Tommy Caldwell had a very interesting post on Instagram last night:
One stormy rest day, Chris Sharma, Brett Lowell, decided to go on a hike. We stumbled this crag. Each rest day since I have returned to do a little bouldering and dream about the potential. I believe it has more hard amazing sport climbingpotential than anywhere I have seen in this country. The rock is blasted Clean by the waterfall in spring and summer, but could be climbed In all weather fall and winter. Only problem is that it is going to take a logistically talented and dedicated hand driller to make it a reality. There, the cat is out of the bag. I challenge someone to bring it to life.
A few thoughts:
It increasingly seems like the future of really hard sport climbing—5.16 and above—will be found on granite, not limestone. Adam Ondra and Norway’s Flatanger cave, of course, already seem to have indicated that granite is the future of hard sport. Limestone fantastically lends itself to pumpy 5.11 to 5.15- climbing. But looking ahead, it makes sense that our sport’s most truly futuristic climbs won’t be on limestone, but rather on granite. Bouldering is already there. Sport climbing now just needs to catch up with bouldering and find those long routes that have multiple V12 to V14 moves and sequences stacked on top of each other without rests. Whereas typically limestone’s flaw is that it often has too many holds—”BANG IT OFF!”—granite is typically too vertical and too blank to lend itself to good sport climbing. This wall could be one of those really rare exceptions.
Unfortunately, there are fascist rules against using power drills in certain areas of the country. The law of not being able to use power drills certainly hasn’t done anything to prevent bolts from popping up in National Parks; it’s only given climbers severe cases of tennis elbow from hand drilling. So, what’s the real point of the law?
In my idealistic world, climbers would be allowed to use power drills to establish new routes and maintain existing ones. Our routes would be established and maintained by an elite select few, a core group of climbers who would make informed decisions about style and ethics. It would be a completely tenuous system fraught with unspoken rules and justified with unsteady logic, and at any moment, one bad apple could ruin the whole deal for everyone. In other words, it would be EXACTLY THE WAY IT IS EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE CLIMBING WORLD.
Only we’d have our own version of Flatanger here in the U.S. by this spring. Which means we wouldn’t have to go to Norway, where one beer costs $15. Talk about Fascism!
Sounds amazing!
I would love to help, but am climbing nowhere near those grades and live in Germany.
But maybe you guys could start an online petition or something like that to achieve a special regulation for that crag to be able to power drill.
All the best!
Thobi
I’m pretty psyched that power drills are not allowed there. Hand drilling gives the first ascensionist time to contemplate whether it is worth the effort. Otherwise this spot which happens to be in the center of one of the most visited tourist destinations in the world, and was one of John Muir’s sacred retreats, would become festooned with a plethora of bolt clipping junkies.
Actually, Yosemite is festooned with a plethora of bolts. El Cap must have 10,000 bolts on it alone!
I share your idealistic dreams. However, 30+ years of climbing have taught me that climbers cannot, or will not, police themselves. I’m happy to have some regulations about what humans can do in “nature.” Those regulations are imperfect: they are not always logical; they are not evenly enforced; they are often hypocritical in terms of what they allow (look at snowmobiles, RVs, and millions of dollars of infrastructure catering to windshield tourism). However, I’ve seen lots of places trashed by climbers who think they are environmentalists because they like to recreate outdoors. ORV riders like to recreate outdoors as well. As a group, climbers are not good stewards and they are not good environmentalists (yes, I know there are exceptions–and I hope I am one). I hope this will change, and I make some efforts to help it do so; but I am not optimistic. Given that, I’m happy to have some regulation, even if that makes some things more difficult, more frustrating, and in some cases (perhaps bolting on this wall) unfeasible. I’ve lived in Europe (France, Spain, and England). I love many things about Europe. However, I’m fecking glad that we’ve got the space and natural beauty we’ve got here, and I want to try to protect it from becoming as heavily used and as densely impacted as places I love in Europe. Thank god for John Muir and David Brower. Great blog. Thanks for your writing.
Hey, thanks for the great comment. I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly. However, we’re talking about bolts and power drills vs. bolts and hand drills. Neither of those two things has anything to do with environmentalism, although the reasons why we can’t use power drills in National Parks is very much founded over a fear over the slippery slope that letting one user group use a power tool would lead to. I can get that. But I just think an exception should be made for climbers. Whether that means there’s a committee reviewing and approving routes (like in Eldo) or whatever, I think we should be able to use a power drill to place a bolt, always. I don’t think that climbers using a power drill to drill a 2″ hole will ultimately lead to oil companies justifying drilling in Yosemite looking for oil; nor do I think it should allow mountain bikers to chain-saw trees down and create new trails without gaining approval first (but once they do have approval for a new trail, I don’t have a problem with a chain saw; i.e., they should have to use axes and hand saws) … anyway
Well, you could peg the shit out of it and have ‘gear’ routes…