In reply to dan:
In for a penny in for a pound, such an emotive issue for winter climbers, for a start the turf would not be frozen, so would damage a fragile eco systems, other than that the damage caused by steel on rock would be the same, but you are right to a certain extent, whether plastered in snow and rime or bare but frozen the difference is an aesthetic one, the proliferation of very hard snowed up rock routes means to a certain extent that the more cosmetic the covering the better for success and so is subjective, applying the self imposed ethics of the winter practitioner, a wintery apearance increases the challenge and at the end of the day is a sort of subterfuge, i think to a certain extent the strong winter ethic in the UK, is a way of convincing ourselves that the mountains are bigger and higher like the alps.
When the strong winter aesthetic is adhered to it is amazing to see what can be achieved these days, hard winters in recent years take no prisoners and to a certain extent enforce this maxim, routes such as Siberian Tiger really are pushing the boundaries of what is possible with a gungho attitude.
