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Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
VIC Arapiles	Mitre Rock	(General)	South Mitre	[ Arapiles Guide \| Arapiles Images ]

Topic Date User

Rap bolts chopped above Serpent 19-Apr-2012 At 2:00:32 PM Mike Bee

Message

On 19/04/2012 chalkischeap wrote:
>
>Seriously guys, stop adding all these bolts.
>

I'm not a local, so naturally my opinion counts for squat in these discussions (or at least, that is the way it seems to work here normally), but chalkischeap has a point here.

If the climbing community is seen to be regularly adding convenience* bolts to the cliff, then we're going to have a hard time saying to other communities (in this case, slackliners) that they can't bolt.

Example:
Climber: Stop, you can't bolt there.
Slacker: Why not? You guys added some new bolts there and there.
Climber: Because there are natural placements there.
Slacker: There are natural placements instead of your anchors too.
Climber: Ours are there to prevent erosion.
Slacker: What about the one half way up The Serpent?

There is no sensible discussion that a climber could have to argue against slackliners adding their new bolts in. A trend of increasing the number of convenience anchors for climbers makes our case even weaker.

*the anchors at the top of Serpent are convenience anchors because they save climbers from having to do the "worthless" second pitch scramble.
Saying that they were there for erosion protection doesn't fly with me, I don't think.
- The descent gully down Mitre isn't exactly a barren wasteland or showing massive signs of erosion.
- Serpent isn't the only regularly done climb on that face (I know more people who have done The Bishop), so placing an anchor to prevent erosion that can only service a single climb doesn't make sense (unless you're going to put an anchor at the top of The Bishop too).

If you truly want to reduce erosion, put an anchor in that saves climbers from walking down from all climbs from the south side of the cliff. Put in some chains at an area that doesnt cross a popular climb, and that is safely accessible by people who have done any of the climbs in the area.