I find it ironic that you are asking to someone to own up, yet you seem to have an issue with giving your real name.

Personally I hate carrots and have no issues with P/U/ring bolts whatsoever.

What some may find visually obtrusive others may not.

As there is no enforcable rule with regards to bolting practice whining about it won’t get you anywhere.

as a climbing area that would be extremely poorly visited by other user groups (if ever) the use of bolts other then carrots is in my opinion acceptable.

Personally i feel that glue in bolts should be the norm here anyway, but hey who am i to argue as i’m not out there bolting..

as long as the new routes are independant and dont interferre with existing routes go for it… and glue in rings u-bolts etc more the merrier. In more utilised (by other user groups) areas the use of glue ins requiring hangers would be more appropriate as they are less intrusive.

while on the matter of independant routes….wouldnt the new route 2m left of helter swelter come close to interferring with face to face the grade 18 crack??

Thanks to anyone who places something other than a carrot! For example the people who are putting up new routes at Darlington- and yes Wombat, I know who it is!!

Why are we so concerned about ‘obtrusiveness’- any non-climbers who see the bolts are unlikely to be terribly offended by them, they’re still small compared to the rock.

And there are very few sports I can think of (water sports excepted) where there isn’t some sort of sign that the area has been used- mountain biking, skiing, even bushwalking, all leave evidence of use. So a few little bolts (not even at eye level) aren’t a problem!

now we have all gotten the useless blather about wether or not we should be bolting and get to the crux of the issue…

these new climbs…are they open to the public or projects…and if they have been done named and graded can the details be posted please….

cheers all

first things first the climb right of short time or is that left or right?The climb is called Anti venom(21.) It only shares one common hold a few moves in, the rest of the climb has a totally different start and finish. As for P bolts they are no more obtrusive than fixed hangers of which are in good supply at darlington.As for the other new lines grades and names have not been confirmed yet.

I climbed with some swiss german friends at the weekend. They found the first bolt holds too exposed at 2.5m from the ground (no additional run out). I asked myself why the concern because the rock was fantastic and super compact. Later in the day a critical tiny foothold broke on me when I fully weighted it…took an 8m zipper but I was high on the face. No consequences and even if bolt had broken there would have been none. Why? The route bolter had accepted responsibility to consider runout, ground fall avoidance, hold/bolt breakage and fall factors on the entire route. Frankly, I think my friends had undue concern the potential consequences of a fall up to 2.5m were low.

In the case example above everything below where the foothold crumbled was overhang, with resultant risk that certain types of trad gear would have ripped out. As Toc says its personal preference. I happen to like bolted routes which I sometimes supplement with trad rather than vice versa. On the route mentioned above I was very happy it was all bolted and would not have taken it on with trad gear.

Despite my softer preference vis-a-vis Toc’s, its disheartening when I see bolts every 1.5m to 2m no matter how high off the ground. Taking the odd 5-8m zipper is good for the soul, provided there’s no potential for ground fall, severe intermediate impact (ledges, et al) or >1 fall factor for the dynamic belay sequence.

Unless its a beginners area, there’s no rationale need for overbolting. Dynamic belaying systems coupled with thoughtful bolt route design take care of most adverse risks that can arise from a fall.

This is my real name….we have lots of carrots around Perth because of Matt and Jim. We have lots of new climbs around Perth because of Matt and Jim. The two are very related: carrots are cheap and quick to place. Safety-wise carrots on off-vertical granite (e.g. Darlington) are fine: unobtrusive, replaceable, very safe when placed by experts (e.g. Matt and Jim again, or Ron etc.). Fat carrot blues can be always solved by threading with wire or a special filed-out plate. This takes more effort and it does make a route a bit more demanding than clipping P bolts. So what? I’ve been climbing on other peoples’s carrots for 12 years and have never pulled one but have come across badly installed glued-in P-bolts that could be pulled out by bare hands. I can assure people there are plenty of crap glued-in bolts around the place using Araldite and unrated masonry glues. Think about that.

Ross, i see you like many other climbers out there you have an on going love affair with with Mat and Jim, and I too am grateful for the hard work they have done openning up areas for us to play on. However I can’t for the life of me find anywhere that gives these guys a mandate to tell the rest of us how to go about openning new climbs. P bolts offer safer options for those like myself who aren’t super hero climbers but try to push our OWN limits. If a climb can’t be completed you can safely bail out on P bolts. A lot harder to do so on Carrots.

As I mentioned previously why the hell is WA the only place on Earth that still uses Carrots.

If the only arguement that i can read is that they are obtrusive to Bushwalkers and the like, then this is complete garbage. Most (not all) of the areas we climb would hardly be frequented by anyone else but climbers. Let me remind you that Kalbarri, a world class climbing area and an area where thousands of walkers and tourists frequent, is covered in SAFE P-bolts. No one seems to whinge about this. It seems to me that a lot of climbers out there have difficulty in letting go of old ways and don’t want a bar of new ways.

I will happily continue to climb on existing Carrot bolts and respect the route setters right to bolt it that way, but will be much happier to see future lines p bolted responsibly. We are never all going to agree but that is life. Deal with it and let the p bolters do there thing. They are only trying to help the rest of us just as the almighty Matt Jim and Ron etc did before hand!!

carrots are cheaper, quicker, easier to put in and, as the installers usually pick up the tab, its really their call.

there’s nothing stopping anyone from replacing them after seeking out consent. its good fun, the renovator has the advantage of a revisionists viewpoint: put in new protection points to lower excessive fall factors, take some protection out to make it more a head game within acceptable fall factors, improve the anchors/rap points, crowbar out suspect rock, reinforce certain holds, plug old holes aesthetically, select the new equipment, glue, etc. its relatively anonymous but i find it a nice way to pay homage to the old blokes…when you discuss their original gear and placement methods you come to really understand audacious.

getting consent can be surprisingly easy: i led one 2 weeks back first installed 20 years ago that hadn’t been repeated for a while. called the first ascentionist/installer afterward, told him i enjoyed the route but pointed out a couple of issues with it. told him i have every intent of making the thing more scary but at the same time a lot safer to lead. he liked my line of thought, organised the permissions, we’ve discussed the various protection points concerned and we’re off to overhaul it tomorrow. the selected gear is about the same cost as a big night out.

Hi all,

I would just like to comment on a few issues brought to light with this relation to new routes.

#1 Rings or carrots.

I think that there will always be an issue in regard to bolting whether you use carrot or rings. I think that it is the bolters preference as to which of the two they use. There is a slight visual difference between rings and carrots but essentially there is metal sticking out of the rock and therefore that is always noticeable. As far as bush walkers having a problem with it realistically, I don’t think so. How many people visit Darlington Boulders just for a walk? As far as I am concerned bring on P bolts.

#2 Over bolting

Perth climbing is the last place that I normally find over bolting. Routes are often short on bolts making them scary and unsafe. There are many nice routes around Perth that I won’t even consider doing because they have one bolt or are run out. Do you then only choose to do climbs that are under your limit so that you just don’t fall? What about people wanting to push their limitations??? Do you just top rope??? That’s no fun. Let’s make Perth climbing accessible to all climbers of all abilities. I don’t mean too many bolts but just enough for all to feel comfortable. We all enjoy leading but some of us are just not willing to risk being put out of action just for one climb. I would just like to say that unless you have climbed a route then I don’t think that you can comment if it is over or under bolted.

#3 Top Roping

Just a query for our old school climbers. This is the first time I have heard that you could claim a line if it was only top roped. Could someone please go into more depth about this issue?

Great to chat and good to see some more new lines going up.

Climbing a bolt ladder has the same status as a top-rope.

who is the gutless anon person?????

if you think you have something to contribute please put your name in. otherwise @#$%& off!!