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Are they really Safer Cliffs? 15-Feb-2013 At 10:34:12 AM kuu

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On 15/02/2013 technogeekery wrote:
>
>Kuu, you talk as if "trad climbing" was a living breathing thing, needing
>proponents to sell it. The sport has changed and grown a lot - sport climbing,
>gym climbing, bouldering are all loosely "climbing" today. Some of us will
>always continue to climb naturally protected routes and consider that to
>be "real" climbing, while also perhaps having a great deal of fun in the
>other disciplines. Many newer climbers will perhaps never get beyond the
>gym. For me that is no issue, nor are the growth in numbers of bolted routes
>- there are still endless virgin walls in the Wolgan (for example) if I
>need to get away from that. And if the masses are overflowing some grubby
>sport cave I'll never be able to get of the ground on, so much the better
>for me.
>
Thanks for your efforts to educate me regarding the breadth of climbing nowadays ;-)

At one time or another I have engaged in all those subsets of the climbing experience you list and also done a small amount of competition climbing.

Yes, I started climbing at a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth but I have retired my manilla rope and sandshoes and happily embraced the modern substitutes. There are few pieces of today's equipment that I don't own/use, the most notable missing item being a power drill. I manage to get by.

>My only preference is that people don't gridbolt naturally protectable
>lines, or retro any naturally climbed lines. Other than that, I don't want
>to "sell" natural climbing to anyone else, I don't mind what they do.

I'm with you in that respect.