From Chipping to Choss, Climbing’s Ethical Dilemma
Hold modification is nothing new, but Adam Ondra's post-Olympic perspective adds context to an old Climbing Magazine survey
Although hold modification is as old as climbing, decades of debate have not resolved this perpetually prominent issue. In 2019, Climbing Magazine published a survey that described our community’s perspective on artificial climbing holds. The survey consisted of numerous questions that pair well with Adam Ondra’s post-Olympic response to chipping. How can we standardize the subjective?
Historical Context
With over a century of route modification behind us, many of climbing’s greatest features bare unhealing scars. In North America, the conflict began with bolting. Where Yosemite’s Royal Robbins took purist’s approach, his rival Warren Harding would find his own way to the top. Popularized in the famous film Valley Uprising, Robins spoke on the question of ethics. “Getting to the to the top is nothing,” he said. “How you get there is everything.” In this quote, Robbins references the fundamental controversy of climbing. Over the next decades, the international climbing community would argue and reformat the purist’s approach to sport.
Although Robbins had his views, he found bolting with time. “I had the unique experience the next day: placing sixteen bolts in a row. It was just blank and there was no way around. But it was a route worth bolting for, and after a time I began to take an almost perverse joy in it, or at least in doing a good job.” While it lacked purity, Robbins created a line that would not exist otherwise.
This change in perspective is perhaps the sign of growth. Although Ondra once called himself a purist, today he considers himself more pragmatic. While Robbins and Ondra differ in discipline, the question of ethics remains. What differentiates choss removal from chipping?
Climbing Magazine’s Study
On July 10, 2019, Stefani Dawn published a survey composed of 1,080 participants. Dawn broke the study into Developer and Non-Developer categories. 44 per cent of respondents described themselves as developers. Over the course of her study, Dawn asked numerous questions regarding hold manufacturing.
The first of these asks for general opinions regarding manufactured holds. Over 80 per cent of non-developers believed it was wrong, agreeing with a slightly smaller percentile of developers. This marginal difference compounded on the other side of the spectrum. Twice as many developers to non-developers believed there were instances where hold modification was acceptable. A neutral option also existed.
Although developers arguably have a richer understanding of outdoor climbing, they look more favourably on hold modification. Overall, both developers and non-developers appear to take a conservationist’s approach to climbing. They prefer pure routes.
Dawn then asked whether these categories though hold modification to be criminal. She continued by asking whether these individuals would climb on manufactured route. The results seemed to split. A roughly 10 per cent difference separated the two groups in each question. Where 51 per cent non-developers viewed hold manufacturing as criminal, only 42 per cent on developers could agree. Similarly, a smaller percentile of non-developers (39 per cent) were willing to climb a manufactured route than their developer counterparts (52 per cent).
On every other point, developers and non-developers appeared within a few percentile points of one another. One of the strongest points they agreed upon regarded cleaning. Despite the fact that cleaning a route and removing loose rock often changes many of the holds, both developers and non-developers felt that this was not the same as manufacturing grips.
Discussion
What then counts as cleaning? For Ondra, it means removing loose rock. Instead of using glue, Ondra would “Rather just try to get rid of all possible loose holds and reinforce something only when it is necessary… ‘Reinforcing’ a flake that barely holds its own weight is already creating an artificial hold for me.”
His approach appears based in reducing human influence to the rock. Where glue will remain a fixture, the highly invasive process of choss removal leaves rock in a modified but compositionally natural state.
Chossy features break at their weakest points providing an almost excavation-like approach to route building. Those that follow this approach simply find the good rock underneath the loose material.
This creates a conversation of cleaning versus chipping. In cleaning, there is a process that makes holds comfortable. It takes grips that already exist and makes them less painful. Ondra continues on this point. “Take for example Margalef, one of the most famous climbing areas. All the pockets are extremely sharp there and without filing down the edges of the pockets, most routes would be just incredibly painful.”
This process differs from chipping as it does not create new holds. However, chipping is often described in larger terms than the creation of new grips. Early in 2021, a frustrated climber began chipping pre-existing holds in Chattanooga. He did it to make the holds larger. This may make the hold more comfortable, but it was considered chipping.
Although this process makes the hold more comfortable, the problem was already established. While old chipped routes have become an element of climbing history, chipping an established climb disrespects the vision of first ascensionist. Furthermore, it destroys a pure route. This steals from the future generation and establishes an unacceptable precedent if allowed to persist. As we live in a world made predominantly of new climbers, a question regarding the standardization of ethics could be asked. How might we differentiate these wildly different, but somewhat similar seeming processes?
Ondra does not say. Although he asserts that changing existing holds is bad, he recognizes that establishing a strict code of ethics has its pitfalls.
While he refrains from describing a code of ethics, Ondra did take a stance on hold manufacturing malpractice. “Chipping is often seen as a thing of the past, but unfortunately, it is still present and it will definitely be an issue even in the future.
“I have nothing against climbing chipped routes from the past. They are part of climbing history and shouldn’t be changed, from a certain point of view. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of routes being put up every year with very obvious chipping. Even old-school, straightforward drilled pockets creating ladder-like climbs. I believe that is something that has to stop.”
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