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Chopping Prow Prowess - TR 15-Jan-2013 At 10:38:03 AM davidn

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As one of the last people to climb the route in question, a few comments:

- Ridiculous is not a word I'd use in relation to the bolting. In fact you can walk on a few metres (10-15) and see some shiny bolts on the south face above Shadow, or a bolt underneath No. 1 Crack (which afaik has been there a long time), or for that matter all along the west side of Keira. Are those bolted climbs officially on the walking track? No. Can you see some of them from the track? Yes. Where do you draw the line? A perennial question.
- The climb isn't great quality, nor is it complete crap. It's a beginnerish climb, with everything that entails. It wouldn't take many trad placements - the photo is misleading.
- I note someone has changed the climb name to 'Prow Prowess Poser' on thecrag.com (edit: and within minutes of my post seems to have changed it back). Regardless of who did it, it's not how to advance a reasoned debate.
- You could go choppy spastic on every climb Terry put up, but for consistency you'd have to chop his rebolts, which as some have said are actually a good thing. At some stage you have to ask the question - if you climbed it before and it was so important, why didn't you make sure it was recorded so it wouldn't get unintentionally retroed?

I can see why this route was chopped, but it is neither the first route with rings nor the first route at Keira you could see with rings if you happened to wander around a bit. The major difference seems to be that it wasn't an 'old-schooler' doing the work.

In terms of defacing the crag, the bigger worry to me is that new chipping is appearing, on the Training Route (and perhaps elsewhere per the mention earlier in the thread).

Lastly, let's not forget that regardless of whether you agree with every bolt, anyone who's prepared to put hundreds of hours into a crag is an asset. Chockstone's habit of vilifying people is repugnant to many, for good reason - it's often done only to alleviate boredom.