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Topic Date User

Help a chap out 6-Jun-2012 At 4:31:23 PM crazyjohn

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On 6/06/2012 One Day Hero wrote:
>I went to the Bugaboos a couple of years ago, keen on doing the classic
>Becky Chouinard (750m gr20, with 2-3hr each way from the tent, across a
>cruisy glacier). Some people bivy on the way there, most do it in a very
>long day from camp, quite a few get benighted on the route. A bunch of
>Japanese guys (5 or 6!!) showed up with haulbags bigger than themselves.
>They crossed the glacier and set up base camp, then spent the next week
>of stunning weather progressively fixing 500m of rope up the route prior
>to their "summit push", thereby tying up the route and wrecking things
>for everyone else who wanted to do it. This was widely considered to be
>a bit wang.

Becky Choinard is different then Salathe. Duh. Your original post stated that fixing to heart on salathe is wrong and implied that any sort of fixing in this way is wrong. Now backtracking you are making the obvious statement (in a roundabout way) that sometimes fixing a route is the wrong tactic. Almost everyone believes that hauling up free blast when climbing any of the routes off of mammoth terrace or heart ledge is bloody stupid because you tie up freeblast to haul when heart is right there. Of course, since you have vast experience climbing these routes on El Cap (sarcasm sensor should be going off) Im sure you would know better.

Basically, my advice is for a big wall neophyte, not fodder in an advanced ethics debate. There are many routes where fixing to the ground is appropriate and some where it is not. Im sure he can figure that out.