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Sonnie Trotter Goes Down on Tasmania 19-Feb-2016 At 11:31:11 PM Dave J

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On 19/02/2016 johny wrote:
>Here we go again with your insane (inane?) analogies. Im talking about
>ffa. Repeat anything you want in whatever style you want. India was probably
>lead with fixed gear like many of the routes back then done in what most
>people today would reckon dodgy style. This is exactly what Im suggesting
>we move away from by having a clear standard of establishing first ascents.
>
Maybe now...not always the case....most of the harder "trad" routes in vic still havent been led ground up placing gear on lead. Mr Natural, Mother of God, even Old Masters. these are all gagging for a better ascent but I think claiming the FFA on any of these would be a bit rich. For me the first person who gets up an old aid route without weighing any of the gear has done the FFA and though the person who later does it placing all the gear on lead has done an infinitely better ascent there is no actual term for this (FFAPTGOL?)

I think the FFA is a good starting point rather than an ethical highpoint. generally repeat ascentionists should try to match or better the style of the first ascent. What is the point of the first ascentionist going to extreme lengths to do the line in impeccable style if all the repeaters just dilute this with shenanigans (not that this was the case with Ethiopia...your repeat sounds saintly in comparison to the FA). The motivation for doing a FA in the best possible style would be to stop anyone gazumping the ascent down the track....Like doing the classic boulder problem from the shitty shit start just so that no one tries to tack it on at a later point.

I think its a period to do with the ethic of the time when I was doing stuff araps was transitioning from a fixed wire to.

If I had got up Agent of Cool back when I was trying it, there almost certainly would have been at least some gear in it and I would have claimed it as an FFA and still slept soundly (I think there was still of my gear in it 10 years later that Lee must have had to taken out so he could climb it properly).

I don't have and issue with leaving gear in (I don't dispute this could add grades to the difficulty but the idea of rapping down something to clean the gear out just so you could immediately put it back in seemed anal to the point of insanity and I never did it). I do have an issue of leaving something pre-clipped to avoid a run-out that to me inherently changes the nature of the climb. If the runnout start was the thing that was the thing that stopped the locals from doing the line in tas then top roping though it doesn't seem legit (though personally I would have given it to him if the gear were in and he'd clipped it on the way past).