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The Irish Solution to The Ben Lomond Problem 10-Oct-2017 At 5:16:52 AM johny

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Wendy, I think the quality of your debate style is moving from High School to Junior High School. Slippery slopes do exist. This does not mean that every time someone invokes the term it is accurate (duh) such as gay marriage, and the litany of ridiculous analogies you came up with.

People (yes actual people, not hypothetical people in a debate) told Gerry that since there were abseil bolts they could bolt sport climbs. Regardless of what YOU think of this justification it was the reason given by a prolific bolter. It has nothing to do with Gay marriage, drowning or any of your other red herrings.

Your argument that since people had dodgy bolts and tat on Balls Pyramid therefore old climbers were not clean and perfect therefore we can have bolts on Ben Lomond is so far off the mark it is almost painful to need to point this out. The OP is about Fair Head so at least start there for comparisons. It doesnt matter that 40 years ago French climbers bolted the shit out of Ceuse or how many bolts were on Balls. Ben Lomond has been a ground up style nearly bolt free crag from the beginning. That is the tradition of BEN LOMOND.

Seriously Wendy reading your arguments reminds me of discussions with Christians about the existence of God: Many circular ad hoc arguments to prove technical points but avoid the real issues entirely.

After all the distractions in your argument you settle on a supposed rational adults ability to stop going down the slippery slope by limiting bolting to appropriate abseil stations. Yeah I agree. I think a lot of people do. I also think it is POSSIBLE that some people will take abseil bolts too far. Gerry explained how it could happen 4 pages ago. Its entirely possible.

Recently you (being a rational person) bolted a route at araps that was chopped. I guess you claim the chopper was being irrational. Well here go. No bolts means no ambiguity.

I think at this stage it is more in line with tradition and spirit of place to keep Ben Lomond entirely bolt free. I also like the romantic notion of an intentionally bolt free crag.