P.S. Are you coming down south this weekend

I agree with Emil’s final remark…WTF??

Having climbed at Mt Randall recently, I too was appalled at the lack of respect for other climbers with a disgusting display of chipping, gluing and bolting. “To bolt or not to be” 24 – Mt Randall is a prime example. If the chip has been glued on post FA… I can only shake my head in disgust. If it was placed by the FA, I again hang my head.

Surely as climbers in Perth we can distinguish between a “Quarry” climb where chipping and gluing on holds is tolerated (not that I agree with this practice but that is a totally separate discussion) and a natural area like Mt Randall.

We need to respect what natural rock we have in Perth. It may be small, it may not be the best quality, but there are some quality routes and there are still several more quality lines to go at numerous “natural” crags.

New routers and experienced climbers need to be creating a culture for current and future climbers where chipping, gluing and using carrots :o), is simply “not done around here”.

I finish with a modification to the old saying… “It’s not the climb that needs the glued on hold, it’s the climber”. There will always be someone in the future that is stronger, taller, shorter, more flexible, has smaller fingers, bigger hands, better shoes, smaller cams, larger cams… that will result in the climb going without modification. So leave it to them.

So on the day that you decide to chip or glue on the hold remind yourself, that you are only bringing a pile of small grains of sand and pebbles that was fused from volcanoes and sediment being laid down under the sea to your level. Get over yourselves, take a dent in your ego and admit that on the day the rock beat you. But please don’t bring the rock to your current level of climbing because for those of us out there that are stronger, taller, shorter, more flexible, have smaller fingers, have bigger hands, better shoes, smaller cams, larger cams it ruins the experience.

Back to you…

On the day that Ron glued the pebble onto `to bolt or not to be’ I was on a line nearby. In my minds eye I still see Ron hanging in harness above (we all looked up to Ron), glue dripping, clearly explaining to the small group assembled below that it was all OK as the pebble was replacing a crystal that had recently broken off and that the rock was being restored to its proper state. This was only a short time after the route had been climbed.

Shark rock wouldn’t amount to much if it hadn’t been blown in half…

To Matt rosser. With regards to ethical meltdown. I was out there with some others and as far as the first hold on ethical meltdown goes. “well”, we gave it a bit of a pull as climbers do, and off it came. Definately a sense of humour was involved in the adding of “oops”. We had a good time, and Jonesy almost(by a hair) missed out on getting the project next to slab of despair. I got my ass kicked on slab of despair, and Ron Master was still the slab master in my books. Everyone should lighten up a bit and take a look at the big slabs of bitumen ploughed through the forrest that we motor along with our environmentally concious internal combustion vehicle. Some of those little animals we have deprived of homes through our road building and land clearing might even like some of those convenient drilled pockets out there.

P.S. a grain of salt comes to mind. Gerard

Hey Ronald, thanks for your reply.

While i accept that there are many climbs in WA that have “reinforced” existing holds, i think that gluing different holds onto climbs is a different story. That visit being my first time to Mt Randall, and having heard that the climb in question was a classic, i was suprised it had a glued-on chip on it. I guess it says to me that this is acceptable on “natural” crags (ie not quarries, incl shark rock), which i dont believe it is. if the crux hold falls off a route, well then the route becomes harder, not so?

Please do not think i am trying to reach back into the past and start a smear campaign. I was genuinely aghast at 2 routes at the same crag sporting obviously imported holds. In many places i have climbed, a lynching would follow such practices.