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Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
VIC Buffalo	The Horn Environs	(General)	The Horn	[ Horn Guide ]

Topic Date User

Bolting at The Horn, Mount Buffalo 26-Feb-2013 At 9:44:07 PM Ben_E

Message

Hi Andrew.

Hope you enjoyed your camping trip.

I'm a bit reluctant to post to this thread again given it is unlikely anyone has or will shift greatly from their initial position, but here goes anyway…

You state "Just stand on top of the Hump and take a 360deg look around you will see more granite than you could climb in a lifetime".

As you point out, there is a lot of rock there (whether there is more than one could climb in lifetime is another matter, but we'll put that aside). This raises the question of why you or others have in effect retrobolted an established area, rather than establishing your own area, in your own style, amongst this alleged sea of granite. You would have been unlikely to attract comment, let alone anyone's ire in doing so.

In terms of your comment "And clearly wherever there is a line that is safely and traditionally climbed then it should be most definitely be preserved that way for a lifetime", there is clearly a difficult grey area there in terms of the definition of what can be safely and traditionally climbed. Safely in terms of a new and possibly nervous leader doing their outdoor course? Safely in terms of someone with a bit more experience in fiddling in tricky bits of gear and a more extensive rack? Safely in the terms of the 0.1% who care to boulder hard highballs?

Based on what I saw Easter Island can be acceptably safely led on trad by an experienced or semi-experienced leader, but I'd agree with you that it is not a very appealing climb for the neophyte in its current chopped state. That can be used as an argument against either chopping it or bolting it in the first place.

In spite of not being a particularly bold leader or one of your anti-bolt fundamentalist straw-men I still feel the overall bolting I saw at the horn last weekend crossed a line and is inappropriate in the context of the area.

Ben