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Bolting at Piddo (+ easy sport climbs)


tnd

13-May-2011
8:56:03 AM

On 13/05/2011 egosan wrote:
>...Your convenience is not a good reason to place bolts in our public spaces.
I think it is.
>
>f--- your convenience.
f--- your objections.

>You are blindly skipping down a path that has no good end.
I'm skipping down it with eyes wide open.

Samuel

13-May-2011
8:57:58 AM

After 7 pages, i have to ask the question (going back on topic). Has anyone actually
climbed the climb in question ? Maybe as a warm up to sporting life etc, or before hitting piddo proper ?

There is one band of crap rock, which if you use the holds and avoid the crap, is fine.

If this debate is to continue, can we have some educated opinion. The whole topic seems to have fallen into both speculation and nonsense.

simey

13-May-2011
9:11:46 AM

On 13/05/2011 Samuel wrote:
>If this debate is to continue, can we have some educated opinion. The whole topic seems to have fallen into both speculation and nonsense.

You are getting educated opinion. We don't all need to rush to Piddo to repeat this route to realise that it is a very ordinary contribution to the cliff.

egosan

13-May-2011
9:19:51 AM

On 13/05/2011 egosan wrote:
>>...Your convenience is not a good reason to place bolts in our public spaces.

On 13/05/2011 tnd wrote:
>I think it is.

Well, there it is. The tragedy of the commons.

On 13/05/2011 nmonteith wrote:
>As soon as they got fully bolted they suddenly became popular. That's how
>the world works these days.

The proliferation of bolts at Australian crags is only made possible by people individually deciding it is inevitable. The justification of "That's just how it is" to passively watch or worse to contribute to the problem is entirely disingenuous.

robertsonja

13-May-2011
9:40:17 AM

On 13/05/2011 egosan wrote:
>I/My Girlfriend doesn't like placing gear.
>I/My Girlfriend just wants to feel safe.
>I/My Girlfriend likes to belay from the ground.
>I/My Girlfriend doesn't like to scramble around the long way.

Hey Bro, sounds like you need to drive into Horsham and find a new girlfriend, she doesn't sound like your perfect match. If you really loved her you wouldn't be so dogmatic about the said topic, and perhaps you should consider bolting your local crag to keep her happy.

Samuel

13-May-2011
10:20:33 AM

Funny, it wasn't there years ago. Never seen any sand. Also the rope remains in a straight line and does not rub on any of the iron stone band. I know because i checked this when i bolted it.

Although i have not had any negative feedback from people that have actaully climbed it, maybe it's a bad route ? Personally i stand by it, but would like to hear actual feedback from people have climbed it.

Why you need doubles is beyond me. Try using a longer draw. It does not rub.
Stick clip the first bolt, and what do know. Protected first move.


Eduardo Slabofvic

13-May-2011
11:26:07 AM

On 13/05/2011 Wendy wrote:
>
>Go on, everything hero and eduardo have put up is classic!

So, you've done them then, have you?


garbie

13-May-2011
11:26:21 AM

I don't know if anyone's said it yet, but this route is not even close to being the worse route at the crag. Piddo's great, with lots of classics, but some routes are really "of historical interest" only and are just mank, and no one does them. Can't see the big problem.

I'm not saying things are perfect in Europe, (chipping, glued on holds, bolted cracks etc etc) but they do some things right, including bolting easy lines, and bolting them for people who climb them, ie beginners, kids, pensioners (we saw lots of crusty English at Spanish crags, getting some sun, doing bolted 5's and 6's).

There's a fair bit of elitism in Aus climbing. I say each to his own, do the climbs you want to do. A few more easy sport routes is not the end of climbing as we know it.

citationx

13-May-2011
11:47:40 AM

i've realised what i've done here, i've posted under the assumption the crack itself was bolted. i'll just remove my previous post. :-)

luckily this isn't the case. if this is the thread for a new bolted route at piddo, imagine the length this would be if it were about the retrobolting of a crack at such a trad crag as piddo....

Fish Boy

13-May-2011
11:59:54 AM

The rock is not an infinite resource and we don't have the right to use and abuse it as we please. Consideration of the environment and the protection of our resource should be a priority, not safety or the proliferation of routes.


tnd

13-May-2011
12:05:17 PM

Well said Mike (garbie). But according to some who've contributed to this thread, beginners, kids and pensioners should stay at home if they don't want to climb trad.

I must be having a slow day...I'll write some more on this subject, to indicate where the demand is.

In the last several years I've FA'd, among other harder stuff, two ground up trad routes - 13M1 (13 with a grade 20 start) and 17 - and three easy bolted routes - 14 and two 15's (both of which are mostly grade 12). The 13 trad has had two repeats, one by me, and the 17 trad a handful. The easy bolted routes have had people swarming all over them. Rock quality of all of them is similar - not great, but ok by Blue Mountains standards.

Then there's Bellbird Wall, the 100m multi-pitch Mikl, Bundy and I bolted. A few relatively hard moves in the middle, but mostly grade 15. A popular outing now, and provides good multi-pitch practice for people before they have a crack at the hard stuff, bolted or trad.

I reckon a lot of those people will gain confidence on those easy bolted routes and go on to participate in trad climbing anyway, so it's not the start of some slippery slope as some would have it.

The fact is that there aren't many rock faces in the BM's that climb at the easy grade. It's either broken chossy crap at about grade 10 or suddenly it's 18. So there'll never be a proliferation of these easy routes.

Wendy

13-May-2011
2:18:57 PM

On 13/05/2011 Samuel wrote:
>After 7 pages, i have to ask the question (going back on topic). Has anyone
>actually
>climbed the climb in question ? Maybe as a warm up to sporting life etc,
>or before hitting piddo proper ?
>
>There is one band of crap rock, which if you use the holds and avoid the
>crap, is fine.
>
>If this debate is to continue, can we have some educated opinion. The
>whole topic seems to have fallen into both speculation and nonsense.
>

I haven't spent 7 pages discussing this one route. I am discussing the assertions that we need more easy sport routes. I'm concerned about the expectation that we need to make climbing user friendly to all and sundry. There are aspects of climbing that are pretty damn user friendly. I'm not expecting anyone to jump on horrorshows. I'm saying it's perfectly reasonable to expect people to learn some fairly basic skills that will enable them to enjoy the already existing options which are in no way shape or form difficult or dangerous if that want to go climbing.

Damo_P

13-May-2011
2:27:54 PM

i think ur unfair, why should you be the only person who is allowed to climb outdoors.

why should it be up to you to decide if people choose to want to only climb easy sport routes.

Wendy

13-May-2011
2:45:30 PM

On 13/05/2011 tnd wrote:
>Well said Mike (garbie). But according to some who've contributed to this
>thread, beginners, kids and pensioners should stay at home if they don't
>want to climb trad.
>

What did beginners, kids and pensioners climb before we had sport routes? Oh, they climbed trad ... we have always had beginners climbing. We have a fair range of kids and pensioners climbing. We have people with disabilities climbing. The absence of more easy sport routes is not preventing a whole range of people from actually going climbing. What is being claimed to prevent some people from going climbing are their perceptions and choices, not absence of options.

Similarly with all those visiting Europeans, Neil. They can find out what climbing is available in the country before they turn up here and if they aren't able to climb any of it, maybe they should plan a trip somewhere else. We aren't the Australian Tourist Board trying to sell our crags to the world.

>I must be having a slow day...I'll write some more on this subject, to
>indicate where the demand is.
>
>In the last several years I've FA'd, among other harder stuff, two ground
>up trad routes - 13M1 (13 with a grade 20 start) and 17 - and three easy
>bolted routes - 14 and two 15's (both of which are mostly grade 12). The
>13 trad has had two repeats, one by me, and the 17 trad a handful. The
>easy bolted routes have had people swarming all over them. Rock quality
>of all of them is similar - not great, but ok by Blue Mountains standards.

I'm not sure any of my new routes have ever had a repeat, so you're doing better than i am even on the trad ones!

Just because bolts make a route popular doesn't mean we need to place more of them. If you happen to find good easy routes that need bolting to be safe, fine. It's the idea that we need to find and create these things that i find questionable, and the practice of bolting next to perfectly good cracks that takes place in Europe in order to create easy sport that I'm happy not to see here.

>
>Then there's Bellbird Wall, the 100m multi-pitch Mikl, Bundy and I bolted.
>A few relatively hard moves in the middle, but mostly grade 15. A popular
>outing now, and provides good multi-pitch practice for people before they
>have a crack at the hard stuff, bolted or trad.

If people can do a 100m 15 plus a few harder moves route, they can so climb easy trad!
>
>
>The fact is that there aren't many rock faces in the BM's that climb at
>the easy grade. It's either broken chossy crap at about grade 10 or suddenly
>it's 18.

We agree about that bit anyway!

Wendy

13-May-2011
2:55:55 PM

On 13/05/2011 Damo_P wrote:
>i think ur unfair, why should you be the only person who is allowed to
>climb outdoors.

Terribly unfair. Actually i'm being really open minded today. Next time i'm going to rant about how if you can't climb grade 27 squeeze chimneys, you don't deserve to be on rock and we shouldn't sell climbing gear to blonds.
>
>why should it be up to you to decide if people choose to want to only
>climb easy sport routes.

If people choose to climb only easy sport routes, then they are limiting themselves to a small range of generally not so fabulous climbs. That's their choice. I don't think we need to cater for them by trying to increase this very limited selection that's limited for a reason. Many people limit themselves in life with their choices. That's fine by me, that's their problem. I just don't want to increase our impact on the environment and lower our ethics for some people's self imposed limitations. People can broaden their horizons, or live with what is available. Is that really so harsh?

But whilst people think I am elitist, the use of capitals, correct punctuation, a coherent argument and proper English rather than text speak will increase your general credibility. In the meanwhile, you sound like a whinging child.


nmonteith

13-May-2011
2:56:00 PM

On 13/05/2011 Wendy wrote:
>and the practice of bolting next to perfectly
>good cracks that takes place in Europe in order to create easy sport that
>I'm happy not to see here.

You probably want to stay away from Nowra then. Plenty of bolted cracks there. I've led quite a few of them on trad as a sort of 'protest vote' but everyone just laughed at me. A too get a bit upset with bolts next to a splitter jam crack.

Wendy

13-May-2011
3:00:07 PM

On 13/05/2011 nmonteith wrote:
>On 13/05/2011 Wendy wrote:
>>and the practice of bolting next to perfectly
>>good cracks that takes place in Europe in order to create easy sport
>that
>>I'm happy not to see here.
>
>You probably want to stay away from Nowra then. Plenty of bolted cracks
>there. I've led quite a few of them on trad as a sort of 'protest vote'
>but everyone just laughed at me. A too get a bit upset with bolts next
>to a splitter jam crack.

I haven't been to Nowra in about 15 years. I probably climbed a few of those cracks on gear before they were bolted. It is uncalled for - i don't understand why people feel a need to do it.


nmonteith

13-May-2011
3:08:42 PM

On 13/05/2011 Wendy wrote:
> i don't understand why people feel a need to do it.

It's just because NO ONE brings a trad rack to Nowra. Simple really.

Wendy

13-May-2011
3:16:23 PM

On 13/05/2011 nmonteith wrote:
>On 13/05/2011 Wendy wrote:
>> i don't understand why people feel a need to do it.
>
>It's just because NO ONE brings a trad rack to Nowra. Simple really.

Are we the exceptions that prove the rule then?

I'm a big fan of logical consequences. In this case, no trad rack, no climby cracky ... quite simple really!


tnd

13-May-2011
3:25:37 PM

The Nowra cracks were bolted with the absolute intention of pissing people off. Don't let it - it's Nowra.

I don't think anyone here is advocating bolting lines that have good trad placements. The easy bolted things I've mentioned were mostly steppy grey rock with the odd chossy pocket but nothing that would be a decent placement.

The top pitch of Bellbird Wall has a horizontal chimney traverse over 200m of air, followed by a move around an arete. No trad gear, so it got U-bolted by Mikl the U-meister. A great fun experience! I'm sure you'd love it Wendy (seriously, not sarcastically).

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