I agree with the dude, and i'm a gumby weekender. The threads on this forum where people bitch about fixed/project gear on routes they'd never touch are embarrassing. Fixed gear and tat is all over the cliff.

THEDUDE, whoever that might be, said:


If the flake is so fragile that it will break off like that, maybe it should be pulled and tossed just like that block on Enduroman, eh?

fixed gear = spurt climbing. if you're going to claim it's a trad climb sak it up and place the gear on lead

That absolutist view kinda "invalidates" a metric crapload of ostensibly trad FFA's, including bucketloads of Gunks 10's and 11's. 9's and 8's too.

Tastycakes, just because you have never climbed Spinal Traction doesn't mean no one ever climbs it. There are 3 popular aid routes in the Gunks. Routes that a LOT of people have started their aid careers on. Twilight Zone, Kansas City are two of them. Can you guess which one is the third, and harder of the three? By the way Dude (AKA Belay Bitch) it goes at C2, not A2.

Yeah it's way cool that Brian is trying to send it clean. No one is denying that. Gheez, I even cut him slack about the fixed gear because....well because NO ONE has ever done it clean before. But his belay bitch spewing about hardman ethics, please...give me a break already. That was done for no other reason than to try to elevate himself above the rest.

Let Brian work it, but don't assume it's an obscure route that never gets done. And don't assume that someone is going to go steal his shit just because they say so on some online chat forum. People are way more badass here than in real life, myself included.

RR

Brian cleaned his gear last season.

Carry on ranting...

Nothing like pointless ranting. That's what we do here isn't it?

Then help remove it!

For the record: I self-belayed the FA of this some winter around 78. That was before cams. I remember a couple of hook moves to get up to the roof, then a series of mostly opposed wires out to the lip. I was pretty stressed out by the time I got to the lip, and I ended up placing one pin in the horizontal just above the lip (just happened to have some pins and a hammer--what a coincidence). The rock was a bit rotten I think, and I couldn't get a good nut. So, it wasn't quite a clean ascent.

Ivan

Nice job, Ivan. Always wondered about the FA.