On 14/02/2013 nmonteith wrote:
>For starters Buffalo clearly isn't a trad crag! There are a LOT of bolts
>on all sorts of routes - from safeish climbs at Dreamworld to runout slabs
>on the Horn etc. None of these bolts required "consultation with the community"
>before being placed. Why start now?
Buffalo also very clearly isn't a sport crag, so where do you get the idea that it's ok to sport bolt/retrobolt all those routes?
The reason to start now? Simple. Bolters have crossed a line recently which is unacceptable to a large enough proportion of the community. A concerted resistance to the gridbolting agenda is now viable. You're trying to portray gridding as "the direction that the general climbing population is moving in", when it's actually just driven by a couple of dozen guys who have a.d.d. and a drill.
Any notion of a taboo against chopping f.a. bolts is necessarily tied to the idea that f.a.'s must respect the existing style of the crag. Bolters taking the most extreme example from that crag and trying to use it as justification for gridding is pathetic and obviously won't be respected.