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Over Bolting 11-May-2009 At 8:36:41 PM foreverabumbly

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On 11/05/2009 widewetandslippery wrote:
>,
> Grid bolting an otherwise unprotectable bunch
>of stone I think is fine in context.

I see the point that you make, yet I dont entirely agree with it.

I was out at Nowra over Easter and some of the grid bolted walls were disgusting in my opinion. Some of the routes were soo close together you could clip 3 lines from the one stance. (I realise Im pointing out the worst case senario)

I recognise that to do these climbs the best was is to bolt them, and Im not entirely against sport climbing. Yet for me bolting leads to the question of how we view the environment we are in. Grid bolting in particular shows that we view a cliff environment as if its a factory for producing climbs and has no other use or reason for being. bolting every concievable line, even if the bolting is done only where there is no protection and is done boldly, is still overbolting IMO

Not every cliff face needs to be climbed, or should be climbed. As Bundy pointed out - there is many already established cliffs out there to use, why saturate more convienient areas? Is not the bolting I disagree with, its the underlining belief that bolters have that we hold all the rights to a cliff. that as climbers it is our God given right to do whatever the hell we want when it comes to cliffs.

Or perhaps Im just too much of a tree hugging hippy