UKC

Sarah-Jane Dobner considers route naming and claiming and the potential gendered and colonial implications that go with it...

The stack of vintage magazines beside the circuit boards is always worth a browse. So much has changed! So little has changed! Mali, West Africa. Black-skinned youth in dirty trousers leaning against the sandstone. Dwarfed by spray-painted European route names. There is a short caption, by Ray Wood. It concludes "Leaving [the environmental] issue aside however, assuming you have the right to paint the name of a route at the bottom in bright yellow paint has a ring of colonialism about it." That was November 2003. Nearly twenty years ago. In those two decades, how much has the conversation moved on?

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OK. I'll kick it off and let battle commence.

My first thought was that it was a spoof but it is not  really funny enough for that. A decent spoof should suck you in, enrage and then give you a sly dig in the ribs to let you know you have been had. Maybe it's just a poor spoof. Or maybe it's a troll. If not, it is easily the most muddled load of drivel I have read in a very long time (and I'm a regular here at UKC so I do see my share of drivel).

My first response was that if someone doesn't like route names and being told where the routes go there is a very simple solution: don't buy the book. You get to follow your nose and over the years save yourself quite a few quid into the bargain so more money for beer. Result.  You may of course miss out on the gems, wasting your precious climbing days bumbling up stuff that is boringly easy for you or continuously failing of stuff that is all too hard hard but, hey, that's exploration, right? Meanwhile those of us who do want  this kind of info can get on with enjoying ourselves.

The fact that most of the older routes were put up by 'white guys' obviously irks but it is simply a fact of history. Get over it. You can't change what happened (for whatever reason). Happily these days more women are coming to the fore. The article actually quotes Hazel Findlay, one of the most respected climbers in the world these days so, however belatedly, the times they are a-changing.

There are too many self-contradictions to go into them all and I'm sure other people will have their favourites but for me the ultimate nonsense was, having said 'one of the beauties of climbing...... is its lawlessness' we come to the suggested 'naming oversight committee'....at which point I gave up and went to make a brew before coming back to finish the read though I really don't know why I bothered.

Lots of interesting points for those who do new routing to consider in order to be more inclusive. The fact that whoever takes the time, effort and brave pills to do a hard trad new route does deserve the right to call it what they want should not be changed be they man, woman or a minority though Imo as they have earned that right.It would take a pretty egoless climber to let others name the new route for her/him (which is a wonderful new idea)so I don't know if that would catch on. Most route names if not aesthetically pleasing or witty can be plain boring descriptions of the rock or line which are also very helpful though. 

As for naming first ascentions in foreign countries is it not traditional in a competitive way that spurs local climbers to do more which can be a useful driver? This has happened all over the UK by climbers from other parts stealing lines from local climbers pushing them to up their game or go and steal routes from those areas.The patriarchal history of climbing naturally reflected in some route names could be used by the inspiring new female climbers to stamp the female sex more in the guidebooks. It is mildly annoying when you see route names of easy climbs called Pram Pushers or a hard route called No Place For A Wendy etc but again that should be used to Inspire witty names created by lassies that poke fun back. 

Obviously in poor countries people can't compete with us but could the names of new routes done abroad by European climbers not just be translated into the local language by the local climbers? I certainly think it is another excellent point you raise for consideration by foreign climbers naming new routes by perhaps naming it in the local language taking into consideration local historical figures, culture etc, imagine how locals would appreciate it more, similar to how people appreciate you making the effort to speak in their language. 

Excellent article, really enjoyed it as it is very thought provoking and original, thanks. 

On first sight of this I find myself feeling like a complete gammon. Here is a liberally minded woman with new ideas and there's me disagreeing almost completely.

I'll let it all digest before coming back with some views.

This is modern day emoti-bollocks writ large. I'll concede that spraying route names on rock is vandalism (arguably, as is bolting), and some route names are offensive, but first ascentionists don't own a route. Nothing is taken or stolen in the ascent. Locals can happily ignore the route, rename it or whatever. A route is only reified by the community that values it.

I agree, drivel.

Wow, that went on a bit! (I considered writing Man, that went on a bit but thought it too easy). 

I picked up on some points, namely:

The go your own way idea, climb where suits you. I am currently putting together a collection of ideas on this for my club journal. Climb where you feel your route should go. There are lots of stunning lines which incorporate bits of a number of routes. This has been known to upset people. 

Naming, I long for the day I can buy an ice axe called the daisy, or some cams called butterflies. The whole macho name culture pervades much deeper than route names. Everything has to be either aggressive (rambo) or overly technical (x5. 101 cv) in its nomenclature to sell.

Historic route names. Leave them be. If we chuck them down the memory hole, how do we learn from history? 

Not sure about that. "Lady of the flies" has a nice ring to it, and only perverts would instantly succumb to unethical sexual visions when reading the route name. We could ask Ron if he'd be OK with that.

I thought the "traditional" climbing culture has been more open to new ideas and counterculture movements ("Statement of Youth" anyone?) as well. Judging by the number of dislikes the article got, I am not so sure anymore...

Whatever your angle is, at least some points of the article are interesting and valid, are they not? And route names can change by popular opinion as well, does anybody here even remember what the Compressor route's original name by Maestri was?

There seems to be an awful lot of self-loathing in that article. Wogs is an interesting one - presumably a route name from long ago. My father who fought in North Africa in WWII said that the name was derived from the fact that all the locals working in the docks in places like Alexandria had W.O.G.S. printed on their jackets which stood for Working on Government Service - of course you match that up with the Golliwogs of old children's books and naturally all the locals are going to be known as Wogs from then on. How offensive is it really? If a route was called Yanks, or Aussies would that be as offensive? When I travelled to Australia I was called a Pom, or more often a Pommy Bastard. When in South America I was a Gringo. In France I am a Rosbif. In Cornwall, a Grockle. How come those names are not as offensive as Wogs? Or can you only be offended if you are a "person of colour"? And not if you are a white male? Words in the end are just words, it's the spirit they are spoken in that is important. If someone means to be offensive they will be and the words they utter are but a small part, it's the malice behind them that really counts. Equally if someone refers to a brown skinned person as "coloured" rather than "a person of colour" (what is the difference really?!) it doesn't mean they are racist. What it means is that they have broken the hallowed leftie thought police rules of the moment. Those rules change regularly though (I can remember years ago that it was an absolute no no to refer to someone as black - not sure how we got round that one) and will probably change again. Ultimately climbing is about enjoying yourself and for me doing new routes are a part of climbing. Am I supposed to stop doing them because I am white and male? Wouldn't that be racist and sexist on Sarah-Jane's part? I'm getting in a bit of a muddle now!

No, I was born in the year he didn't climb it. But I'm very curious!

And relax.

Christ almighty. I must have spent the best part of an hour writing a response when my computer decided to install a software update. Back to the drawing board tomorrow.

I once had a boulder problem that I was working on, at an area I ‘discovered” ‘developed’ and I also named the area - the area didn’t have a name. I named it Druid Stones (a Julian Cope reference) because of its other-worldly feel and a central stone that towered above others.

The boulder problem was beautiful, I’d cleaned it, it was on slightly exfoliating granite. It was on a boulder I christened, Skye Stone - a Scottish reference.

I’d nearly done it but was just shy.

I took a friend up to this problem, a woman called Tiffany Levine-Campbell, and we worked it together.

Tiffany got the first ascent before me, she named it after her dog, Cayla.

Here's a video of someone doing the problem.

youtube.com/watch?v=881j_L21SE0&

My question to Sarah-Jane is this.

The original locals to the area are Paiute-Shoshone, in fact I lived on their reservation. (They knew I went climbing and as an aside we didn't publicise a lot of areas as they were sacred to the Paiute-Shoshone, and climbers have stuck to that position)

At the time not many of the original locals were into climbing. Some are now.

Should we ask the original people of the area to rename the bouldering areas around Bishop, California, and indeed the names of the boulder problems?

In the spirit of affirmative action?

All the best,

Mick Ryan

P.S., I also wrote/published several bouldering guidebooks to the area, was I on some kind of privileged white boy power trip?

This comes across as a rambling internet diatribe, which is unfortunate because it could've been an interesting article.

Yes there are bad names and bad route developers out there, but by and large I am very grateful for those who put in the hard work to establish new routes. I've made a few first ascents in different styles and shared some thoughts about these experiences, including our work on a seven pitch bolted line, Mile High Club: https://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/topic/98224-thoughts-on-multi-pitch-first...

There are a lot of words here but I wasn’t clear about the argument. What are you proposing, Sarah Jane? That first ascentionists don’t have free rein to name? Then how should routes be named?

As an aside, ‘fermenting mystique’ - do you mean ‘fomenting’?

Regarding the horrible graffiti in Spanish in the photo, canto has a double meaning: song/ big holds. So it also means ‘give me jugs so I’m not scared’ - and ‘sucios y salvajes’ has very colonial overtones.

 November 2003. Nearly twenty years ago. 

Nah. That's rubbish maths. 

Here's a thought - create a new guide called "FFA by Women" and then you can get women to name all the routes again. There's nothing stopping you. It would promote a whole new slew of route climbing by women and you can name routes anything you want. 

I'm almost serious by the way. If you could get enough support it might become a bit of a  viral hit. If the second name becomes more popular then you'll also have successfully renamed routes.

As for there being no new routes, you should have a word with Dave Macleod. There are probably thousands left in the country to find and develop if you don't mind travelling a bit (and not far compared to first ascensionists in foreign countries).

Finally, the problem with a historic legacy of white/male dominance isn't just a climbing issue. Nearly every sport or cultural activity has it. We run a landscape photography conference and we have real problems getting a range of female speakers for a few different reasons, one is we want to include historically successful photographers (mostly white male), we also want to include current speakers with a profile (white men are still the biggest self promoters and so tend to develop profiles). Many women just don't have the ego needed to be publicly dominant - they're quite happy just doing and excelling at doing. Men, on the other hand, just like to show off and hence end up in the public view more. Same with climbing I expect - they'll happily spend months looking for a new line just to name it while women are just getting on with enjoying climbing. Obviously a massive generalisation but from our own experiences with our conference, there seems to be a grain of truth there. 

That's Devon, in Cornwall you're an Emmet.

While the first person to climb a route gets to name it, the guidebook author and editor has a veto. (As has th UKC logbook system). This has been used in the past when a name was considered too offensive Z.G.S. (E3 6b) for example also recorded by it's original name in the logbooks - Zebedee Gets Syphilis (E3 6b) 

Why stop there? Any scientific and mathematical rule or Law should be re-namable - especially if discovered by a white male. From Special & General Theory of Relativity, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and, Natural Selection , let the renaming begin!

"Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle" will henceforth be known as "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Princess-iple". #GenderBombed

"...of course you match that up with the Golliwogs of old children's books and naturally all the locals are going to be known as Wogs from then on. How offensive is it really? If a route was called Yanks, or Aussies would that be as offensive?"

Do you honestly not know the answer to that question?? FFS.

"Or can you only be offended if you are a "person of colour"? And not if you are a white male?"

No. And I can't believe I have to write this in 2019, but that is to do with centuries of exploitation and racism

In reply to WileyCoyote2

"The fact that most of the older routes were put up by 'white guys' obviously irks but it is simply a fact of history. Get over it. You can't change what happened (for whatever reason)"

So do you still refer to Denali as Mt McKinley, and to Uluru as Ayers Rock, on the basis that the people who live near them should just `get over' the fact that some white bloke `discovered' them and assumed the right to name them?

I'm waiting for "Mad Bitches and Englishwomen".

Among the many things that one could comment on on this subject, isn't the fact that first ascentionists traditionally name routes because it really doesn't matter that much to anyone else?

I think that sums it up!

Plus we also have 'another mechanism' for route-naming at the mighty Castleberg Crag - sponsored route names.

They didn't seem to catch on

Ah, so this is what happens when you robotically apply the formulas of identity politics to climbing. Totally predictable, in other words, with that strange combination of an utterly conformist message being wrapped up in a package of self-congratulatory “radicalism”, and wherein the irritation that it is bound to provoke will be read as confirmation to those who agree with the article that the author is the one who stands with virtue and justice. Plus ça change; f*ck the internet and what identity politics has done to the minds of people under 25. 

Very well written though. Shame the real talent of the author isn’t put to more original use. Try reading some of David Foster Wallace’s nonfiction to see how much further good prose can be taken. 

That really is a bit more muddled thinking. The first ascents are historical fact. They actually happened and that cannot be changed. So, yes, you do just have to get over it. Naming, by contrast, is just hanging labels on things and can be changed as often as you like. 

This is tough, my immediate response was to scoff and dismiss the article as pure nonsense. I see many articles like this across a wide range of activities and they all share a theme, they are born of an interesting or thought provoking core but then drift into an eloquent rant that goes too far and alienates a large volume of the people who may otherwise support or act upon it.

In my mind it's best to stick to one of the points an explore in detail but to flit between reasonable issue with route names to colonialism and problems with the demographics within climbing is too ambitious and tying those points together is difficult because they are too big.

I think most people would agree that some route names are too offensive and in others some people are just too easily offended. 

My personal standpoint is that we should learn from the past and change for the future, but trying to undo what is done is impossible and not productive. Equality of opportunity not equality of outcome, you can't really just let people name routes because they want to because to many white men are naming them. We should just encourage more people from different backgrounds to enjoy our sport then they'd get the opportunity to name routes?

I think it's pretty normal for a geographical feature to have multiple names in languages of the many peoples who have discovered and rediscovered it over the centuries.  Anglophone climbers will generally use the names they are familiar with, or what appeals to their cultural sensitivities, or anglicise them into something they can pronounce.  Speakers of other languages presumably do the same.  What do you call Rhiwiau Caws, for instance?  

I think climbers should be culturally aware and respectful but we often need to name features that, very probably, no-one has bothered with previously, new routes being an obvious example, but also boulders and buttresses not previously climbed on, as Mick Ryan explains above.  Once you write a guidebook you'll find you need to name boulders and sometimes 'traditional' unnamed problems too or it's just impossible to describe where they are. 

The difference is that Denali and Uluru were prior names.   Most rock climbs didn't have prior names before the dreaded white males came along and climbed them. 

Yes, but do we know that they didn't have earlier ones?  

Indeed, my forefathers wouldn't have been posting on "UK"C either.

You haven't actually engaged with any of the ideas or issues though. You wrap it up in a bow called "identity politics" in order to bin it.

Last night I climbed a route called Richard (4c) and York (5a), I didn't do Of (5c) in between them, but you can probably see what Gary was thinking when he bolted them all. I doubt anyone would get too hot under the collar about those names, or any sacred importance of a scruffy small long abandoned quarried wall. But the spin-offs and implications of how we climb and where we climb in social context are important. Look at what is happening at the Grampians or a number of places in the US with importance to indigenous people. It's harder to dismiss that as just "identity politics". 

Looks like the grading debate has been resolved.:

English grades will run from SHE1, SHE2 SHE3...

(Eg Right Wall, Cromlech, SHE5 6a)

Sport climbs will go from 5+, 6a/+, 6b/+, 6she/+

(Eg, Hubble, Raven Tor, 8she+).

Personally i think we use the bra size scale as a new grading system.

So tps is D or DD?

I haven’t engaged with it because it isn’t worth engaging with. We’ve all seen all these points made a hundred time before, just not applied (quite so directly) to climbing. There is nothing new here, it’s just cheap application of a very boring and by now very well established political line - which for all its cries of being subjugated and powerless, is *in my world at least* (academia) totally hegemonic (to use a phrase this sort of stuff usually likes) and brooks no dissent. I have to put up with enough of this pseudo-intellectual group think repetition in my working life, so it’s mildly irritating seeing the boring superficial plays being applied to my hobby. 

Oh PLEASE ask Mick Ward for some more of his excellent articles...

And Golliwog's Cakewalk at Bosigran has been said to be a reference to the surname of one of the FA team (Bassett ... Liquorice Allsorts, geddit?)

I think that back in the 1920s, a new route on Gimmer was given a name which the FRCC thought inappropriate, so it was given a simple * in the guide. Over time this became "Asterisk" and retrospectively the doggrel

The steeple jack, on his chimney pot

As-ter-risk and awful lot

was used to rationalize the choice of name. Who now knows what the route was originally called and does it actually matter?

Although there is no law in the UK (yet) which says a person has the right never to be offended, and I believe in free speech and will happily defend the right of others to say and write things that might offend me, I do think names like those above are uncomfortable in the current time and could easily be revised so as not to give rise to offence unnecessarily. It's just an arbitrary way of climbing up a piece of rock, after all, who cares if the name has been changed. The Artist Formerly Known as Prince etc.

It is preposterous to think someone would climb a new route and give it a name beginning with, for example, the "n" word or the "c" word, for example. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know this to be both gratuitously offensive and very possibly unlawful, so would not do it. If that holds true for routes today, I don't think there is any big deal in renaming old routes which give rise to equal offense.

After all, the offense created by changing a name is less than retro-bolting routes that were done without ....

Lights blue touch paper, fetches coat, retreats safe distance ...

There doesn't seem to be many Welsh route names in Wales... 

I do so hope this is true and not apochryphal  but wasn't Naddynddu named by its Barsnley-born  creator to take the p1ss out of  those demanding Welsh names for Welsh rock. It looks Welsh but means nothing in that language.  However, pronounced phonetically it give  'Na then thee' the colloquial Yorkshireism for Hello.

*Just checked in The Black Cliff. It seems to be true.

Llawder doesn't count!

Far too much rambling to really give a proper response to this. You're just wondering from one topic to the next, you could have written an article about any one of the numerous subjects you touched on but rather we just have a few paragraphs on each, none of which really tackle any of the issues properly.  

I tried writing a response to what you've written but there is just too much to try and tackle in one go. 

Basically, you can't and shouldn't try to change or erase history, and we can't judge people of the past by the standards of today but only of the time, they existed in.

We'll be able to look back through the history of route names and first ascensionists and see how, as we can already to some degree the culture of the day change over the decades. you'd see early days of basically just naming the path you took (central gully etc), then the separation into more abstract names, the racist stuff come and fizzle out again, the same with the sexist names, you'll see the volume of routes changes and the standards rise and you'd see the proportion of female first accents rise in the (what is now) the modern era and so on.

The history of climbing is just a tiny slither of the history of our civilization and as with all of it you can look back and see how we've advanced over time. There is little point looking at the past and pointing out how un PC they were. No one is going to name a new routes WOG'S now for example. 

Hm, just ask Marie Sklodowska Curie, who was almost extempted from the Nobel price. Or Rosalind Franklin, Lise Meitner, Wu and others whose major contributions to science had been overlooked due to their ethnicity, gender or juniority.

Look at Hubble's law (oops, now the Hubble-Lemaitre law). Renaming of scientific laws to acknowledge historicaly missed contributors is not completely unheard of. Ever heard of Stigler's law of eponymy (perhaps better attributed to Merton)?

But what has your hyperbole got to do with route naming? I am at a loss.

Although I do agree that the original article could benefit a lot from less drifting to tangential topics. 

I should bloody well hope not.  It's 2019 for Christ's sake and we should have got the hang of apostrophes by now.

With respect, I disagree. The two (ascents - naming of routes) are symptomatic of the same problem, i.e. a belief that whoever `got there first' has some eternal claim over and/or right to name it which cannot be changed. If a route used the `N' word would we all still feel happy to use it?

There's no 'eternal claim', it's just a convenient convention.  Anyway, there's a big difference between naming a significant mountain Everest (what do you call it, BTW?) and giving some obscure crack at the Roaches an amusing name that even the local farmers will never know, let alone use.

As for racially, sexually offensive or otherwise scatological route names, the guidebook editor will bowdlerise them or suggest the first ascensionist come up with something else.  Even the first ascensionist doesn't have the power to make people use a name they don't like.  

You are at a loss because you've missed my point. It was in the context of the post about "FFA by a woman". The analogy would be 'first-repeated-experiment-proving-a-Law-by-a-woman' or similar.

Of course, when a woman has been part of a discovery, it is rightful that due recognition is given. I'm surprised anyone would think otherwise. I hope this sees you at less of a loss.

That's cultural appropriation.

I gave the article a like. While it was rambling and contradictory I felt like it was knowingly written this way as a stream of consciousness. I doubt the author was taking herself seriously *all the time*. She made some interesting points mixed with some introspection and some dry trolling.

Is it sad that it was mostly white men who had the opportunity to climb first ascents and name the lines? Yeah probably. Do large numbers of routes need changing? No, probably not. Most route names are either descriptive, semi-descriptive plus the ascensionists surname, or are completely random puns and references, mostly genderless and inoffensive.

Are some route names a problem? Yes, I think so. Having routes named with clear racial slurs seems likely to exclude/ upset people from non-white backgrounds. The only arguments I've read in defence of keeping the name Jollies Route (HVD) are variants of "climbing is 'special' so we get to keep our racial slurs" and "We must have freedom to be offensive". Being allowed to offend is fine but why do we choose to do it? We could choose not to and just change the name without affecting our 'freedom'. What is the value in making someone feel excluded and threatened for the sake of tradition?

The misogynistic route names are similar. Sure, we're allowed to have them but what's the point? I remember a female friend (I don't know her anymore) who became visibly upset when reading the route name Rape (E2 5b). I didn't ask why and don't know if anything was behind it. Do we need to keep route names which are guaranteed to make some people who've gone through horrible things feel worse? Sure, we're allowed to, but what's the point?

As for the allegedly "colonialist" naming of routes in other parts of the world, I think it's potentially something to think about. Many currently poor parts of the world seem likely to develop a local climbing scene when they develop more economically. How will the local climbers feel looking up at cliffs covered in lines with meaningless foreign names given by people who's wealth/ privilege allowed them to climb there first? I think its fairly likely they won't care. However should the British FAs have any right to moan if the locals change the names to make them more relevant or pronounceable? Probably not.

I've noticed that while many foreign crags developed by UK climbers have UK grades (if they're trad) and English names, foreigners coming to the UK have also tended to use English names and E grades. Does our scene have a particularly mardy/ defensive reputation? 

I've never done a new route. I added some unlisted boulders (in a foreign country) to UKC but it's likely the lines would've been climbed first by someone else so I added purely descriptive names. I have a list of puns and references in my phone though, which I'd love to turn into route names. The only realistic way I'm going to do this is by going to a foreign country where there is fresh rock. The only way anyone is likely to ever repeat said routes is if I learned to bolt and bolted them. But these puns and references would mean nothing to people who don't speak English. Maybe it would be better to come up with names that mean something locally and leave unbolted rock for future locals to develop. I don't think it's worth hand wringing about but it's maybe worth considering.

Different country but still, check route 3 https://27crags.com/crags/kakarsberget-kauhala/topos/sector-2-2060 It was first climbed maybe in 2010? A number of us who had done other first ascents at the crag thought it was unnecessarily offensive but unfortunately the topo writers stuck with the original.

But worth a little rant all the same?

What do you do? I bet it's not Literary Theory or Development Studies.  

Hats off for having a go, but about 2000 words too long for me. Ironic considering she's a poet

This seems more of a blog post than an article, but the wilfully ignorant and provincial response of people in the comments speaks volumes. The fact that climbing and mountaineering are structured by patriarchy and colonialism is there for all to see. Having a decent discussion about what that means in relation contemporary climbing and social relations - surely that's long overdue? Instead, we're content to endlessly and fetishistically reheat the same old histories of the same old faces - almost exclusively male and white - whilst fantasising of living an Instagram-life out of a £20,000 van in California, one of the most grossly unequal places on the planet.
 

AP Melbourne will confirm but I believe  Andy Pollitt's Jacket (E3 5c) was originally called Berghaus Jacket, a nod to his sponsors at the time.

Guidebook editors changed the name and no-one claimed their freedom of speech was being curtailed. I don't see why grossly offensive names can't be similarly edited. With a bit of wit it is possible to allude to or take down the original.

"f*ck the internet and what identity politics has done to the minds of people under 25." You realise the author of this article is middle-aged? It's not youthful folly, but an educated understanding of the ways gender and colonialism have historically structured (and continue to inform) cultures which makes people realise so-called "identity politics" are important.

And the many robotically hostile responses here DO prove her point; they show that this article, which you call "predictable", "conformist" and unoriginal, does in fact go against the masculine grain of the climbing community. It has twice as many dislikes as likes and you think it represents "an utterly conformist message?" Get a grip. 

Try reading some some of bell hooks' nonfiction to see how much further good critical thinking can be taken.

I am guessing that 'wilfully ignorant' means one you disagree with but what, pray, is a 'provincial response'

Your man in the Provinces

Southvillain, couldn't agree more so many people miss this point. 

In what way? (This is a question not a typed assault)

That is its strength. However the dynamic is changing, more women at least.

However, some of the solutions, for example naming routes by committee are a bit curve ball.

The biggest barrier to doing new routes these days is the effort and time involved, and in the UK, lack of accessible unclimbed rock as Sarah-Jane mentions.

A great opinion article, good to see over 3000 people taking a look.

Mick Ryan

In this context, you can substitute "narrow-minded" if you prefer. You know - those sort of people who, upon encountering a new ide, instantly screw up their face and say something like: "I like what I know, and I know what I like", as though a lack of intellectual curiosity were a virtue.

So you registered today because you were so confident in your view about this ...

The article is about this exact topic. It raises various examples of sexism and colonialism within climbing! And only within the narrow topic of route-naming; other aspects of the sport are similarly pervaded. Might be a good place to start answering your question perhaps? 

It has been done before, one I know of is Blind Route (E2 5c) at  Parrock Quarry I'm pretty sure it used to be called Blind Nigger but was changed in the guide book a fair while ago and the change seems to have stuck.

It's one at the easier to let go end of the offensive route names spectrum so I don't know if any fuss was made at the time and I'm not going to be leading a campaign to have it reinstated. But I wouldn't like things like this to set a precedent of cleansing climbing history of anything that doesn't suit our modern day values and sensitivities.  As I said above, you shouldn't try to erase history, it was what it was and we have to accept that.

We can't just edit out the unpleasant bits of our history and pretend everything's just been fine all the time. Let those racist and sexist things lie there in past and when someone whom they might apply to reads it, they can look at the FA date probably in the 70's or 80's and think, ah yes, it's good to see things have moved on a bit since those days, I can't believe it was acceptable to name a route like that back then. 

Whereas if you just edit everything out these things get lost and people would never know there was ever an issue with race or sex back in the day. 

I have read the article, hence the question. 

It’s a good question and it’s beyond me to give a comprehensive answer here. But, think about…

- How the history of climbing the big peaks is bound up with the nationalist projects of of colonial Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Japan in the early C20th (including important Nazi expeditions)

- And of how the colonial project of mapping the Himalaya and mountaineering were often interrelated

- The treatment of indigenous porters

- And the extent to which the way we still imagine and talk about ‘adventure’ and ‘exploration’ borrow from these tropes of the ‘civilised’ visiting ‘wild places’ (populated by 'savagery' - cf. the magazine photo in the article)

Or think about how climbing takes place on contested terrain:

- ’Indian Creek’ and Yosemite

- In or near Israeli settlements

- Climbers from developed countries searching for adventure in less developed countries, making rad videos with plenty of ’local colour’.

Or think about how some of our ‘best’ climbing stories are tales of masculinity:

- The stoicism of Touching the Void or the chap who cut off his own arm or Bonatti descending from the Central Pillar of Freney

- The celebrated boorishness of Don Whillans and the like, always eager for a beer and a fight.

- The laddish competitiveness of, say, Jerry Moffat and Co. - still celebrated and imitated

- Whilst Alison Hargreaves was criticised in her time (no longer, thankfully) as selfish for leaving her child behind for the mountains.

Or read the histories, e.g. Bill Birkett’s fantastic Lakeland Pioneers, and realise how we don’t even know the history of women climbers (though Birkett and Peascod did write a book that tried to explore this, IIRC)

I’m not saying these aren’t good (hi)stories; just that climbing is constructed through stories such as these as a masculine realm.

Finally, think about how climbing too often does not represent the actual diversity of, say, the UK or the US, and you see that those legacies are still relevant.

Connecting all the dots, though, is beyond this me - I'll leave it to others.

I just hope there are no plans to change any of John Redheads route names. .....cystitis by proxy and others. 

I agree that some consideration should go into route names and obviously anything driven by malice or racist intent should be unacceptable. 

But what about places where route names are balanced in their offence such as L.M.F. (E1 5b) (Lick my fud) and Suckmaboaby (E1 5b) at Creag Dubh? 

Also worth consideration is Happy Boyfriend (6a+) - the easiest route at Sikati cave on Kalymnos.  

Hi Mick. Thanks for your comment and question. It seems like you have been thinking over these things for a long time and are aware of cultural and gendered dynamics already. Maybe you answer your own question! 

My intention with this article was not to provide any set answers because I don’t think there are any. I just wanted to encourage people to think about/be aware of these issues. Clearly, there isn’t one, formulaic fix (no perfect line!) - each population and crag and history will result in differing potential solutions….

Thanks.

I see the nationalist connection (and colonialist re porters etc) in terms of Himalyan, and in some cases Alpine in the mid twentieth century I am not sure I see it in rock-climbing although some individuals may be so minded.

I am also not convinced that stoicism in the face of adversity is a particularly masculine trait, I am reminded of a woman I met carting a man with a broken ankle below the Dru and very tough young woman we recently rescued. Perhaps the tales of Bonatti and Simpson are human ones rather than masculine ones? 

I think that in many ways the recent past, in the climbing world, was rather more laddish as you say than it is now or was before. Certainly climbers these days seem more pleasant.

Where that article hits home is in perception. I am frequently surprised by the way it is assumed that women have done less in the past than they have. I just checked ukc for the correct spelling of the name of one of the first ascentionists of the Yellow Edge in the Tre Cime to find that Mary Varale doesn't make the cut. After that the rest of what I was going to say has become irrelevant. 

what a truckload of tosh.

Thanks Sarah-Jane, it is a thought provoking subject. 

Some thoughts I had are:

• Climbing has often, in the past, been the refuge for tortured souls and sometimes route names reflected people's pyschological expression
• I subscribed to Alpinist magazine recently and I have been impressed by the way the writing is taking into account local people, Native Americans, people of colour. The magazine's recent account of the history of Nanda Devi was quite unlike anything you would read in the 20th century. 
• Older people should try and remember how challenging the 1960's must have been for their own grandparents generation before they judge this generation too harshly.
• Ultimately, young people's thoughts on this will hold sway over the older generation. If route names change, so be it.
• Finally, to be philosophical/geographical about this, come the next ice age, we can all start again with a whole bunch of reshaped crags. That could be a while though!

Best wishes. 

Exactly how old are you? The "older" people on UKC in the 1960's were in further education learning to think and write more carefully than the author of the article, on the streets demonstrating against the Vietnam war and apartheid and their only contact with their grandparents was visiting their grave.

I loved that video. So sketchy, how the climber managed to just stay on when his foot slipped a few times, the obvious effort put into it. Superb. 

I've read a Dave Gregory article which says it means "Black Chipper" and gwgling translates "naddyn" as "flakes" so.... Anyway, Gethin will put us right.

I'm trying to remember what the discussion was but a year or two ago there was a thread where a couple of long time, active (both as climbers and as UKCers) female posters got so tired and upset with the sneering and belittling attitude of some male contributor that they said "that's it, I'm closing my account". And that's what they did and haven't come back since. I thought it was awful, and (as a white, cis gendered, straight, middle aged, middle class) male climber, hugely embarrassing as it was people like me who managed the bully and gaslight some of the few active women members of UKC off the forums.

From the behaviour we've seen in past when issues around sexism in climbing have been discussed, I completely understand why any woman who had something to say would want to do it completely anonymously.

So are you saying that in choosing a name for his route the male first ascensionist was in some way denigrating women? Should he have gone to find a woman and asked her to choose a name for the route that he had just climbed? That seems to me to be the import of the article.

It is a completely different issue to men on internet forums denigrating, intimidating or otherwise putting off female contributors.

Yes, many, now older people were doing those things when they were young in the 60's. However, many older people may well feel uncomfortable with what the article is saying. I am drawing a comparison with a generation's own youthful progressive activism and its current conservatism on this issue. Hardly surprising, as that is what generations do...annoy each other. 

So the responses of the folk who disagree with you are 'robotically hostile responses'?

Ironic isn't it that your response falls squarely into this category. 

First of all, a confession. I am white, male, privately educated, and (as if that wasn't enough already) heterosexual. For all of that, I offer my full and sincere apologies. By being all of the above things and writing a rebuttal to certain bits of the article I am, I suspect, to some people confirming that the article must be true. Here goes anyway.

Hidden away amongst the other stuff there are some really interesting discussions to be had, primarily about the naming of routes in foreign countries - but I'm not going to go into that too much here. I can imagine it being odd to go out to your local crag and find that all the route names are in a different language but, as I'll go onto later, the naming of a route by the FA is important. Despite being great exporters of names, we aren't too friendly when it happens to us. I remember when Megos had a trip to Wales and completed a local project and called it Das Pumpenhousen Test Piece. The name was almost universally viewed with contempt. Why is this so different for route names in Kalymnos? However, literal translations into the local tongue (as jonathanr points out) are quite hard to get right. Alliteration and nuance and idiom aren't going to transfer well between languages. For instance, the Japanese refer to a small space as a "cat's forehead". All meaning is lost in the literal translation to English.

There’s also some good debate to be had about where to draw the line on offensive route names. You would hope not to see people giving routes grossly offensive names nowadays, but if they do so then they just expose something about their own character for all to see – their name will be included in the record! What route names might we consider to be acceptable now which the next generation will seek to erase? Strapadictomy? Suicide Wall? Crazy Diamond?

What I really want to contest is a number of assumptions about new routing and naming which are simply wrong. First off, the notion that there isn't much rock left to go at in the UK is demonstrably wrong. There are plenty of crags in Yorkshire and the Peak, an hour's drive from multiple major cities, where there is fresh stuff being done all the time. Go to the Lakes and look around you. Go to Scotland and open your eyes. Even on relatively busy crags it's amazing what people simply can't see when there's no topo line to draw their attention to it. Have a look at Monumental (AKA The Monumentalist) at Rylstone. The most blindingly obvious line next to a three star Allan Austin route on a crag that gets plenty of traffic. A fairly modest grade of E6 6b, and yet it only got done in 2012 by the person writing up the new definitive guide. Look at what Rachel Briggs is doing in the Peak on crags that most people say are worked out. It's all there to play for, but most people aren't interested in playing. That's the thing - prospecting for new routes and simply going climbing are two fundamentally different activities with different processes and very different rewards.

The second incorrect assumption (and I'm talking about British rock climbing here, not early 20th century alpinism) is that new routing and developing are activities that are to do with claiming, or asserting dominance, or conquering anything. Nobody claims a new route. You can't take them home with you; you don't earn a right to hand out permits to allow other people to climb them. People do name routes and this is principally a functional thing, to identify one route from another. In life, names can perform a number of tasks but all names are identifiers to distinguish individual things from each other. Many names are purely descriptive. The vikings called the long valley Langdale, the valley with the juniper trees Ennerdale, the farm of Gikel is Giggleswick, the place where the brown, murky lake was is Liverpool etc etc. Route naming began in much the same way but has become more imaginative and this is something to be celebrated as it’s given us such inspiration as Space Race, Cry Freedom, Careless Torque, and Saxon. A name does not have to be about dominating a piece of rock, in fact it would be an incredible faux pas to name a climb after yourself nowadays. Names like Jerry’s Roof tend to arise when the FA doesn’t give a name to a problem.

The article is preoccupied with the misconception that developing new routes is about conquering something and it's galling to be told this by somebody who admits to have never done any of it. My record for developing is pretty puny compared to some who are out there grafting constantly. A reasonable number of new problems (many being fillers in) and a small handful of new trad routes, but I can offer a little insight here. There is a certain amount of smash-and-grab and competition around developing new climbs, it's part of the fun. But it isn't all like that, and the article completely skips over this. I've handed out entire crags to other people before, and have received tip-offs from other people who have shared their discoveries. When somebody succeeds on a project that I'd failed on I'm genuinely pleased to see it done because the creation of new climbs is special and should be rejoiced in. The reason that there is some competitiveness is that it's worth being competitive about - they are finite things.

It’s all about to get self-referential now. Apologies for that, I’m drawing on my own experiences. The reason that climbing, and in particular first ascents, is special is that climbing creates an indelible link between people and the landscape and in doing so connects people to other people through places. Take Pike Stones for instance. Pike Stones have been sat on Rocking Moor (the lower, rolling slopes of Barden Fell) for something like the last 10,000 years. In that time they have been largely ignored – tramped past by many (though not that many) people who have probably not given them more than a cursory glance. When I visited that crag I looked at those boulders and engaged with them in a way that nobody had done before. When I climbed them, I gained an intimate knowledge of the stone – learning the undulations that made holds, feeling the intricacies under my fingertips, part discovering and part creating the way in which the stone has to be climbed. Some climbs are fairly straightforward and simple in how they climb; some require unusual or unique movements and discovering that is like getting to know somebody – they have a personality of their own. In the 5 years that have elapsed since then there have been, to my knowledge, 3 other people who have walked to those stones and seen them in the way that I saw them. This creates a connection between them and me through time. They stood in the same place that I stood, their hands and feet moved in the same way that mine did.

The notion of letting other people name climbs is nonsensical because good route names should spring from the route itself, or maybe the circumstance under which it was climbed. Names that I’ve given to things generally have a meaning. English Rose, Sprit of Kinder, A Time of Gifts, Prime Suspect, Crackling Psyche, Our Chapel, The Prodigal Sons, Black Annis, The Oyster Catcher, Secret Service, Ours is a Great Wild Country: these names weren’t chosen by accident. They each tell a story about the climbing of the problem or about the problem itself and many of them draw inspiration from the landscape which may be discovered by future climbers. Crackling Psyche for instance is named for the nearby sike (a winter-borne watercourse) which is named Crackling Sike. So how is a committee or a panel of school children or whoever qualified to name a route?

Moving on from all that, the point about down-playing the history sections in guidebooks is very unusual. Which guidebooks are these? I can’t think of any definitives which don’t have decent history sections. The relative lack of female participation in new route development is an uncomfortable truth in British climbing, but it is a truth nevertheless. Should we alter the representation of history to give a less factual representation of what happened in the past? In my view this is not only infantile but dangerous. How do we learn from the mistakes of the past if we are not aware of them?

All of that aside, climbers of all different persuasions should of course be encouraged to go and develop new climbs, but horses cannot be made to drink.

Sorry for rambling.

I didn't really see any point Deadeye was making beyond seeming to question Jane Doe's right to say something about the article because she was newly registered.

Don't be stupid, Toby. I was questioning what Sarah-Jane said in the article, not what someone whose contribution I didn't read said.

To stretch your metaphor - drinking you would think is a pretty natural instinct for horses, so why is it that horses/climbers wouldn't do something that seems natural to you (and me)?

Isn't that one of the points the original article?

Well I apologise for my obvious stupidity, but why did you respond to my post with "Are you saying...?" then?

OK I take your point. But I do not think that the article make a valid point, and I do not think that a woman making Deadeye’s point would have been criticised for sexism.

Thank you for writing this article. While (like others) I find it somewhat scattergun - it would be better if it were more tightly focussed, and I disagree with some of what is written, it is an important piece because it opens up a debate. 

I can't help but think that much of it re-treads old ground. I don't have a copy of Games Climbers Play to hand, but I certainly recall that issues of inclusion are tackled in some of the pieces - particularly around diversity the role of indiginous people in mountaineering.

Climbing is a game ("Games Climbers Play"!), and as such it relies on a set of rules. The rules slowly evolve, and different generations focus on different aspects.  I was a partisan in the dogging / redpointing / sport climbing wars of the mid-80s. That we continually challenge and evolve the rules is no bad thing.

I'm not convinced about the route-naming / diversity issue. On the one hand, yes, first ascentionists have been male dominated. But not exclusively. And that is definitely changing. My daughter recently completed a piece of homework around suffragettes and feminsim. She was asked to write a piece on un-known feminist champions. She chose Lynn Hill.

As for route names: they reflect the full diversity of human experience. Some are sublime, some are banal, some are contentious, and some just crass.  A bit like people really.

Steve  

New routing and new route names are pretty boring these days with the growth of online media.

climbing in an era when you had your news”fix” via printed media with headlines splashed on magazine front covers was far more interesting. 

There is a route at Wintours Leap that was first named “Men of Gwent” but was then televised and reclimbed by Blue Peter’s Peter Duncan ostensibly as a “first ascent” . Viewers were invited to write in to vote for their favourite name and it was renamed Duncan’s Dilemma for the 1988 guide. Interestingly, it has reverted back to its original name in the latest guide - I’m not sure why. So, even when you give the route name to school children, it doesn’t mean it will stick.

i thought the article was thought provoking and I hadn’t really considered the overseas aspect. I wonder whether the new route I climbed in Morocco and named “Britsquitsy” referring to the 1.5 stone I had recently lost through food poisoning and our nationality was appropriate, but I won’t lose sleep over it as it probably hasn’t been repeated in the past 15 years despite its low grade. If someone climbs it and claims it with a new name, fine by me.

  This article raises some important issues and good for Alan for publishing it. However, I feel that Alan and UKC have the power to set an example of the way forward.

  My immediate concern is the logbook system on UK. Nobody can avoid noticing that the recorded ascents in the logbooks are heavily dominated by entitled white men, not to mention that the men unthinkingly employ the route names established by even more entitled white men. Worse than that, the need to record, comment on and publicise their ascents via the logbooks reflects the greed and pride of the the climbers involved . An unpleasant and competitive feeding frenzy is thus being promoted.

 Furthermore prevalence of white men amongst those recording their climbs is intimidating and alienating for other genders and other minorities thus creating a self perpetuating patriachy within the climbing world.

  Whilst, of course, deeply respecting climbing's tradition of freedom and anarchy it is quite clear that the time has come for this to end. I therefore propose that UKC introduce a quota system for climbs recorded on logbooks. Initially no more than 75% of routes should be recorded by white males and this should, by stages, be reduced to maybe 45% to reflect their proportion in the general population. The opportunity could also be taken for routes to be renamed in the logbooks by non white men recording ascents. If necessary the UKC team could reallocate existing recorded ascents to women and minorities to create the necessary balance.

  UKC also need to think very seriously in the medium term about abandoning the logbook facility entirely which promotes unpleasant egotism, narcissism, sexism and colonialism.

  On a related topic, it is of some concern that the priniciple owner and CEO of UKC seems to be a white male, as reflected in his name. This is very alienating for non white males. Has Alan considered a name or gender change to address this problem? "Alison" has a nice ring to it.

Alison Jambo?

How long did that take for you to think of a reply.

Brilliant post, Will. Brilliant post.

Yes!!! 

For me, this is the ultimate joy of new routing. All those wasted days, the scary outings, the brutally hard work, the frustration, somehow melt away. At its best, you've created an experience which others will share. Most of them will be people you will never meet. But you will still have shared something with them. Maybe I'm deluding myself but, for me, those acts of sharing mean an awful lot.

Mick

The time was taken wondering whether I should.....

Any chance of Gary Gibson undergoing a retrospective sex change? Problem solved in one swoop! 

This is the sort of creative thinking that is required. But it still doesn't address the problem of recorded ascents by people in their logbooks. Maybe some sort of mass conversion? Or just a culling?

Hmm what is it about Morocco and naming routes after the illness's caught on trip?

My only two first ascents being 'berber soup' (cause of the illness) and 'Dropped a Barney' internal joke for taking a massive sh*t.

More thoughts on the naming of things in foreign countries.

Would it be wrong for UK climbers to assign route names in english speaking foreign countries? It feels less wrong, but is it?

Things don't have to have the same name. Different people call things by different names. A surveyor would probably call a particular chamber in a cave something different to a caver. Rivers are known by different names at different points in their course (even just a few Km away from each other in the UK. Sewerbridge Beck becomes Wain Dike Beck then Gilcar Beck then Choke Churl Beck, all in the space of 3Km). I expect the local people still call Everest Cholmolungma. The Germans call their country Deutschland (we probably don't because none of us can spell it without looking it up). Climbers fairly commonly call crags or buttresses by names that nobody else calls them by. Do the local farmers get angry that Hole Crag is now called The Prune? No, they don't care.

Similarly, I think if you asked local non-climbers to name all the routes on their local crag they'd be fairly non-plussed. Most non-climbers who I've shown a topo to are staggered at the number of routes that exist on a buttress. They understand the climbing of the obvious cracks and very easy and obvious features but they're quite often puzzled at why you'd want to climb the harder things.

I would have translated "sucios y salvages" as "dirty and wild" from the Spanish and never would it have occurred to me to be an insult, or a racist colonialist comment. I would have guessed it was the naming climber's comment about themselves, maybe.

Do people sometimes look for the worst reading or am I just too naive? 

I have only skim read this article, but don't really know where to begin. Obviously no fan of John Redhead. Did she get out of bed on the wrong side. Everything to it's time and place. George Everest did not name Everest, which incidentally should be pronounced Eve-rest. The name was considered for change to an original idigenous one, but they couldn't agree to which of 3/4 local names, so decided to retain the Everest title, as it was so well known. Imagine even trying to pronounce some of the others suggested names. Better than Peak XV. 

I agree with Wogs at Chudleigh is due for a change perhaps named after the first acsentionist, oh but he was a man.  Then again if nobody named anything, well guidebooks & maps would be largely blank. I personally generally haven't given  names to any first ascents (Wendy Doll for one) as the climbing was more important than a name, but it could be very confusing for others. The vast majority of climbers until very recently were men, much as explorers etc. Women and Indigenous peoples were not leading expeditions to far flung parts of the world. Different times you see.

I am actually writing a chapter in my book about this very issue but this article comes across as very narrow minded and blinkered. I should perhaps add that there is also a chapter devoted to women's mountaineering achievements, so I do want to balance up this history.

I could take issue with many other statements in the article but I have to go off to watch the cricket!

The article raises some good points but is let down but some internal contradictions and muddled thinking.

Gobshite

One more thought on this article - or at least the part of it that refers to women climbers. Climbing is a sport in which women (outside competitions) can engage on exactly the same terms as men. Historically the majority of the hardest first ascents have been carried out by men, but people like Lynn Hill and Beth Rodden have shown that there is nothing preventing women from climbing routes which the strongest men have failed on.

Isn't a route name just something you stick in a book so that other people can find it? 

So you'd be happy with them having unique code identifiers, right? Route #143ab4d6c2, etc.

I think that's the least romantic thing I've heard connected to climbing.

I think UKC should commission Will Hunt to right some articles. That was a very well written and researched reply unlike the original article Will was responding too.

Totally agree. Some names (e.g. Vector) are perfect.

Mick

Agreed. One of the very best posts I have read on here.

I've been thinking about this for some days.  She makes some interesting points, but the article lacks focus.  Assuming the real point of the article is about route naming, her attempt to make this a feminist issue distracts from that.

As she points out, only around 25% of climbers are female, even today, and in previous times there were even fewer.  Those who put up new routes are a tiny minority so it is inevitable that the numbers of women making first ascents has historically been small.  However where they have been they are recorded.  Is there any evidence, or even a suggestion, that female first ascents have been ignored or omitted from the record? Today, of course, there are a number of women climbers operating at the highest level and putting up new hard routes.  Women climbers now seem to get plenty of attention, some would say disproportionately so.

She has a point about "colonialism", but is there any evidence that local communities care or are even interested in what we do in our own little world?  The point applies as much in the UK as elsewhere - climbers arrogantly claim the right to climb where they please, often regardless of the wishes of the landowners. Most route names in Wales and Scotland are English rather than in the native languages, but does anyone in the local community know or care?  This smacks of virtue-signalling rather than a real issue.  It becomes a real issue where climbing areas have some local cultural or religious significance, or are protected for environmental or historical reasons, but we are becoming better at addressing this and climbers who ignore these or who breach access regulations are now more likely to be criticised.

It is not just women who get offended by some route names, although I accept that some may be especially offensive for women.  However she implies that if more climbs were named by women this problem would disappear.  This seems to suggest that women are all sweet and caring, whereas men are naughty schoolboys who like to shock.  I don't think that is necessarily true, and women are also capable of using bad language and offensive names in order to shock - just look at the names of some female punk bands, for example. 

The real question is who is to name (or rename) these routes, if not the first ascensionist?  What authority does a guidebook writer have to do this, let alone a "local women's co-operative" as she suggests?  The purpose of a guidebook is to record.  How would they arrive at a consensus on how a route should be named?  Are we to have a BMC naming committee?  How would such decisions be enforced?  I suspect that after nearly 100 years Wogs will still be called that by climbers, regardless of whatever PC name someone tried to impose.   

It would be lovely if climbers would stop being offensive or even using in-jokes when naming routes, but we live in the real world.  In any sphere of activity there are going to be people who behave badly, for any number of reasons, and whilst offensive route names may not reflect well on climbing as a whole, it is not a regulated activity, and whilst it is less anarchic than it used to be, it cannot be policed.

does anybody here even remember what the Compressor route's original name by Maestri was?

Probably Filo Sureste? 

Completed ”The Line of the Ancient Barrow-Boys” on Tuesday...

We didn’t plant a flag... build a wall or conquer any peaks. We followed in Coleridge’s step and squeezed through “Fat man’s agony” but laid no claim to land ownership... (we picked up some litter!)

As for our line naming... you can try and figure...  (no prizes)

www.facebook.com/bearingup

[climb(7085,"Broad Stand")

Surely you mean 'Obese person's dilemma!'

To many other races, 'dreaded white males' has some historical justification. I don't feel any guilt or self hatred in this observation, but I'm not in ignorance of the fact, too.

Absof*ckinglutely, it's like clockwork, that anything about gender issues, sexism or race in climbing on here, has white male climbers poo pooing the idea of any validity. 

Disproportionate how, what examples do you have in mind?

I had in mind the view that some climbing magazines and websites seem to prefer photos of young women, especially if they are not wearing very much.  In fairness, the mainstream mags seem to have listened to criticism and redressed this, but in one of my facebook feeds the photos seem to be largely of female climbers.

There are of course a number of women who are climbing at the very highest levels and their achievements are quite rightly fully reported, and not just in the context of first female ascents.

Sarah-Jane Dobner turned 50 this year and thought she’d better try and get something in print. She has been writing poetry and songs for 30 years and performed music and spoken word at many venues in her hometown of Bristol and beyond. A single mother, ex-lawyer and keen rock-climber, she is mid-way through a masters in gender studies, intersectionality and change at Linköping University in Sweden.

Anyone who has a clue knows that middle class white men have the monopoly of most things, but there are generational changes coming now that are changing the British climbing scene. Recently, at Gogarth, I noted the fact that the three parties to climb "Run Fast, Run Free" (E5) that day were all-female teams. Even ten years ago that might have made news, but these days, it's just a passing comment on a UKC thread that will cause hardly anyone a furrowed brow.

I've spent a lot of time putting up new routes in far flung corners of the world with no climbing scene. The sunlit crags of the Egyptian Sinai, the vulture populated walls of Eastern Sudan, the boulders of Eritrea and the minor crags of Afghanistan have all seen me come and go and then come again, because they're such superb place in which to climb and meet people. I feel welcomed in the Sinai, and at home in the Wakhan. When I climb in these areas I spend more time in one place, I engage with those who live there and, occasionally, tie them in and take them up a route. The most natural (bareoot) boulderer I've ever seen is a young man called Bakash, and he lives in a hut on the outskirts of Kassala in Sudan with his extended family and 9 goats. I left him some boots and I hope he's still traversing that monster boulder.

For me, new routing abroad is not all about the naming and the claiming, but there's a decent dollop of that. I enjoy sitting in tea houses and watching the world go by. I like to practice my Arabic on unsuspecting school children, and I like to be a very long way from any internet access, and very close to freshly baked khubz with a plate of ful at my elbow. That being said, the excitement of walking round a corner and finding a 4 pitch E1 that would sit comfortably alongside any quality granite testpiece in Cornwall or Yosemite or wherever is quite the thrill, and it gets addictive. I've always had an eye to the naming of the routes and crags, trying to find the local names (often there aren't any because who cares about a lump of rock in the desert?) and usually, at the very least, asking the camel drivers or shepherds for inspiration. "Echoes from Another World" (E2) was named by a Bedouin guide, "Petrol d'Allah" was christened by a politically active, university educated taxi driver who had never even heard of Hawkwind & "Welcome to Afghanistan my Friends!" was named by a young man who is now dead, and who was unbearably kind and hospitable to me during an unseasonally cold Afghan Autumn.

In such places it's highly unlikely there will ever be an indigenous climbing scene. The costs involved are high and when you have mouths to feed and herds to tend, leisure activities tend to involve hookah pipes, home grown tobacco, the Qu'ran and dominoes. The consequences of injury are serious and the view of what are acceptable risks are very different in Eritrea than they are in Enfield. In many cases I know that I will be the only person to ever climb that line, the only person to know that a perfect sequence of hand jams exist 170ft up the west face of Jebel Naga, and that my favourite no5 rock is still at my high point on an unfinished project overlooking a wild west town on the Ethiopian border with Chad.

The number of essays in response to this article suggests a nerve has been touched, and the discussions may continue long after it has been archived.

Amazing post, Martin.

This article actually got me itching to get back out there so on Saturday I returned to a group of boulders that I'd walked past 5 years ago and never got round to climbing on. About 30 new problems done over those boulders now and just getting round to putting names on them.

In the interest of giving the naming-by-committee idea a fair hearing, if the UKC Naming Panel would like to suggest names below then I'd be happy to use them. In particular, I had thought of The Restful Rib for the double-knee bar arete thing which is the second video in this post, but that seems a bit naff for what is quite a quirky little problem.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BzBvjSMjl_N/

To further put paid to this idea of there being no rock left to develop, these boulders are visible from the road, some are 20 minute walk from the car, 40 mins drive from Bradford/Leeds. Most of the problems are Font 4 - 5+. They may not be very tall but the rock is very high quality and it's a lovely spot.

That woud explain why it's badly written and strewn with woke buzzwords.

I'm not sure if anybody has mentioned Strava segments in the context of route names?

Anybody can create and name a novel segment, but there is often considerable overlap, the segments people care about or have the best names (eg mendip madness) become the accepted name.

Of course, massively more complex for rock, and massively dominated by middle class whities in either case - but so what?

Your post reads like something out of OTE during it's heyday (big praise from me). I guess the only 'hmmn' which comes to mind, is that at some point in the future, there actually could be a local climbing scene in some of the countries where it's currently too expensive to climb, and seen as too risky when surviving is hard and the infrastructure to rescue and repair people isn't as well developed as in the UK.

At least your climbing hasn't been in the spirit of certain climbers from the south of England, though, who have gone over to Spain and drilled and modified the rock in ways which wouldn't have been acceptable in England. IIRC they've said as much about the rock modification too. You've gone in the right spirit, whatever philosophical tangents one might follow.

I am asking a genuine question (2.5 questions really) here in all earnestness and sincerity.

Is your post entirely intended as some sort of defence of Sarah-Jane against the tirade of negative comments on this thread, responding to her article? Or alternatively a validation of her credentials in order to try to make her article bulletproof?

Is your post your own words or have you copied from somewhere and pasted it in as a reply?
 edit - OK I see you have pasted it in from elsewhere. Your entire post is a copy-and-paste from something from 2017, the "get something in print" is nothing to do with this UKC article. Isn't your post a little bit disingenuous? I am (again - not having a go here!) puzzled about what your point is. 

I often here people discuss this topic.... I don't think that you or I get to decide whether a word or phrase, aimed at somebody else, is offensive or not.

i.e. If a person of colour finds the term 'wog' offensive (and don't forget that there is a history of this word being used alongside racist behaviour) then the term IS offensive. 

I read Paul's post and thought it might be a rather half-hearted attempt at "doxing", which seems a bit mean spirited if true. But perhaps it was an attempt at validation like you say. I guess I just thought as soon as I read the "gender studies" bit that there would be a critical comment, maybe from Coel or Pan Rom, being snide about that so wondered if Paul was trying to open the door to that.

Well predicted!   I do indeed think that the world's "gender studies" departments should all be nuked from orbit.  Not because the topic is not important or worthy of study -- it indeed is -- but because they do it in a way that rejects reason or evidence and instead has become an ideological fad that is increasingly anti-science and indeed is based on a post-modernist rejection even of notions of truth.   And this set of attitudes is increasingly infecting adjacent disciplines.  It's the only way to be sure. 

Romantic? I wasn't trying to be romantic. Route #143ab4d6c2 is an absolutely meaningless number/name and wasn't the point I was making at all - but I imagine you would have had a disparaging retort either way.

Route names started as precisely what I just said. Over the years they've changed in purpose; sometimes it's just pissing on a post. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion.

Sure there's a percentage of classics with great names... but a million others that are named as something to stick in the guide book to inform others as to their location or nature.

Personally, I think I'd enjoy a climb regardless of it's name - sometimes possibly more without the embellishment and reputation. Indeed some great climbs have crap names and I have still enjoyed them.

I think he might be having a sideways dig a little bit.

There we go. Using the language of violence against institutions that threaten your gender privilege. 

(that is a post-modern emoticon BTW)

Do I have a reputation for disparaging retorts? I sincerely hope not. If you had made your post less ambiguous, as you have just done, I doubt I would have felt compelled to respond at all. 

You do raise what I think an interesting point, though that may reflect my ignorance about early climbjng history (and a digression from the main thread topic). When did route names move from purely functional to descriptive and expressive? Or has it ever been so?

There's a format to this article.

1, Recognise and respect that which exists

2, Make an attack on it

3, Add question mark to the end to make the attack look more like an unbiased way of widening a topic.

We've seen this type of presentation in the news media. It's a way of presenting a hit piece/opinion piece as an unbiased part of a wider conversation. Personally my white male privilege is becoming a real inconvenience.

She is brave to stick her neck on the block but are such articles bringing communities together or driving a wedge deeper into a society that was gradually getting to grips with diversity? <See what I did there? I'll stick my neck on the block, the article was offensive and is becoming typical of the type of material we're seeing on the front page. See what I did there? No need to hide behind ????'s

I'm imprressed that the denizens of UKC can actually find something to debate in that collection of badly thought out random ideas.

Are you referring to the many Brexit debates on here

No.

Or, at least, not in the absolute way you imply in your first paragraph.

There has to be some second test of how "reasonable" such offence is.

"Campaign for See Through Bikinis" is a great route name. It makes me smile every time I read it in the SWMC guide book. Lighten up chaps.