Comments on: The Eight Unfortunate Truths of Route Development

By: MW

MW — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 01:48:26 +0000

To an extent, I appreciate the FA sentiment and the idea of bold climbing, but what bugs me is that tradition often dictates style for a whole crag so that many areas are effectively off limits if you don’t want to risk getting maimed every time you go out. Some old schoolers do this on purpose to keep away the crowds, which doesn’t do a lot to build goodwill among the more casual climbers when it comes time to raise money to save a crag (like Laurel Knob). Am I funding your ego trip or is this going to be a place for more than just the elite?

The other thing about “respect for the FA” is that a lot of routes seem to get FAs before legal access was obtained, in many cases years ago. Also, in my State (and many others I suspect) the parks system where many of the area crags exist does not allow the placement of new hardware so access for new route development is not as easy as it once was.

There is also a bias toward a certain skill level, so that bolt ladders start cropping up when the climbing gets hard enough that the FA’er might actually run the risk of falling, which I find annoying. In some cases if you don’t climb 11 you can’t safely work a route, you just have to climb at a “must not fall” level and hope you don’t get in over your head, esp on slab where bail options are pretty slim.

Still, that said, there are a lot of routes for all levels around my area so maybe I’m just irritated with certain routes that seem like sort of stupid examples of maintaining the ethic (Yardarm at Stone Mtn for example). I don’t want to see bolts everywhere but it would be nice if routes were equipped a bit more based on the chance for injury and with a sane distance between pro rather than “whoever climbs this next is going to crap their pants…”

By: Steven L

Steven L — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:21:32 +0000

Jim I agree with you completely. The goal of climbing is not to make every route safe so everyone can climb it. Climbing is a personal experience and if you want to seek out runout horror shows then great. If you want a bolt every three feet so you never have to climb above your gear well there are routes like that too. Thats what makes the FA ethic so important and I would say that “FA ownership” is a poor term for this. It’s not ownership, its respect for the style in which the route was put up. When you respect the FA style of a route you ensure that there will always be routes out there for every different type of climber from bold to recreational.

By: News & Notes – 3/29/2010 | ClimbingNarc.com

News & Notes – 3/29/2010 | ClimbingNarc.com — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:44:43 +0000

[...] Climbing had a couple interesting route development posts of late as well. One post is about The Eight Unfortunate Truths of Route Development and the other asks the question Do First Ascentionists Own The [...]

By: Jim L

Jim L — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 02:37:51 +0000

Every area has a unique character. Elbsandstein — scary knots-protected sandstone towers; Tuolumne, scary runout slabs; Verdon — super runout sport routes; Laurel Knob — waaay runout mixed bolts + gear; Rifle — crazy hard, well-protected sport routes. Let’s cherish these differences. Not every route needs to be climbable by everyone.

By: BJ Sbarra

BJ Sbarra — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:01:30 +0000

Wow, these might be the most thoughtful comments we’ve ever had! Obviously there is a balance, and much like Tristan, I think right now it lies a little too heavily with the FA. However, the Bachar-Yerian is a great example of a climb that I am sure the local community would never want to alter. But there are probably other run out, but less notable, routes in Tuolumne that would get a lot more use if they were just a little safer. It’s going to be interesting to see what the next ten to twenty years brings with regards to these kinds of climbs, and my guess is we will see more fixed anchor committees to deal with these kind of issues. I’ve got a post about that very issue in the works, stay tuned.

By: Jim L

Jim L — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:52:41 +0000

Every FAer I’ve met has a sense of pride and ownership over their routes, sometimes accompanied by an annoying, over-inflated ego. The notion of “ownership” is an interesting aspect of new routing. On public land, routes (and the cliffs they’re on) are owned by everyone. This means I should be able to add bolts to the Bachar-Yerian, because this would make the route accessible to everyone. However, route “ownership” and the ask-the-FAers rule prevents after-the-fact route alteration, sort of an arbitrary but effective way to police ourselves.

Eventually, new routes get documented and, with enough time, are no longer considered “new”. The longer a route exists, the more resiliant it becomes to alteration. When the FAers die, the ask-the-FAers rule can’t be invoked, but hopefully route longevity will take over as precedent so that special routes like the BY can exist forever.

By: Matt S

Matt S — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:50:34 +0000

Good post, Tristan. Gets to the heart of the matter. If climbers could relinquish their egos, especially when it came to some “historical” FA collecting dust in the trophy case, consensus solutions — or at the very least, common-sense ones, as with the 30-foot crag you cite above — would more smoothly emerge. And there might then be more climbs to enjoy.

Speaking from the routes I’ve put up, I’m basically totally unbothered if someone adds an anchor or pro later, or topropes something I bouldered, or what-have-you. Their experience detracts in no way from what I experienced the day, the hour, the minute of that first ascent: and why should it? I think the main thing is that people, when FAists are still living, solicit their input first as a courtesy. Yes, the first ascentionist might launch into the typical tirade, or then again, they might be old, indifferent, and more interested in playing a little Xbox – like me.

Matt