Any old Iron?:Pete Livesey circa mid seventies.Photo John Cleare
There used to be so few climbers that it didn't matter where one drove a piton,there wasn't the worry about demolishing the rock. Now things are different.There are so many of us and there will be more. a simple equation exists between freedom and numbers; the more people the less freedom.If we are to retain the beauties of the sport,the fine edge, the challenge,we must consider our style of climbing; and if we are not to destroy and mutilate the routes,we must eliminate the heavy handed use of pitons and bolts
Royal Robbins
Ten years ago I gazed in awe at one of Britain's tigers at
work on Malham Cove's Right Wing Girdle. From a basking stone I watched in
admiration as Dennis Gray rested on a sling before a difficult move. Perhaps I marveled more at his skill in placing a sling good enough to rest on than at
his ability on the climb. I could only dream of the day when I too would have
the skill and daring to place a sling and rest on it. Here was rock-climbing at
it finest, the most modern and ultimate of challenges — or so I thought! It is
almost a contradiction to talk about the ethics of such a wonderfully
anarchistic pastime as rock-climbing. Ethics, someone will reasonably point
out, are entirely personal and are nobody else's business. True, but everyone
must have some historical background on which to base his personal ideas on
rock-climbing behavior.
In the beginning it was the Alpine Club, then the
Climbers Club and the Fell and Rock who, by suitably caustic ethical comment in
their universally read journals, moulded the axioms on which the individual
based his ethics. How the cutting comments on pitons in the Fell & Rock
Journal shaped the ethics of Lakeland climbers for years to come! In later
years, when news of the doings of Brown and Whillans had filtered through to
the climbing world in general — perhaps three or four years after the events —
people realised that aid had been used on many routes. But Joe and Don were the
best, their routes were much harder than any before, and the new ethic was
accepted.
Unencumbered by the restrictions of a patriarchal establishment the
Rock & Ice had created new rules for themselves, and as established folk
heroes their rules were rapidly mimicked — as one might expect. Lesser climbers
adopted codes allowing themselves one or two points of aid per route; the
difference now however was that Brown, Whillans and their colleagues could have
climbed these routes entirely free. As early as 1939 Colin Kirkus had written .
. nobody has the right to climb with
pitons a route which is conceivably possible without . .
Colin Kirkus: Ethically as pure as the driven snow!
Another decline in the traditionally clear division between
artificial and free climbing came from that forcing-ground of British
aid-climbing- Derbyshire Limestone. Fiercely steep routes, sometimes old aid
climbs, were being attempted and it became acceptable to rest on-piton-or nut
runners so long as height was not gained through their use. A smug complacency
settled in — we could always compare ourselves to the peg-packing, etriered
continentals and claim our climbing ethically pure — the real rock-climbing.
But had we known it, six thousand miles away Americans were rock-climbing with
such ethical simplicity that even Brown might have thought again about his
routes; had we known it, the rot in Britain may not have penetrated so deeply.
Cenotaph Corner would still carry a HVS
A1 rating while Vector would be XS A1
under a purist grading system of the type much used in America. In fact any
climb employing a point of aid would incorporate an artificial component in its
grading. Hopefully; But I'm back where I came in — and resting on
runners and suchlike, all acceptable! Had anyone bothered to step back and take
a look it would have been obvious that under this system even the most extremes
of routes would be climbed by the many. That is the point in any sport when the
sociological factors governing the existence of the game, no matter how
anarchistic, begin to modify the ethics. A ball game becomes dull if it is too
easy or too difficult to score; governing bodies regularly adjust rules in the
light of modern performance and equipment to avoid this very danger. And so in
the last few years leading British rock-climbers have gradually rejected more
and more of the aid-climbers devices.
We are leaving routes which would require
a point of aid now, for better climbers later. We will fail on already
established climbs if it seems likely that we need to rest on a nut. I talk of leading climbers in this context because
it is they who set the ethics in our game at present. Either by their example
of by their writings they are hopefully and continually improving our ethical
standards. This is where many readers will grab for their pens and start
writing . . . . . but I saw you using a
tied-off an ivy frond on the Fang — what kind of example is that? . .'
Well, yes, I did — but it saved my life. It was ethical foul but I'm still here. What kind of example is it best to pass
on, an example of the worst of one's own ethics — or the best?
Why go into print to publicise one's own ethics? If ethics
are a personal code then why not just leave it to teaching by example — and
make sure that example is good? There
are two reasons: the first is that today's leading climber is no longer a folk
hero as he was in the Rock and Ice era, he is much more of a fly-by-night
character. His example, no matter how good, may be forgotten in his wake were
it not for the posterity of the printed word. Secondly, the climbing
publications do much damage to climbing ethics by their image and content. A
climber's own ethical comment is needed to redress the balance. I am frequently
driven to despair by such advertisments as... You
too can go right up the wall with ease' (with our gear) or You need the best equipment available and . . . takes you! to extremes. Worst
of all to my mind was one recent advertisement-Bring Everest down to size! If those are not blatant ethical
fouls then I don't know what is, and to suggest that one can buy one's way up a
mountain (despite recent attempts) is surely foreign to any spirit that may
remain in climbing.
What then are my
ethics, and how did they develop? At first they derived from the example of
other climbers, and then my own ideas started to predominate. It is astonishing
how quickly they change. Three years ago I would have top-roped a new route anywhere
had I thought it necessary. Now I would confine that particular foul only to
the boldest of local gritstone problems. Today I would not use aid to force a
new route, unless, even with a point of aid, it was making possible a route harder
than any before. The excuse for a foul creeps in again! I call these 'tricks' fouls, but when I analyse the situation
it strikes me that everything beyond a man climbing a mountain alone and naked
is a foul: we must keep our tally as low as possible for our own era in
history. All fouls are born equal, it is only local accent, at this point in
time, that decrees the use of chalk a worse foul than nut protection.
Here Royal Robbins has something to say: he has the.. concept of climbs as not just lines but as
creations containing line and style. To this I would add my own more
important concept of creative quality in a new route — that of the aesthetic
enjoyment possible from the physical movement involved in the climb — the
exhilaration felt after ascending a series of continuously demanding moves. A
climb must have this quality to be a worthy creation. On a new climb at Ilkley
recently I had a choice: should I take a bold and beautiful little arete that
required a piton for a handhold and protection half-way? Or should I scrape out
a nearby scoop of soft rock to construct a useable hand-hold and then top-rope
the route as it would be protectionless? I chose the latter alternative — the
scraped hold and the top-rope — not because pitons are nasty at Ilkley but
because the finished product is as fine a series of moves as you'll find
anywhere. To have used a peg would have been to break the flow and spoil the
prolonged physical sensations.
The tension would
have been broken by the escape point in the middle. Again the letter writers
reach for their pens: ' . . how can you
justify any environmental ethics when you use chalk and scrape holds? Why rid
the crags of defacing pitons on the one hand and paint them a different colour
with the other? Well, I have no ethical qualms about the
environment; I have never rid a route of its pegs or its aid because it makes
the route/crag/national park/ country- a cleaner and more natural place. I just
consider that the removal of aid can turn many of the fine aided lines into
tremendous climbing experiences as well. How can the climber complain of
environmental damage to his climbs when he drives as close as possible to them
in his noisy noxious gas-spewing car?
How can the guide-book writer
professional hero complain when he condones the building of a modern rescue box as close as possible to the crags? How can the National Park Warden
complain as he roams the countryside in his Landrover with his yapping dogs
planting obscene signs and turning all available land into expensive
camping-car-park complexes? These are my views today. But as I have said, they
may change tomorrow, and they do frequently modify but always I hope to permit
less fouls than before. Messner has something to say, something that we might consider
a pointer for the future: It is
impossible, or pointless, to grade a move when you are within ten feet of your
last piton - (or nut!)
x1.jpg)
Pete Livesey: First Published in Mountain Life-June 1975
