UKC

On the day of the US elections it is with sadness that we report that bolt chopping is still alive in the USA.

Sport climbing didn't have an easy birth in the USA. In the 80's there were fisticuffs in Yosemite's Camp 4 parking lot between Mark Chapman and John Bachar over how bolts were placed. If you placed bolts you risked having your truck tires slashed by the anti-bolt traditionalists. There was plenty of tit for tat between the Euro-liberal-pinko-redpointing-rap-bolters and the conservative trad climbers all across the American climbing areas. Bolts went in, then they were smashed flat; then they were replaced and then removed. It was messy and ugly.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/older.html?month=11&year=2008#n45422

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

You on Newsnight US election special Mick

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Mick, it's spelt "Michaël Fuselier".

In reply to Anonymous:

Thanks. Now corrected.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
Get him over here.
He'll feel right at home in Sheffield!

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
"Ken had made threats to others just days before "that something needed to be done"."

I wonder if he used the phrase "It's the thin end of the wedge".....

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
Tires is spelt tyres. Or is that the American spelling?

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

It's Barack.

In reply to james oswald:

Tire is older, and more etymologically sound than tyre, which is 20th century British Engilsh.

Quoting the OED:
---
tire 1. b. ... in this sense [pneumatic rubber tires] now commonly spelt tyre in Great Britain; tire is retained in America.
---

This is the classic OED approach of sticking with an older spelling if etymologically justified (see their preference for -ize endings), and giving others as variants.

In reply to cmsg:
Ah! Interesting!

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Y'all should come to North Carolina, where it's really no exaggeration to say that bolt chopping/removal occurs annually.

I know it surprises those in the US climbing mainstream, and apparently those in the UK, but the so-called 'bolt wars' seem alive and well here in North Carolina. Sure, lots of folks call NC a backwater, but I find this news item a bit exaggerated.

It always surprises me when folks speak as if the issues surrounding bolts and bolting is some anachronistic thing climbing culture has made sense of, assimilated, and moved past. That is obviously true for some places. For others though, the subject remains just as relevant, visceral and present-tense as ever.