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General Climbing Discussion

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First in best dressed? 9-Apr-2013 At 4:50:25 PM simey

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On 9/04/2013 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>Yes, but mixed lines generally only bolt the otherwise unprotectable bits
>when the runouts become unacceptable to the FA'ist, and this did not happen
>on the route in question. ☺

There are so many considerations with establishing routes and so many ways of going about it, that defining what is right or wrong beforehand is damn near impossible. Take a route like Sport Crack (26) at Stapylton. It follows a roof crack with a line of bolts courtesy of Andy Pollitt who discovered the line. Although it could be climbed on natural gear, in my opinion that route is a lot more appealing with the bolts (for a bunch of reasons). Obviously Andy thought the same thing (he could have easily led it on trad gear). Peter Croft (who repeated it shortly after and who also could have easily led it on natural gear) also didn't think the bolts were out of place on that particular route.

Bolting near cracks should definitely be the exception rather than the norm however. It sounds like Rowan and Chris on these respective routes though have the experience and knowledge to make pretty good judgement calls on such matters.