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Keep outa my crack - Trad routes as projects?


nmonteith

4-Feb-2008
2:27:23 PM

On 4/02/2008 tradtroll wrote:
>I agree adding one or two bolts does make it a grey area,...but, maybe
>this whole debacle would have been avoided if the route hadn't been advertised
>on chockstone?!!!

No, i think its much better that its now out in the open. There is no excuse for ignorance about who is attempting what, and what has been done before.

tradtroll

4-Feb-2008
2:54:39 PM

why didn't you put the guidebook on the forum BEFORE you had completed your own project then?
As opposed to the morning after.

devlin66

4-Feb-2008
3:03:52 PM

let he who has not sinned cast the first stone. great debate guys. can i have some more popcorn?


nmonteith

4-Feb-2008
3:05:52 PM

On 4/02/2008 tradtroll wrote:
>why didn't you put the guidebook on the forum BEFORE you had completed
>your own project then?
>As opposed to the morning after.

Howdy Hex mark IIV. Because I was in NZ for 3 weeks for Xmas so i couldn't write guidebooks or do new routes. I also don't have an internet connection at Stapylton campground. I happily showed at least 10 people the crag over the long weekend before i had completed the project.

Dave J

4-Feb-2008
3:28:05 PM

On 4/02/2008 tradtroll wrote:
>On 4/02/2008 nmonteith wrote:
>>I can think of a certain thin crack project being attempted by a certain
>>mustached climber at a certain Vic Ranges crag.
>
>
>maybe the next climber had smaller fingers, was better (!), ...or just
>more suited to the route.
>
>I definitely reckon there is no dibs on a purely trad route and no trad
>climber would expect it!! I'm sure the moustachioed climber in question
>bears no grudge.

"bears no grudge" past tense? did someone do the line at the tower? Yowzer!
>
> maybe this whole debacle would have been avoided if the route hadn't been advertised
>on chockstone?!!!
>
Actually....I think if Id read none of this and gone to the Olive caves to do the crack as I intended to
do and saw some chalk on it. I probably would not have held off just because the person who put that
chalk there may not have got up it. But knowing the situation I wouldn't go in and deliberately steal
someones project. There is a very good chance I would have been back in there in the next week or
two so its probably lucky for adam that neil put up the info when he did (assuming I was climbing well
enough to get up it myself that is). I dont know if olive cave is really a debacle but if someone's gone
in and done that route at the tower...

ademmert

4-Feb-2008
3:30:12 PM

what if there was gear in it???


wallwombat

4-Feb-2008
3:31:21 PM

I don't think tradtroll is Hex mark IIV.

Fish Boy

4-Feb-2008
3:32:35 PM

Then your soft....re: two posts up...;)


nmonteith

4-Feb-2008
3:38:25 PM

The Tower project hasn't been done as far as i'm aware! But then again some people like keeping secrets so who knows. I still haven't seen names or official grades for the 3 routes Ingvar did up there more than a year ago. Why invest in the stainless if you can't be bothered letting others know what they are? Might as well place mild steel carrots and let the routes rust away.

Dave J

4-Feb-2008
3:52:48 PM

On 4/02/2008 ademmert wrote:
>what if there was gear in it???

mmmm ...good question. If it were just a single piece part way up that somene had bailed off I wouldn't
have given it much thought...but if it were totally geared up (like someone was plainly coming back) I
would have had a go on it, probably not have actually done it (mostly due my current state of fitness)
and then done a bit of research to find out what the story was.

I would probably feel very differently about a climb if I was just wandering around and found an
unclimbed line I'd never noticed before all geared up and an unclimbed line I had gone in specifically to
attempt only to find it all geared up when I got there. Since I never actually went back to attempt it
though this is all pretty hypothetical. Its not a situation I've ever been in.

BTW You never said what you would have done if someone had hopped on the line in question while
you were down at the car getting your rack.


nmonteith

4-Feb-2008
4:18:26 PM

On 4/02/2008 Dave J wrote:
>BTW You never said what you would have done if someone had hopped on the
>line in question while
>you were down at the car getting your rack.

He would have slashed your tyres.

ademmert

4-Feb-2008
4:34:05 PM

>
>BTW You never said what you would have done if someone had hopped on the
>line in question while
>you were down at the car getting your rack.

my cordless drill doubles as an ak47 end of story

seriously, do mean before or after i had cleaned it?

Dave J

4-Feb-2008
4:34:16 PM

On 4/02/2008 nmonteith wrote:
>On 4/02/2008 Dave J wrote:
>>BTW You never said what you would have done if someone had hopped on
>the
>>line in question while
>>you were down at the car getting your rack.
>
>He would have slashed your tyres.

I'd have thought of that already and slashed them myself before left the car.

This is exactly the sort of level of healthy competition Im talking about though. I think a bit more tyre
slashing just might pull the Australian climbing scene out of the slump that its in. I mean its all very
well Chris web doing the rave cave and garth onsighting hard stuff all over europe, but why does
everyone have to be so goddamn nice to each other all the time.


IdratherbeclimbingM9

4-Feb-2008
5:08:04 PM

Dave J wrote;
>I dont know if olive cave is really a debacle but if someone's gone in and done that route at the tower...

Here is a (fictitious), scenario.
Suppose I follow my adventuresome spirit and leave the internet and guidebooks at home and rock up to a new location with my aid gear and spy an attractive thin crack line.
Hmmm this one has got bolts on it. Never mind it looks OK, so I will look it up in the guidebook back home after I finish getting off it.
Finish the climb in clean aid style, get home and can't find it in the book/internet; or worse, ... find out it is a sacred project!

I'd be miffed if someone wanted to slash my tyres for an honest mistake.


Chuck Norris

4-Feb-2008
6:18:32 PM

I still want to know why a bolt makes a route more hands off than one without bolts.

Putting it another way…genuine mistakes aside…I’d keep off a route that someone was actively trying and it appears most people here would too….but if it got to the stage where I thought they were taking the piss then I would try it – regardless of whether it had bolts in it or not.


nmonteith

4-Feb-2008
6:21:11 PM

I always wondered... can you charge someone who 'steals' your bolted route for the price of the bolts? A typical 6 bolt sport route costs about $80 to bolt....

Dave J

4-Feb-2008
6:26:55 PM

You would probably find that the person who's gear it was had already done an aid ascent already but not
thought it worth mentioning to anyone. Does avoiding fixed gear on aid lines rate as a new kind of ascent
or is it just better style? And then (as far as Im concerned anyway) the aid details are only worth talking
about until the route gets freed so I dont imagine it would both the project owner that much...You'd
probably only get one tyre slashed for that sort of thing.


wallwombat

4-Feb-2008
7:09:50 PM

On 4/02/2008 nmonteith wrote:
> A typical 6 bolt sport route costs about $80 to bolt....

Not one of mine.

More like around $15.

tastybigmac

4-Feb-2008
8:10:32 PM

now there's something you don't want anywhere near your crack!

climberman

4-Feb-2008
9:37:56 PM

On 4/02/2008 Eduardo Slabofvic wrote:
>On 4/02/2008 Macciza wrote:
>>Just wondering - If someone has a closed bolted project that could go
>>on gear, am I allowed to try it on
>>gear so long as I don't use any of their stuff? I think it should be
>ok
>>just not sure of the implications . . .
>
>
>What about the situation where a route has been done trad, but the trad
>ascensionist doesn't bother writing
>up a route description and advertising the fact that the route has been
>done. Then someone comes along
>and puts some bolts in it and turns it into a sport route, and then writes
>up a route description and
>advertises that the route has been done, so it's generally accepted by
>the guide book writers that the route
>was first done by the bolter, and the trad ascension disappears into history.

Umm, then you call Keith Bell ?

There are 157 messages in this topic.