The rebolting topic has seemed to end up as a friendly discussion on the ethics of retro bolting. The history of the sport and how it got to where it is today and we even discuss topics like this is interesting. Sigrid got me "Climbing in North America" by Chris Jones for Fathers Day and it really presents not only an interesting history of the sport but insights to how changes have occured. Usually these changes came with controversy but also changes were usually made to accommodate a need and led to a rise in achievable difficulty. It can certainly be argued that the rise in difficulty was not necessarily a rise in standards.
There is evidence that many peaks were first ascended by Native Americans but the focus here is on non native climbers. We all know that roped climbing was introduced to this country in the the 1930's but I was surprised that roped climbing in Canada went back much further. In 1888 the Canadian Pacific Railroad had been completed and the CPR had built the Glacier House below Rogers Pass in the Selkirks. Rev. William Green and Rev. Henry Swanzy used Glacier House as a starting point for an ascent of 10,000' Mt Bonny the first roped, technical climb in North America.
Climbing in the "Noth American Alps" became increasingly popular but I find it interesting that for many years climbing could only be "justified", the first ethics, as a scientific endevor and not as an end in itself. It is obvious that this was a smoke screen and these first climbers climbed for the same reasons we do. I also found it interesting that these early climbers looked with distain at those who used pitons. Sounds rather familiar, just like bolts at the beginning of the sport climbing era.
I'm only to the 1930's in the book so I'm going to jump ahead to about 1961 when I first started. I remember the total distain that the trads of the 1950's had for the rads of the early 1960's. They viewed Robbins, Chouinard, Harding and that generation not as climbers but "rock engineers" using pitons and direct aid to cheat their way up the big walls in Yosemite. Of course these trads either became bitter about the direction the sport was going and quit or they loved the sport so much they kept on going and maybe even accepted, even partially, the new age.
As the Robbins generation became the new trads they in turn were appalled with the the direction the new rads were taking the sport. I believe it was Bridwell who did the first power drill rap route, a 10+ route on the right side of Dozier Dome if I remember (can't find my Toulumne guide to make sure). "Cheating" has been going on forever. Sometimes the cheat was the new, soon to be accepted, step in the evolution of the sport and sometimes a genuine cheat. I'm sure most of us have done "Elephant Walk" at Tollhouse and its hard to believe that the footholds at the start of pitch 3 are natural.
So now the sport has evolved in many directions but there is still an overlap. More traditional climbers may not like sport climbing or rap bolting but even my friend Doug Scott, about as hard core a trad climbers as there ever was, admitted that sport climbing was fun even though it didn't really require any commitment. And of course Bridwell had the classic quote: "sport climbing is like sport fucking, a lot of fun with no commitment". Sorry, I just HAD to throw that one in just in case someone hadn't heard it before!
In my opinion, which certainly doesn't matter or need to hold any weight, we each need to develop a set of ethics we are personally comfortable with yet still conforms with the community ethics of SoYo. However we also need to accept that nothing is static, the sport will continue to evolve and not necessarily in directions we like. But we have the choice of becoming bitter or continuing to enjoy the sport we love. So many of my generation have become bitter, hateful and quit the sport and they are the only ones hurt by that, some may sympathize but really, nobody cares!
