Old Controversial Subjects

There are a number of controversies at Vantage and I am going to express my opinion on some of them. The most important thing to remember is "Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one" and not take mine or anyone else's too seriously. Another thing to consider is that many climbers have "strong" personalities (some people would substitute words like assholes, egomaniacs, type "A" personalities on steroids, etc.). They hold their opinions very strongly and will loudly express them. I include myself in the above category.

The controversial subjects I am going to cover are: route names, putting in new routes, and cleaning old established routes. The reason I picked these subjects is that they seem to be the ones where I'm directly involved. I thought about also discussing ground up first ascenting vs rappel bolted route construction but I feel that its a lost cause. People that do first ascents from the ground up and those that construct routes will always do them their way no matter what anyone writes on the subject. If you are interested in the differences send me an e-mail and I'll discuss it with you.

My Opinion of Rappel Bolting

Route Names

We've put in over 700 routes in Washington and the route names cover just about every theme, subject, origin and type. In theory, every route name should be a unique magical name that somehow invokes the feeling of climbing that particular route. Unfortunately, we're not that clever nor does each route naturally suggest a route name. On top of that, we put in 70 to 100 routes a year and it's really difficult to come up with that many great route names. So where did we get the route names we used at Vantage? Some are song titles (Blue Autumn, Camarillo Brillo, Tangled Up in Blue), some are parts of lyrics from songs (Fug's Wall route names, Breeding a Dwarf). On some routes something happens to suggest a name (Vibrators Can be Fun, there was a vibrating flake on the route) or the style of the route (Small but Perky, it's mostly small finger locks). And yes, there are the sexual ones. Its true that Paul and I have Junior High senses of humor combined with many years of cynicism and it shows in our route names. Is this bad? Obviously, I think not. But if you do, that's cool. Your opinion is just as valid as mine. So if you want to help you can send us route names and we will use them. Many of the best route names at Vantage were suggested to us by other people (Closet Boy, Air Guitarist, Vagina Envy). So if you have route names you would like us to use, send them to me at williamrobins@hotmail.com. We could especially use ones that make fun of men. We have a few in that category (Hard by Viagra, Closet Boy, Closet Catamite) but we need more.

Putting in New Routes

The first question many people have is "Why should I care? I don't put in new routes." Its true that if you look at almost any area, there are only a handful of teams that put in the majority of routes. Where it does impact all climbers is when you want to climb an established route. Every established route had a first ascent. In the case of Vantage the vast majority of routes have gone in over the past 15 years, so they're not that old. What you get to climb are the routes after they have been cleaned, and if necessary, fixed protection added by the first ascent team. Some people have complained that the rock fall that occurs while putting in the routes has frightened them or made their day out to Vantage less enjoyable. I'm sorry if this is true, but all of the routes went through the same process. We climbed them, there was some to a lot of loose rock on them, and then they were cleaned. So the only way that you get new established routes is if this process occurs. So the reason I am suggesting that you care is that out of the process you get more routes to climb, its that simple.

A little about how exactly we put in routes and why there usually is rock fall. We walk to the base of one of the cliffs and spot a "line". This may be a crack or it could be a face route (we do have both), we pick our rack, and climb the route. In essence it's just like climbing an established route but with no route information, no knowledge of the difficulties, no fixed protection and loose rock on the route. As the leader climbs, they throw off only the rock they have to remove in order to climb the route. Why does the leader have to throw off any rock? There are a variety of reasons. In some cases there are medium to large blocks or flakes that are so loose that the leader is afraid that they could come out as they pass and chop the rope or their protection. So they have to throw it out to protect themselves. In some cases, loose rock is blocking the crack or face holds that the leader needs to climb the route. So to make progress they clean only as much as they need to clean to make the next move. In some cases some of the rock is just knocked off as the leader climbs (be careful of this, it is not something we can totally control and thus it is dangerous to hang out under us). The second does the majority of cleaning. In the old days (more than five years ago) the second only removed what they considered truly dangerous (for an explanation read Cleaning Old Routes). For a while we changed our method, the second climbed the route then was lowered down the route, after the first ascent and cleaned the route from the top down. This preserved the ground up first ascent style, and allowed us to remove the loose rock in the best manner. We've mostly stopped doing this because we would get tons of shits. Its easier on us not to have people coming up to our faces and stream at us (it has happened). This means that we leave our newest routes more like the old days. Is this right? I don't know but it does keep people from screaming at us. We don't need to clean them for ourselves; we can climb them with the majority of loose rock in place. It has been very, very, frustrating to me when we get cursed by people for cleaning routes just so they can climb them. Many of the political problems that I've had out at Vantage are due to cleaning. The vast majority of people would never have known we were there if we had put the latest batch of routes in like we did it in the old days. To all of the people that have given us moral support for our efforts, thank you very much, it has helped a lot. A number of teams have put up routes at Vantage in this ground up style. I have personally watched Russ Johnson and Jim Yoder put some really good lines in, in the ground-up style.

Cleaning Old Routes

This is where I got the most flak. So far, the e-mail has run about 70 % in favor of my cleaning of old routes, and about 30 % against. How did we get started on cleaning old routes? Marlene Ford told us that she liked "Sex with Vegetables" (a 5.11A route on Sunshine wall) but that it would be a more enjoyable route if we cleaned it. I cleaned out the bottom of the route from the ground, then Paul and I climbed the route twice more and cleaned it pretty well (Marlene still thinks it needs more cleaning). From this experience, and seeing how Air Guitarist has changed with cleaning, I thought that it would be a great idea to clean most of the old routes on Sunshine wall. So I soloed Air Guitarist, Crossing the Threshold, George and Martha, and Party in Your Pants and cleaned them while soloing. The scariest route was Party in Your Pants. There were two chest size loose blocks that I kicked off with my foot (no pry bar) and they both landed right at the base of the cliff where most people belay (See Rock Fall and Belaying Section). I then cleaned, using a rope from the top down, Sinsimilla Crack (one of Russ Johnson's old routes) and got a fair amount of shit. I then cleaned Commeterme using a rope from the top down and got a boatload of shit. At that point I stopped. It just wasn't worth the political heat I was getting. Some people say, "You could do all your cleaning in the off-season!" Well, out at Vantage, I've climbed in all 12 months, and now see other people out there every time I'm there (even in snow storms!!!) so I don't know if it has an off-season. Since the political heat has been so intense, the most likely answer is that the other older routes simply won't get cleaned. Some people have told me, "Clean the routes during the week when there is no one there". Unfortunately I have to have a job and I can't spend weekdays out at Vantage. I can also say that I don't see any of the people who have suggested I go to Vantage during the week, out there themselves and clean the old routes. It would be really nice if everyone did a little bit. Think of what it would be like out at Vantage if every team cleaned only 5 feet of one route each time they were there. With the amount of traffic at Vantage, the place would be pristine clean in no time. The one thing I ask of everyone that uses the route information on this web page is please do your part out at Vantage. If you don't want to clean 5 feet of route, do a little trail repair, pick up some garbage in the camping area, etc. If everyone does his or her part, the whole place will be much nicer. Why didn't we clean the routes when first we put them in? When we were putting in routes in the late 80s early 90s there was only us, Russ Johnson and the occasional team from Seattle. We never thought that climbing at Vantage would get anywhere near as popular as it is. Also, since we climbed the loose rock, we thought that everyone would just climb over or around the loose rock just like us. It has only been in the past five years, with Vantage getting much more popular, that we have been hearing things about how loose the rock is at Vantage. So in an effort to answer some of the criticism of the quality of rock and routes at Vantage, we have cleaned routes and gotten shit. Has cleaning the routes been worth it? For the most part no, unfortunately. Again, to everyone that has given us moral support, I thank you, it has really helped. Are we going to continue route cleaning? Not like we have over the past two years, it's just not worth it (politically). We are avoiding putting in routes if anyone is near us. I plan to spend most of my cleaning efforts on routes 5.9 or easier. I believe that people who are climbing 5.10 or harder can handle a little loose rock.

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