Comments on: Secrets

By: Elmo

Elmo — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:49:08 +0000

Them Flagstaff climbers sure do like their roofs.

By: Blkjesusonrock

Blkjesusonrock — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:47:46 +0000

This is absurd, stop whining about “it was my FA”, if it was yours why didn’t you take it? Shoot, just pull a S. Diamond and say you did, name it, and then get the 2nd as well. Sometimes the egos around this sport are bigger than the rocks that challenge us.

By: E P

E P — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:53:56 +0000

Boone largely flies under the radar because of access issues.

By: Loren

Loren — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 06:46:15 +0000

I have spend a good part of the last two years developing a new Pass in CO and the 600+ problems that are now cleaned. When it comes to these new areas, my thoughts have always been simple. If the area is National Forest Land, your responsibility as a climber with enough drive to develop these areas, is to follow an ethic which the community considers appropriate and make the area available to everyone, yes everyone.

With the growth in the climbing community I have witnessed in the last 20 years, most areas in CO will be explored and developed in the near future. We need to encourage the youth that dominate the sport to be stewards of our lands. Show them through our guidebooks the ethics of the past and how they have shaped our individual communities view of stewardship.

Growing up in the competitive climbing world in the 90s as a teen, I saw a lot of varieties of ethics travelling the world. Recently coaching kids in USA Climbing has shown me that these kids want to explore our public lands as much as we do. They want to be responsible climbers(they are hooked, like me), but not all of their parents understand the outdoors and have the ability to give them a sound understanding of what it means to be a steward of our lands.
I am writing my guidebook to encourage the community to see the land that my friends and I have explored, we are sure that they will find it as beautiful and exciting as we do. Hopefully they will read the forward about ethics on the Pass.

By: Gabe Myers

Gabe Myers — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:43:38 +0000

I think that you need to keep your goddamn mouth shut about sensitive areas, like Mt. Evans, but now that the word is out to the whole world and it has been publicized to a ridiculous degree, the masses will come and quickly destroy the place. The same thing happened to area A.

“All of the hardest climbs have been ego-driven”- that might be true for an egomaniac like you, Jamie, but I can assure you that people are still putting up very hard problems and not telling a soul, and you will never have access to these places.

By: Miagt

Miagt — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:16:59 +0000

the story that boulders tell the kids at night in boone while camping.

Tell the folks of the secret areas in boone and it’s not Keyser Söze that will get ya, but joey henson will come grab you pad out from under you when you least expect it

My view sometimes it is special for folks to have some places to call their own wtih no trash on the ground and loud folks to deal with.

But I fell ya

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:25:18 +0000

My $.02.
I’v been developing bouldering in AK for 15 years. Almost every time I go outside bouldering I develop 10-15 new problems. We have a huge amount of rock, and very few people, so there is no reason to keep anything secret.

In an area like boulder with a huge population of active boulderers, you have a litany of potential issues that arise from making places known. I think one of the number one things to address for new areas is access and impact. If these are dealt with, then make it known.

In my experience, a very small percentage of people are willing to put in the effort to actually clean and explore new areas/problems. Instead they’ll just go repeat the stuff that’s been established.

By: B3

B3 — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:17:09 +0000

How does the desire to be first at anything not driven by ego?
e?go??[ee-goh, eg-oh] Show IPA
–noun, plural e?gos.
1. the “I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.
2. Psychoanalysis. the part of the psychic apparatus that experiences and reacts to the outside world and thus mediates between the primitive drives of the id and the demands of the social and physical environment.
3. egotism; conceit; self-importance: Her ego becomes more unbearable each day.

i think definition 3 is applicable. Thinking that fundamentally rock climbing, or more closely being the first one to do a rock climb, would qualify as conceit or self-importance.

By: HANS

HANS — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:10:09 +0000

Ego driven?
How does getting an FA stroke one’s ego when the only reason you probably got it was because someone stronger wasn’t there at the time?

By: Timpson

Timpson — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:08:27 +0000

For me it’s a double edged sword. I’ve developed small areas and obscure boulders in a few states, and when doing so I have felt a finite responsibility to establish sound ethics, healthy relationships with landowners and neighbors, and have all my eggs in one basket so to speak, before releasing information and inviting the crowds in. Behaving any other way is simply irresponsible and affects the entire climbing community. So in this regard “secrets” and secret areas can sometimes, even often, be necessary. However, I have often experienced the selfish, and purely egotistical side of the coin. I cannot tell you how many times I have been refused tours, refused beta, refused access, etc., for a myriad of reasons including not being a local, or not climbing what any particular spray lord at any given time considered “hard enough”. I’m a pretty easy going and friendly dude, and never turn anyone away from access or information I have, unless an agreement with a landowner demands it. Climbing to me is all about sharing, I see no satisfaction in keeping a classic problem to myself, or to an elite group of “locals”. A classic problem becomes classic because everyone has access to it, and because it’s so good that people want to climb it over and over, and come from all over the place to do so. When circumstances don’t demand secrets for LEGITIMATE REASONS, rocks should be shared with all. It benefits the entire community…