Numb and Dumber
written by Peter Young
Jim Marshall and I are in an outdoor store adjacent to Pisgah Forest, North Carolina, buying climbing slings, when someone speaks, “someone has chopped bolts on John Rock.”
After a short pause, I respond, “That would be me.”
Silence. After a few awkward moments, we talk. I explain that John has been free from unnecessary bolts for more than 50 years, and the zeitgeist has been ‘ground-up; bolts only on lead & only when really needed.’
Clearly I now am out of synch with the present wave of sport climbers, rap-bolters, and ‘modern’ developments.
A few weeks later, I return to John; new bolts have been placed; I leave them.
These bolts are on the “student route,” established back in the 60’s by Outward Bound. Bolts were never used back then, and, even now, these bolts are beside a fine crack, that takes chocks or even a knot for rappel. Why bolts, when there is no need? Why damage the rock unnecessarily?
There are no rules determining how people climb, but for decades unspoken yet fairly strong notions about what is acceptable prevailed. Once pretentiously termed ‘ethics,’ these notions embodied environmental and sport-specific constraints.
These notions have been changing, especially with sport climbing. Many think nothing of rappelling to put in bolts and even biners, so climbers just clip the biners. There is no need to find good protection or to contemplate a run-out to possibly uncertain placements even further beyond one’s last piece.
Consequences of such changes are multiple. Several ‘climbers’ have never climbed outdoors or, if outdoors, not where knowledge, skill, and fortitude are needed. Gyms appear to have upended proportions of climbers: now more climbers stay in gyms and/or climb sport routes than climb on rocks and mountains without fixed gear. “Pulling plastic” & clipping preplaced biners replaces figuring out placements, complex moves, good protection for seconds, etc.
With more closely spaced bolts, some even seem to think that bolts are preferable to removable protection. On Tablerock in Linville Gorge, I recently found numerous bolts placed on rock no more than 5.6, AND where a very good crack was RIGHT THERE! I mean….
As this process continues with uncertain future devolutions, climbing moves further away from earlier beliefs. Early on in the US, there was not much concern of environmental impacts, but Chouinard provided significant nudge towards care of the environment. In 1972 he spearheaded efforts to use chocks instead of rock-damaging pitons. He suggested strongly that climbers are obliged to do as little harm as possible. Chocks offered an answer. Eventually camming devices provided easier placements and greater security.
Do no harm evolved into a general stand of care for rocks and mountains. Environmental protective principles became accepted by most climbers. Exceptions (e.g., Warren Harding) were not banned, but there was strong tension towards ‘doing the right thing.’ Accepting expectations might seem bizarre, given the nature of many climbers, but such agreement suggests the inherently honorable, if sometimes obnoxious, nature of most climbers. The growing environmental movement provided a larger frame for encouraging good climbing behaviors.
As difficulties were pushed (5.10, 5.11, etc.), pulls to use bolts converged with more gyms. The boundary between ‘real’ rock and plastic blurred; the boundary between ‘climbing’ and gym practices produced the nonsensical, even perhaps dismissive term, “traditional climbing.” Environmental concerns faded.
Fading environmental concerns surely had multiple precipitants, but the growth of sport climbing produced a critical moment with “To Bolt or Not To Be.” Not only was it a difficult climb, its name declared that bolts are necessary. It also backhandedly dismissed resistance to bolts, especially on routes that otherwise could not be protected.
I heard no outcry following this route’s creation (1986). And it was done by a European, bringing to the US a more environmentally lax, if not indifferent, attitude. In many European mountains, fixed pins are common, as well as other contraptions that in the US had never been considered (e.g., cable cars, via ferrata). These influences coalesced with a growing development of gyms, moving a new generation of climbers away from environmental resistance to bolts. Now often bolts are placed with power drills on rappel, spaced no more than 10 feet apart.
Indeed, I have seen written accounts of climbers being spooked to go beyond a bolt more than 10 feet below. In North Carolina, where the zeitgeist still is to not place bolts unless absolutely necessary, often run-outs are 40, 50, 60 feet. One climbs until natural protection can be had, or, if unavoidable, one stands, on lead, and drills a hole and places a bolt, which usually takes at least 15 minutes.
But concerns are not merely with increased bolting, placed with power drills instead of hammers. Unthinking bolting is only one manifestation of changes that seem to be transforming climbing. Look at what has transpired on Everest in recent years. Financial incentive (greed) has scuttled environmental concerns and ethical concerns, as guides lead incompetent aspirants into dangers that seasoned mountaineers avoid.
The plethora of magazines, of which Climbing was an early entrant, commercialize, aggrandize, and ‘externalize’ motivation for climbers. Climbers have always been envious of first ascents and being able to climb at harder and harder levels, but in recent times the motivation to climb has moved from intrinsic motivations (joy, thrill, etc.) to extrinsic motivations (fame, money, competitions, being better than others, etc.).
This is not surprising; humans have always sought to see ‘how good’ they are, compared to others, but climbing has inherent aspects that tend to limit contamination from external competition. The same climb is different on any given day, so that comparison of one ascent to another becomes spurious. But it still happens; Steck worked diligently to get and then regain the speed record on the Eiger North Face, and his obsession with ‘engaging in even more dangerous climbing’ caught up with him. The same for John Bachar.
This trend seems pernicious: extrinsic motivation/competition is overwhelming intrinsic desires.
Look at climbing becoming an Olympic “sport.”
I use quotes around “sport” because climbing is not like other sports; it has been an activity that required considerable courage (&/or stupidity), conditioning, knowledge, and ability to ‘read’ the environment -- snow conditions, rock conditions, possible routes, weather status, etc, etc. As a “sport,” it is reduced to gymnastics.
Such gymnastics are often incredible, revealing individuals with amazing strength-to-weight and skills to negotiate complex problems. Such skills are surely part of climbing, a subset of what it takes to climb. Bouldering was an earlier form of preparation for real climbing. But such gymnastics are NOT climbing; they do not allow someone to go to a real rock or mountain and function safely, competently.
Climbing will continue to change, and the standards of yesterday have morphed into new beliefs. There is no ‘turning back’ or putting the genie back into the bottle. But changes from climbing for the inherent joy, challenge, and excitement to competitive endeavors is sad. And loss of environmental concern reduces the soul of mountaineering.
This dumbing down of climbing, making it more accessible, has some virtues; people who otherwise would never try, are able to give it a go. But my fear was captured one day by a vision:
You walk up to a real cliff; put your credit card into a slot; make your payment; clip into a rope, which, once activated, starts an “auto-belay;” and you are “climbing” [sic].
Perhaps like our present political context, we must go ‘too far’ into loss of awareness or even madness in order to appreciate what we are losing.
After I had written the above, Jim reviewed it. He suggested possible ways to address these problems: “how do you inject some balance that respects both innovation and the past? At a minimum, [there] should be full disclosure. Let’s create forums and build/restore an ‘ethic’ that bolts damage.” One places bolts only when necessary for safety; not for convenience.
Making explicit when and why bolts are placed would tend to reduce placement of non-essential bolts; the present free-for-all would face some restraints. Let climbers again honor the environment and do no harm.
And, likewise, let us reaffirm our commitment to the environment. At Colorado Outward Bound, decades back, they realized that toilet paper did not decompose at altitude, resulting in multiple white spots across the alpine reaches. They moved to using snow instead of paper.
Snow is preferable to paper metaphorically, as well. Our detritus is offal.