I removed 3 bolts on Vargas Girl which was a mistake. I feel a first ascentionist does not have the right to change the nature of a route after many years as a classic, but the climbing community does not agree with me as I’ve discovered. So I apologize to everyone and Keith for taking action without consulting you and the community. I do not want a bolt war and would rather see more bolts than a battered piece of rock, even if it is against everything I believe in for climbing ethics.

Please find it in your hearts to forgive me. Taking aggressive action is not the right road to peace.

Funny Matt, I was going to post something on here asking why you did this?  Colin added the bolts WITH Keith’s permission.  In fact, at a party the other night when Keith heard you did this he was going to go back the next morning and rebolt it himself!  You didn’t make too many friends with this move, maybe you should ask around first before you start chopping!  This is Keith’s route and it was his decision to go ahead with the retro bolting.  Now this classic line sees more traffic and is going to get bolted again, but maybe you should go back and rebolt it yourself?

Evan

Damn, I thought Maddaloni had quit climbing… Squamish was really fun without that little guy around these past couple years.  Proper penance would be to actually free one of his new routes he could never quite do.

It’s funny because we just seem to accept as a kind of climbing tradition that the first person who scrambles up a piece of rock more or less owns the style rights to it. I’ve never understood that, but I do understand the idea behind a sense of ethical bolt placing [not next to cracks, not spaced closely together].

I guess you could always skip the bolts if you want to be hardcore about it. I understand that Adam Stack did this to a hard sport route… forget the name.

I think it’s from the Mcleans Squamish guidebook [can't remember, lost it about 3 years ago] where Perry Beckham says he’s glad he got the first free ascent of the lieback and bolted it before some crazy bastard came along and did it with big bros forever keeping it some route where you have to carry up 20 tons of wide crack jewellery!

Re: Bolts added to famous trad route ( voodooamoor )
Posted: 11:35:52 pm on 6/2/2009 Modified: Never

Damn, I thought Maddaloni had quit climbing… Squamish was really fun without that little guy around these past couple years. Proper penance would be to actually free one of his new routes he could never quite do.

Excuse me, but this type of personal slagging is both unneccesary and just plain rude …I’d suggest, moderator, that you stay on top of this spray type crap or risk letting the quality of content on this site diminish thanks to idiotic posts such as this.