Posted by okieterry (69.148.61.185) on November 17, 2004 at 12:31:47:
In Reply to: Okieterry's Birthday posted by Meatbird on November 17, 2004 at 11:39:13:
OK, Now I'm pissed....I'm not a freakin' engineer!!! I'm a hydrogeologist by golly!!!
I hear what you're saying, but I think we should strive to preserve the adventure and the spontaneity of climbing without the bureaucractic stuff. For instance, if you're hiking around the backside of Old Baldy one day and you spy a cool looking line just to the left of Deception Corner, I hope that you have the freedom to just grab your hammer and bolt kit and cast off right then while the iron is hot. If you wait till you submit a request and then for it to be approved your ardor for the route may dissolve and you may end up never doing it. This has happened to me in the wichitas countless times.
Maybe we could just elect a "Grand PooBaa of Old Baldy" and whatever he says goes. A term of office would be say...five years. That way if you spied a cool line or wanted to throw in a bolt somewhere you could just call the GP on his or her cell phone and get a yay or nay right then. The person (or animal) would be elected on the basis of his or her positions on bolting and the like. Naahh...this prob wouldn't work, can you imagine the work needed and the changes that the rock would suffer if a sport bolting poobaa was elected and then followed by a strict tradionalist poobaa?
Seriously though, Quartz has changed in the past 25 years. As for bolts though, I don't think it has changed too dramatically. The biggest change for me is the loss of soil in the area below the hobbit. Where there used to be soil and grass such that Bill Thomas's poodle once waltzed, now there is only steep rock (that some people even rope up on).
Thanks for the birthday thought.
A prime example of when the current system (tradition and creed) doesn't work is the retrobolting and removal of bolts on BSD. There is no doubt that Jane and Tony both love Quartz, they both just saw different paths. However, this happened quite a while ago and although peoples feelings were/are hurt, I think we moved on and damage to the rock was minimal. Prob the best thing about all of the discussion lately is that people have been reminded that your actions will be evaluated by other climbers and you should only bolt or remove bolts responsibly.