101st POST!

: )

It’s quite simple, really. You claim to be from Britain but you obviously have no understanding of trad climbing except a visceral reaction to it.

Headpointing is a tactic used where gear is inadequate. Let’s consider two trad routes: Indian Face (the world’s first E9, a 12c slab climb with one RP and one slung horn in 40m of sustained and tenuous moves) and Cobra Crack.

Now Indian Face was put up by Johnny Dawes in the late 80s. It had been sieged by numerous other climbers over the years including Moffatt, Redhead etc. - none had been able to toprope it. It had one bolt, placed by Redhead at the highpoint of his ground up attempts. Along comes Dawes - topropes it clean, chops the bolt, sends the route. That’s a headpoint. If he’d fallen off on his lead attempt he would have died.

Now let’s consider Cobra Crack. First climbed by Croft and Knight on aid. Seiged over the years by numerous Squamish greats including Sandford, Bourdon, Boyd, Hart, Lane and Beckham - none succeeded. At some points it had a load of fixed gear in place in the form of nuts and pins. When I climbed it on aid in the mid 90s there was a fixed pin, fixed solid shaft #1 Friend, and 5 or 6 nuts in situ and judging by the rust on the nuts some of them had been there 10 years. None of that gear is now in place. Didier and Sonnie both tried the route on toprope first then on lead. No different than, say, Didier’s hard routes at Indian Creek except that in the creek the climber first gets the rope to the top by dogging up on cams before the work attempts begin. So is Cobra Crack or any Indian Creek climb a headpoint? Of course not. The gear is bomber. No head is involved. If your definition of a headpoint is a worked gear ascent then 99% of the climbs of Flying Circus or Alberta Jam are headpoints. In which case you’d have to agree the climbing community wholeheartedly embraces the tactic at all levels of difficulty and therre’s nothing wrong with it.

So now - Cobra Crack and The Path. In both cases some dubious old fixed gear is removed from the climb and the route is then sent. Just for the Path it was sketchy old bolts and CC was sketchy old nuts. But the important thing here is that in both cases the gear is bomber and holds multiple falls. Unlike Indian Face or Dave M’s new Hell route in Scotland.

The people getting their knickers in a twist about Sonnie’s actions are basically either:

a) internet trolls who don’t care about the ethics at all but just like to stir up shit
b) clueless sport climbers that have never placed or owned a single nut or cam & who see removal of one rusted old bolt as the first slippery step on the road to hell
c) convenience climbers who would prefer it if even fully protectable cracks were bolted

Which one are you?

Hey Jason,

Can you hold off on my tshirt order till get confirmation on Sarq’s size?

Thanks mate.

Mr Sarq.

After reading your last post, I can only assume you’re taking the piss. Are you really saying that Cobra Crack (operative word is CRACK) is the same as the bolted face sport line chopped by Mr Trotter?

Headpointing has been fully explained in numerous previous posts. Please take a moment and review.

From your posts one can only suspect you’ve never spent any time actually headpointing in the UK. If you had, you would not be struggling to understand the factors leading to its inception and how it differs from conventional trad climbing. 

Perhaps less time with the keyboard and more time climbing would fix your problem.

So do I get you a large or an xl t-shirt?

You could say the same thing about Chris Sharma. Realization, Necessary Evil et. were bolted while Chris was still soiling his diapers. Why? Cause back in the 80s and early 90s some guy would get a drill and throw a bunch of bolts on a 5.14 or 5.15 even if they could barely climb 12d. Then they’d project it for a while, give up, and either abandon it or chip it down to their level. That’s the toxic legacy of sport climbing egos.