The Wedge Keeps Thickening...

...thickening like a fat greasy chode, which pretty much sums up the state of the climbing scene.

Yes. Ken was right after all. Bellowing like Canute at the ceaseless tide of crap new bolts surging towards his sandcastle, but he had a point. All the wedge-deniers - you're wrong. It is happening, it is here, the bolts are here. The wedge has thickened from additional sport climbs to re-equipping of sport climbs to sporadic retro-bolting of mostly fixed gear routes to straight out full on retro-bolting of good reasonably protected trad routes. 

I do fucking loads of sport climbing throughout the UK both as training for trad and for an inherently strong pleasure in it's own right. I thoroughly appreciate proper sport crags, proper re-equipping of shoddy old sport routes that are mostly run-outs on caving bolts and bits of coathanger, and sometimes obvious and justifiable retro-bolting of neglected trad routes that were full of fixed gear, never really offered a satisfactory trad experience (and indeed were closer to sport experiences when first put up before the fixed gear rotted).

I am profoundly less convinced when this bolting fervour sweeps onto good and protectable trad routes. And the more I explore around the lime, the more I see this happening all over... E.g.

Attermire

Almost completely retrobolted away from the main crag, including classic HVS/E1s that if not fully retroed have been compromised by bolts. 

High Stony Bank

Some good new sport additions, but stuff like Oedipus, which was on my list after seeing a photo, has been lost to bolts despite following an attractive flake crack system.

Lower Pen Trwyn

I took my rack down to do Jacuzzi Jive and Twisting By The Pool that I've always wanted to do (I've got them earmarked in North Wales Rock from a decade ago).... And they've been retroed too. As it happened I pretty much did Twisting By The Pool on trad, but caved in and clipped one bolt to back up the wire on the headwall crux, I'm dropping one E-grade off for that. Aside from that one move it is perfectly well protected with wires and a perfect waste having it as another F6b+ on a crag that really doesn't need that many of them.

Marine Drive

Whilst Beaverbrook might arguably be a sensible retrobolting proposition compared to it's previous mono-peg incarnation (somewhat out of character with the generally reasonably protected routes around there), Pure Mania further around is definitely NOT. I lead this a couple of years ago, and in character for the crag it was a great wee trad experience, a bit run-out, a bit thoughtful, a bit technical. Just a proper good trad route. Now it's a line of fucking bolts. 

The latter examples particularly baffling / infuriating. Pen Trwyn has, in my experience, always been a bastion of balance, a showcase of trad and sport sitting side by side, with neither impinging on the other, where you can have great experiences of both genres right next to each other, (and where the quality of the rock and climbing transcends Pete's miserly understarring ;)). It should have stayed as that great example, rather than another example of insidious wedge-thickening. 

What next?? Melkor has a thread in and most nearby routes are partly bolted - should that be another F6b-ish thing?? No. Fuck that, it's a lovely trad climb, I did it last week as a warm-down in the evening sun and wouldn't have wanted a single bolt other than the lower-off. It won't happen, huh?? It already IS fucking happening...

I always suggest the first and most important course of action should be:

1. Thoroughly clean the route up including removing vegetation and loose rock, scrubbing and chalking the holds (yes, some effort, but less, and much cheaper, than retro-bolting).

2. Replace essential fixed gear with like-for-like if possible. Install lower-offs if the finishing terrain is too appalling (as it sometimes gets).

3. Publicise the route(s) all over. Get some nice photos of people leading them in a pristine state. Shout it from the social media roof-tops. Write an article for UKWebanpeopleunjustifiably.com, update the logbooks.

4. In short, give the trad routes, and trad climbers, a fighting chance BEFORE reaching for the drill.

In the meantime I'm either going to have to get on any limestone trad routes pretty damn quickly. Or buy a re-chargeable angle grinder. Suggestions on a postcard...

P.S. Vaguely on topic, here's a disgruntled miserable old sport-hating trad dinosaur in action:

The Bloods  - I've wanted to do this for a while since the rather evocative photo of Redhead on it in ...And One For The Crow (my 3rd tick in the book after Poetry Pink and Young And Easy... , I probably won't get many more!!). In the accompanying essay / demented rambling, he says it was first done with two bolts, then ended up with 7 bolts and a lower off. It's actually only 5 bolts and a lower off and is still a bit run out for a sport route at the start, middle, and finish. Should this have been left as a sparsely bolted semi-trad route?? I don't know - would it have provided a good, intricate, nut-slotting, committing trad experience?? It didn't look like it, but if someone had chosen to take a strong stand for it, that would be fair enough.

Julio Juventus - partly done because a friend was on the first half (a very logical pitch in it's own right) and partly done to avoid failing to flash Axle Attack or Mayfair! I somehow scraped through this one despite botching the my feet on the first crux and simply not having enough feet on the second crux, thus having to skip an unfeasible clip, and I got away with it and was pretty chuffed with my commitment. No idea about a previous trad / semi-trad status of this one.