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Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
VIC Grampians	Northern	(General)	(General)	[ Grampians Guide \| Images ]

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Iskra Crag update 11-Aug-2017 At 12:47:22 PM johny

Message

>>>Perhaps a better less futuristic example Ive just thought of...placing the gear on lead on the actual ascent....sounds obvious but but if that was the bottom line for a valid ascent it would totally rewrite the history of australian climbing (1985-2010>>>

Most hard trad first ascents in the last 15 years or so worldwide have been established placing the gear on lead but I always wondered how all these 80's supposedly hard and scary trad routes with fixed gear(which usually seems to be missing now) were established in Australia. I know HB's ethic is pretty damn good, but it seems most people never bothered with this.

In my opinion it is total bullshit to hammer in a 3rp on abseil and leave a sling on it to clip for the first ascent. It seems that most people agree with "as long as you are honest about the style of ascent" but of course the style of first ascent is almost never written up. The amount of times the Arapiles guide mentions ground-up first ascents (like 5 out of 1300) fairly well demonstrates how rarely these occurred. Maybe you could let us in on the whole dirty truth Dave! :)

I don't get too worked up about how stoners in the 80's climbed but I always, every single time regardless of how much a pain in the ass it may be, place the gear on lead for first ascents and try to convince everyone else to do so, especially on "hard and scary" routes. Otherwise it is just delusion.

Preplaced trad gear on first ascents is kind of like having a 10 metre extendable cheater stick that you use to clip bolts on hard aid routes. What is the point?