Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

More slackline anchors 25-Mar-2013 At 7:10:04 PM Mike Bee

Message

On 25/03/2013 Cliff wrote:
>I don't mean to offend Mike, but you've just demonstrated the "sweeping
>generalisations" Kieran mentioned. I can give heaps of examples where climbers
>have trashed the rock (and campsites, trails, bush, wildlife, etc); and
>its just poor logic to argue as you did that slackliners have any less
>motivation to care about their impact on the rock than climbers. After
>all, many slackliners were climbers first; and plenty of slackliners use
>padding to protect tree trunks when slacklining, demonstrating concern
>for the environment.

I wasn't denying that I made some sweeping generalisations, just elaborating on them.
The key part of my statement (in my mind anyway) was the line "on average across the whole user group".

Think of it in terms of normal curves, where the left of the x-axis is pure "leave no trace" ethic, and right is "I have the right to do whatever I would like to the rock", I'm suggesting that the climbing population's normal curve median/mean/mode would be further left than that of the highliners. It's totally untested and probably never will be, but the logic behind it seems quite logical to me (funny that).

Note, I'm just referring to looking after the rock, the environment as a whole is a different discussion.

>When climbers do rein in their selfishness, its usually
>bc the tribe teaches how to behave/sets the rules; and most people have
>a need to fit in.

This actually reinforces my point quite nicely. The average behaviour of the tribe of climbers is further towards the "less bolts" end of the spectrum, than the average of the highliners (based on evidence seen at Araps so far). There are some climbers who think we should grid bolt the organ pipes, but these are balanced by others who think that Araps has too many bolts/abseils/belays and some should be cut. On average we have the self governed equilibrium that we have now.

The concern I have (and perhaps some others too), is that if highliners come in and start generously bolting where natural gear is available (and I make no judgement on if that is the case here, as kieran is far more highly qualified that I am to convey an opinion on that), then that example will allow those climbers who are a bit more bolt happy than the average to begin to drag the climbers bell curve a bit further right. Next thing we have bolts being placed next to good natural protection on established classics, and those of us a bit further towards the "no bolts" end of things have our voices drowned out for ever. The number of bolts seem to accrue exponentially, so it makes sense to try and cap superfluous bolts, I think.