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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 9:28:10 PM crazyjohn

Message

On 26/02/2013 Andrew Davis wrote:

Hello Andrew. I live in Tassie but have climbed a bit at Buffalo including Pintle LHV. I have not seen the controversial actions taken by developers lately but I have some concerns with the way you are presenting the justification for bolts.

>Firstly there is the issue of which particular cliff user has the greater
>right. Is it the traditional climber, the sports climber, the commercial
>operator, the educator, the youth worker/youth development?

As far as bolting etiquette is concerened, if you wish to divide climbers into user groups, there are really only two groups;recreational climbers and commercial climbers. I find it strange that TAFE educators and students somehow think they are different than other commercial operators. Any group of people who pay guides to show them how to climb are by definition involved in a commercial operation. This includes guides working with troubled youth or taking out school kids. It gets a tiny bit gray if you are volunteering as a guide to take troubled kids out but as far as installing bolts to facilitate this kind of guiding, it is pretty much the same.

Climbing was not started to provide support to troubled youth. It was not started to provide soft fruity types a safe and sanitized taste of adventure. It was not started to give paying jobs to guides to do either of these. It seems that you have an appreciation of the traditional values of climbing, yet have a convenient disconnect with these values when it comes to you and your mates making money from climbing. Commercial operators exist only because they are tolerated by traditional climbers.

I certainly do not mind sharing the crag with guides and their clients. What I completely object to is the insistence by commercial operators such as yourself that you somehow have equal or, possibly more, right to place bolts.

What you need to appreciate is that guides installing bolts need to be very careful. You come across as pretty arrogant. Your whole "face against the mirror" line is immediately transparent as labeling anyone who disagrees with you narrow minded. Simply asserting that guides have the right to retrobolt routes for their clients (whether this is for troubled youth or backpackers or whoever) does not in any way help to make your case.

At the end of the day, these bolts are controversial. It seems to me that any climber with the barest notion of traditional values would have realized this. If you want to keep these bolts and any further bolts from being chopped, you need to rethink your approach to traditional climbing. I think you forget that ultimately, it is very easy for someone who disagrees with you to win this argument.