixed tat on Monkey Puzzle should be left since it serves the invaluable function of pissing off the euros ("merde, what is zis shit eh?"). Little idiosyncracies like this (and carrots, odd bits of gear on sport routes and dare I say it the odd peg) are part of what makes aussie climbing unique.

dalai

10-Jun-2006
2:04:13 PM

The fixed thread isn't an Australian invention. I've come across plenty of tatty fixed threads throughout Europe...

It's just an eyesore!

climbingjac

13-Jun-2006
10:14:00 AM

On 10/06/2006 dalai wrote:
>I don't agree with all his decisions, a couple spring to mind -
>
>The eyesore fixed sling on Monkey Puzzle (all the other pieces of tat
>at the Gallery have since been replaced with bolts) yet Malcolm won't agree
>to it's replacement with a less conspicuous bolt.
>
>Also I recall some time ago that he would rather leave the tangled mess
>of slings on the belay ledge of Sirocco rather than two glue in rings...(unsure
>if this issue was since resolved)

…and when the grand screwin ring bolt anchor experiment on Taipan Wall went horribly wrong and near killed Dave Jones…

If you're to inflict your handiwork on others, it needs to be rock solid! If this means adopting some of the more modern means of equipping routes in order to allow for suitable testing before a human life is on the line, then I'm all for it.

uwhp510

13-Jun-2006
10:57:33 AM

On 10/06/2006 dalai wrote:
>It's just an eyesore!

That's subjective though isn't it. At least it's (presently) a small win in the battle against total climbing homogenisation.


nmonteith

13-Jun-2006
11:09:49 AM

Yep the Grampians is certainly 99.99% a sport crag. No trad routes left to do at all. Those damn pesky
bolters have grid-bolted everything. Where's the adventure?

simey

13-Jun-2006
12:01:18 PM

On 10/06/2006 dalai wrote:
>... HB for example, he is just one individual. And who still holds some bizarre ethical views. I don't agree with all his decisions, a couple spring to mind -
>The eyesore fixed sling on Monkey Puzzle (all the other pieces of tat at the Gallery have since been replaced with bolts) yet Malcolm won't agree to it's replacement with a less conspicuous bolt.
>Also I recall some time ago that he would rather leave the tangled mess of slings on the belay ledge of Sirocco rather than two glue in rings...(unsure if this issue was since resolved)

I agree that Malcolm is far from perfect when equipping routes and in my opinion does get it wrong occasionally.

However I disagree with the examples that you have given. I like the use of natural features to provide protection. Fixed threads are easily replaced (unlike many bolts).

dalai

13-Jun-2006
12:07:33 PM

I agree bolts are not always the best solution. But from a visual perspective, a mass of sun faded slings are a far greater visual eyesore than a well placed bolt...

Each situation is unique and should always be assessed on a case by case basis. My personal preference though, especially on well travelled routes is for the use of long lasting alternatives (easily replaceable stainless expansions etc).

simey

13-Jun-2006
12:19:24 PM

On 13/06/2006 climbingjac wrote:
>…and when the grand screwin ring bolt anchor experiment on Taipan Wall went horribly wrong and near killed Dave Jones…
>If you're to inflict your handiwork on others, it needs to be rock solid! If this means adopting some of the more modern means of equipping routes in order to allow for suitable testing before a human life is on the line, then I'm all for it.

Any bolt could be subject to human error when being placed. The mistake Malcolm made when placing those screw-in ring bolts was over-torquing them. That mistake could be made when placing dyna-bolts as well.

As for glue-ins... well there is a long history of stuff-ups with the placement of those... not cleaning the hole thoroughly, not recessing the bolt properly, old glue.

Dave Jones near miss can also be attributed to his own blase attitude when it came to lowering off the climb. There are two bolts placed at lower-offs for a purpose. His complete reliance on a single anchor when it was completely unneccessary was plain stupid.

There are 43 messages in this topic.