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Fixed gear guidelines in the Grampians 14-May-2018 At 7:16:58 PM One Day Hero

Message

On 14-May-2018 Wendy wrote:
>We are trying to set standards so that slippery slopes don't occur, because
>much as everyone loves using them for this argument, they can and are stopped
>in almost all cases by agreeing on an appropriate point on the slope to
>set boundaries.

This is how I approach things these days. There is a poxy toprope cliff in Canberra which was getting incrementally sportified. For various reasons which I won't go into, this was thought by many locals to be a bad idea. We drew a line on the slope and told people that if one more bolt went in they'd all get chopped. More bolts went in, they all got chopped. If they go back in, they'll get chopped and we'll go debolt a legitimate sport crag too.

Same deal with retro loweroffs at Araps. There were enough ten years ago, I drew a line two years ago, this time there were more. Next time I'm down, I'll pack a tool kit.

The odd thing is, if you talk to Nati climbers about endless growth with finite resources relating to any topic other than climbing, they're a raving bunch of sustainable, anti-kid, low-carbon, commie loons. But bolting? Yeah, that can go on forever.