Reply To: new climb at randall

As I understand it, when aid routes are freed, the person who does the first free ascent gets to claim and rename the route. So even if someone topropes a route, and claims it, when someone else then frees it, they would also get the route and naming rights. So if the Albany route is ever freed, Seve will lose it. Generally I don’t think any of us would accept a toprope as a valid first ascent. Generally if you can toprope a route then you can put down a fixed line with loops in it. That has been done on Mt Singleton where due to Aboriginal wishes no bolts were allowed.

A few years ago, someone else thought he had bagged a first ascent at Willyabrup that I had lead around 9 years earlier. I consequently claimed it, but if someone else with a valid claim comes forward, that’s fine by me. Funnily enough, last time I was there I reclimbed it and my seconder was someone else who had climbed the route, just three weeks before, also not knowing if it had been previously been done or not and like me thinking it may well have been.

The first free ascent is exactly that, first and free. Onya Jay. I could point out also that Jay, with characteristic grace, was happy to say that Gary had been the first to see the line had possibilities and have a go at it.