UKC

You bolted a project and no-one else could do it until you did, whereas trad routes are always up for grabs.

But there are hardly any sport projects left in Britain below 9a.

Back in the '90s people would actually climb other people's projects without telling them, so that the other person could still get the first ascent.

So is this curious gentleman's agreement a thing of the past? (see latest News)

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor:

Look in yorkshire lime guidebook for Trubble as a mate of mine stole it from Mick Lovatt in about '92.

Though there were rumours that he was going to batter him for it.

What happened more often was people would redpoint but not touch the chain so that the FA could be left for the equipper. These cases were generally made known though.

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor:

I think the news item is pretty clear on the morality of the situation. Surely part of having a project is that you are actually actively trying it??

In reply to Fiend:

yeas, is it known when Gavin Ellis actually tried it?

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor: when you say "an extraordinarily long time" how long is that, exactly?
just from the news article it seems clear that this ellis chap was never actually going to do it himself. being in semi retirement in climbing often translates as "i can't really be arsed to get out much these days cos of kids/mountain biking/girlfriend/etc". i suppose if ellis had actively been working it for "an extraordinarily long time" then it would be a disgrace, but he hasn't been, and it isn't!

i imagine that the gentlemen's agreement is still alive and well, but it's irrelevant when the original suitor has all but given up.

In reply to martin k:
gavin has bouldered a couple of times in the last three years...he surfs mainly now and has a family.
Even when it was his project he tried it sporadically, um well he wasnt going to get up it really.
So no one really has stolen it, mclure did that thing above raindogs which was leach's route but he hadnt been on it in years so he didnt steal it.
When i was sport climbing loads the deal was if u hadnt been on it in a year or so then it was fair game

In reply to martin k:

The News piece is supposed to be tongue in cheek as "the project" was an on-going joke. Gav hasn't been on it for years and years.

But my point really is that there used to be loads of projects and people trying to protect them from getting stolen and it was a colourful part of climbing which is now dying out.

I remember as a wee nipper trying to work out why a pan lid was getting bolted to a project at Kilnsey (later to become 'All Out')...

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor: Projects have been stolen for years. I lost one to Zippy on Chimney Butress and one to Ritchie Patter on Beginners Wall. If the route is bolted and you are not on it at every available opportunity then you deserve to loose it, it certainly pisses you off when you loose a project but if you can't redpoint it then its your own fault.
Cheedale is littered with projects, Chris Wrights left of Countdown which he hasn't been on for years and Chris Plants next to Orange Sunshine to name but two.
The gentlemans agreement only applied between mates and there have always been people who wish to get a few new routes in and have ignored it. Steve McClure Northern Lights, Mecca Extension, Rainshadow, Ben Moon Agincourt Maignot Line, Culloden, John Dunne Baboo Baboo Jerry Moffat Progress Ian Vickers Ryans routes at Yew Couger, Mick Lovatt route left of L'obsession and lots and lots of others.
If you ab down and decide to bolt it then get on it and do it, but don't chip it into submission.

There are loads of routes to do on limestone that are less than 9a look at Gary Gibsons web site to see what can be done.

FAO:Rupert Davis

Thank you! thank you! thank you! for releasing me from the heavy burden i have been carrying for so many years, no more sleepless nights, no more planning to get back into my climbing, no more shouting at the wife and my dog can finally come out from under the table.

I am free at last to surf without any distraction.

once again i thank you

Gavin

(that blank wall to the left of XXX looks ok though, just need to make sure its to hard for everyone this time)

In reply to gavin ellis:

te he

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor:

I am writing this from a safe-house in an undisclosed location, somewhere near Manchester.

I think in this case, doing the route was ok for all the reasons listed above. Apologies to Gav if he did still have designs on it. The gentleman's agreement is otherwise as intact as it ever was (see above discrepancies, among many, many others). There are a few quite good projects out there that are easy-ish (ie 8c and below) that I won't do beacuse they are being actively tried.

The route is really good, right up the middle of the blank looking part, on excellent rock, with no bits that fall off, no glue and no chipped bits. 3 stars ish.

If you go and do it, make sure there's no sneaky lowering off the last bolt, climb past it onto the very easy ground and either shuffle leftwards to the top belay of Entree or hang around for a week or two (don't worry its all big holds and easy angle up there so you won't get pumped) till I get round to putting a belay in. Don't top out and harm the plants on the top.

Rupert.

In reply to Rupert:

You could at least put a proper belay in it or evryone will lower off the last bolt.

name?

gav

In reply to gavin ellis:

Is that really you Gav?

If so, I was going to call the route Kali Yuga, even though Jon Barton thinks its a shit name, however, I now think that it should be called To Surf Without Distraction.

I will also put a belay in.

Rupert.

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor:
I said it was a hippy shit name, not a shit name, it is just there is a really obvious name to be had, and i claim partial ownership as i spent several afternoons encouraging Gav. Anyway England are 435 for 8 so got to get back to more important things

In reply to Jon Barton:

The really obvious name is reserved for another route, for which it's even more obvious.

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor:

but has chris stared surfing? and for that matter when was Gav ever a gentleman? 440 for 9

In reply to Jon Barton:

True. 445 all out.

In reply to Rupert:

It is me.

I admit i was a bit pissed when i heard you had done the route but have been expecting it for a few years. Not pissed that you had done it more that i hadnt.
Hope you liked it as i thought it was good one of the better routes in the dale.
How did you do it? via the contorted undercut at the start or some other method i didnt work out. I fell off at the move going right to the short flake at the top numerous times as that was about the height it changed from a boulder problem to a route, endurance never being my forte

One day i might climb again and drag myself back down there for a look.

Chris wrights project to the right is far easier doing it the way he was trying it but i could almost boulder it out direct which would make it 8a+/b check it out.

Gav

Like many good things from the past they have all but gone, including most of the climbers who carried them out.

The pan was put in place to stop the frogs from stealing our precious stone. Pegos lipsalve on all the holds on Dalliance was another classic of the era.

projects were always open as far as i can see and why mine wast done years ago i will never know

In reply to Gav:

Yes, the contorted undercut start was it. It is a great route, and definitely one of the lines of the dale. It's certainly on some of the best rock.

It was also, I thought, well bolted.

In reply to Rupert:i think even if someone is actively trying a project and you come along one day and mr X is not on it,its there for the taking.you should have done it when on it.
i would steal a project if strong enough to do 1 of these power fest's

In reply to mark: does someone fancy nicking the project over the ivy roof at dinbren we bolted it ten years ago!!!!

In reply to Rupert:

Mr Davies. If you ever darken my door again I shall sell your wife into slavery. I am ashamed to my core to know you.

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor:

Dear Tom

My wife was cleaning out some cupboards last night and she came across some old Climber & Rambler magazines. Out of curiosity I had a look through them, and found a Letter to the Editor very interesting, which may show some light on things of the past. The letter was printed in December issue of 1966 and is as follows:

“ESK BUTTRESS

Sir – Now that I must regard myself, give or take a little, as a walking mountaineer of the type that Showell Styles sympathetically describes, I don’t expect the hard men to take much notice of what I say. All the same, Chris Bonington’s account in your October number of the events leading up to the first ascent of the Central Pillar of Esk Buttress leaves me with a noticeably unpleasant taste in my mouth.

Competition to be the first to crack an unsolved problem goes back as far as Whymper and Carrel on the Matterhorn, and indeed much farther. But, until recently this competition was in general governed by certain conventions, including a tradition of good manners, if the phrase doesn’t sound too old fashioned. If you knew that another party had been doing a lot of hard work on a new problem, and you left them alone to finish it off, some climbers might have regarded you as quixotic, even thirty or forty years ago. But some people did just this, and it wasn’t a bad tradition.

What you certainly didn’t do was sneak market intelligence about another party’s private plan from someone else, and then rush off and try to get in first. The history of the first climb on the West Buttress of Clogwyn du’r Arddu is an ancient but perhaps useful example. Our party, on four or five visits, had done a good deal of work on the route, and as various members of the part in different combinations, solved various bits, they exchange information with each other.

Meanwhile, not knowing we had been at work there, Fred Pigott’s Rucksack Club party had also started explorations on the route, and in the course of these were astonished to find a sling we had left behind. Again without knowing each other’s plans, both parties picked the same Whit Monday for a further attempt. We were slow in starting, and Piggot’s party were already on the climb as we approached the foot of it. They realised that we must be the people who had done most of the work on it before, and they traversed back off the climb and sat down and waited for us on the Eastern Terrace.

The upshot was, as the guide-book tells, that the Rucksack and Climbers’ Club parties combined for the first ascent, two first-class members of the latter party standing down, in order not to delay the combined rope too much. I don’t want to sound pompous, but I can’t help thinking there is a moral lurking somewhere in the story. Perhaps it is mutual truct and co-operation have played at least as big a part in the history of climbing as competition has. Certainly the record of mountain rescue, also pioneered by Fred Pigott. Seems to point the that way.

I doubt whether that other moral which Chris Bonington draws, “All’s fair in love, war and bagging new routes,” is as appropriate to climbing as it may be to certain kinds of big business. And perhaps not even to business, nor to love.

Bakewell, Derbyshire.
JACK LONGLAND

Incidentally, for the record, the Esk Buttress pioneers were Bower, Bridge and Linnell, and not Bowers, Bridges and Linnel, as Chris Bonington has it. All a long time ago, but no harm in getting it right.”

I wonder who was a gentleman in this tale.

Norrie

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor:

Gentleman's agreement still exists but only between gentlemen. I was told a story about two photographers in the 60's. Sent by rival fleet street titles to cover the arrival of an expedition at the us base at the antartic.(Sp)

Back in the days when we (snappers) had to process and send photos using an entire room of equipment in order to get them to our newspapers, there was more pressure to get to the 'wire' machine first. And, as the base had only one such machine there was going to be an argument over who used the equipment first.

The base commander organised a typically American soloution, both photographers were to hold a fist fight for the right to use the room and transmission machine first, this was the 60's after all. The two photographsrs agreed and the fight was held after the photos of the arrival were taken. It must have been quite a sight.

As was the agreement the winner, bloodied, went to send his pictures first, the loser having to wait some 20 minutes to send his. Unfortunalty this gentlemans agreement didn't go quite to plan as after sending his pictures the first and winning 'gentleman' smashed the machine to pieces and therefore was the only picture out of the arrival therefore gaining an exclusive for his editor.

Perhaps the only moral I learned from this story is that if the Gentlemans agreement does still exist, which I believe it does, make sure yours is with a another Gentleman.

In reply to Norrie Muir:

Love it!

Old magazines have wonderful letters sometimes. I came across a wonderful anti-bolt diatribe from a young Stevie Haston in an old Mountain once, which was almost worth posting as a guess-the-author competition. I wouldn’t like to be the man who identified Stevie H as Ken Wilson before an audience of millions.

Loved Mike S’s story also.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Norrie is getting better by the day, he always posts decent stuff doesn't he?

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Dear John

I only bought 5 Climber & Ramble magazines, then I went climbing.

Norrie

PS Never got round to buying any guide books.