’ But that’s lazy thinking, and about as good advice as telling someone that if they want to climb harder, “just hold on longer.”Īs I thought about it, I learned the question is also, “Why are so many climbers adamant that climbing remains dangerous?” and “Would the essence of climbing change if it was made safer?”Īs the former Editor-in-Chief of Rock and Ice, I wrote the accident report for years. “Should climbing be dangerous?” When I heard people asking this question after the Snake Dike incident, my knee-jerk reaction was, ‘Of course climbing should be dangerous. But they are just as often not made, and that’s interesting. Decisions to make climbing safer are made all the time in climbing. Yes, someone has actually suggested that, but it’s not as if the idea, or the desire, has no precedent in mountaineering. Add a two-bolt belay on that chossy ledge. Replace the rusty piton that Royal Robbins pounded in five decades ago. Just sink a bolt, or four, in that run-out section, such as on Snake Dike. Just to be clear, it’s not hard to make climbing safer. Fair-means alpinists claim their style is the natural evolution of the sport. Messner believed his anti-siege tactics were the true method for the Greater Ranges. In the 1970s and 1980s, Yosemite soloist John Bachar was called an elitist. Royal Robbins scoffed at Warren Harding for poor style on the FA of the Nose. In the 1910s, Austrian climber Paul Pruess was adamant that his style-largely onsight free soloing-was the best and that all others should adhere to it. The debate, in my opinion, was about the essence of climbing.Ĭlimbing’s fraught relationship to the safety-danger couplet, as framed by historical “essence of climbing” conversations, is by no means a new phenomenon. The conversations quickly moved into claims concerning the accessibility for all, elitism of a few, ruining the adventure of climbing, and so on. “Hard men” and their “egos” were to blame for the existence of dangerous routes. Some yelling, name calling, baiting, etc. Snake Dike was first climbed in the summer of 1965 by the trio of Jim Bridwell, Eric Beck and Chris Fredericks. It does not store any personal data.Get full access to Outside Learn, our online education hub featuring in-depth fitness, nutrition, and adventure courses and more than 2,000 instructional videos when you sign up for Outside+Īfter a recent accident on Yosemite’s Snake Dike (5.7 R), in which a young woman got severely hurt, it was proposed-in various forums and threads-that the route should be retrobolted to make it safer. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.
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