In reply to henwardian:
I know you're just trolling, but I'll rise above that and try to address your points.
> I have to disagree on the following points:
> Stakes are easy to inspect for integrity - you can try and wiggle them and you can visually see the level of corrosion of the surface portion, I think the area below ground should corrode slower in saturated acidic peat (can't find a google result to confirm that quickly though). If you really want to be sure, bang it a couple of times on either side with a hammer, lift it out, inspect and then bang it back in a foot away - the small hole will close up naturally in no time at all. Bolts on the other hand are impossible to inspect for integrity.
So, you're recommending people now climb with a lump hammer? Or would a sledge be better?
> Totally dependent on where something is. Bright shiny bolts on dark rock can be much easier to see than stakes with a patina of rust that blend perfectly into the heather (or are impossible to see under the bracken), or it could be that grey bolts on grey granite on a cloudy day are very hard to see.
So, aye, basically there's f'all between it, case by case and probably more down to the individual judgment of the viewer. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder or whatever.
> Unless it's in the middle of the path, it's probably surrounded by other trip hazzards like stones, tree branches, uneven ground, etc. If you are wandering around next to a cliff edge and not looking where you are going, I'm probably not going to find much sympathy for you if you trip.
Was wondering if anyone would bite on that one
> Is this really a thing? I'm ready to profess my ignorance.
Of course! Why is rock held above soil, grass etc. as some last bastion of untouchable medium? It's a bit of bloody rock ffs!
> No. Just no. I've heard a hundred stories of things going wrong with bolts and had my own experiences of such. I've never heard a story of someone breaking or pulling out a stake and never done such myself. I'm sure that's partly because more people clip bolts more often and I'm sure that people do have stake problems but the experience of climbers just doesn't bear out bolts being safer, let alone safe.
I'd love to hear those hundred stories. I've tied into some pretty shonky stakes before.
> Placement of protection on trad climbs is often not ideal. We are talking about trad climbs, not sport routes. And bolts are just as much at the mercy of the vagaries of conditions in the field as stakes - if the top of the crag has very little solid bedrock then you might not have much choice about where to put the bolts.
Thanks for the clarification there. I agree, in some cases bolts could clearly be positioned less favorably that stakes. In general (if we're talking generally, which we're not), stakes are probably preferable. But we're talking about a specific case, where it's been argued that stakes are nigh usuless and very far back from the crag.
> I only know of one place where stake removal is a problem, I've heard of several where chopped bolts are/have been a problem. Is it really a wider problem or just at the Financial Sector? Do you think that someone who objects to climbing would be any less likely to hammer bolts than to remove stakes?
> It is impossible for stakes at the top to lead to "lets protect a route with stakes" (I fervently hope!), that is very much not the case with bolts. Even if you feel sure nobody would bolt a route, what's to stop someone putting a full loweroff in rather than just 2 bolts, what's the difference?
I have no real issue with a lower-off to be honest. Remember, bolts, lower offs, drill bits, decent drill all cost money. Placing bolts takes time, effort and some level of skill. People very rarely just go wildly bolting trad routes for protection. The odd obscure case aside (Farletter, cave crag (dry tooling)), it just DOES NOT HAPPEN in Scotland, Your fears are unfounded. In fact, I know for sure that the bolters in this case would certainly chop any stray protection bolt.
> Ignorance: People clip bolts without inspecting them or knowing anything about them and blindly trust them, even experienced climbers who should know better. Most everyone I've ever climbed with properly evaluates a stake before deciding to use it and trust it. At a place where a bolt is being used every day like Kalymnos or Siurana, old or suspect bolts are spotted, word gets around, they get replaced, etc. etc. On a crag that gets 4 visitors a year, the deterioration over time of a bolt will continue for a lot longer before it is spotted and even longer before it gets replaced (if it ever does).
Ignorance is ignorance. I disagree entirely. On a less traveled trad destination, the first thing I (and "most everyone" (are we in America?) that I climb with would certainly double check the state if the bolts before clipping. If your climbing partners don't then maybe you should find others?
> Replacement: When stakes rot away they leave nothing but a stain in the soil that gets covered by vegetation and eventually leached away. You can bang in another stake with no detectable sign of the previous if you want to remove the old one too because vegetation recovers. Bolts leave a hole in the rock, often can't be removed (or only with great difficulty) and when they need replaced, it's more damage to the rock.
It's 12mm hole. Jesus wept, I was just up on Lewis and ripped about 15kg of rock from various routes. 4 x 12mm holes. #facepalm
> Bolts do something I don't know much about where they cause ugly streaks of colour change in the rock below them. I don't need to go read about the chemistry to know it looks bad though.
Only the wrong bolts in the wrong place.
> Removal 2: If there is a dispute or a problem at any stage, stakes can easily be removed and practically speaking no trace left after a relatively short length of time. Bolts can't be removed without trace.
One valid point. 4 x 12mm though...
> In the end, all of the above points (mine and yours) are basically aesthetics and quibbling. The heart of the disagreement is about whether you want somewhere to stay a wild and challenging place or to tame it and slowly transform it into something less wild and less challenging and more accessible. Neither extreme is tenable; It's silly to demand that guidebooks be burned, roads returned to nature and the entire Island ridded of signs of human occupancy but it's also silly to demand that all routes be bolted and every crag have a public track to it with a parking area at the end and a tea shop. Everyone is somewhere in the middle and the question of importance is just how much do you want to tame Scotland's wild places?
Ok, this is where I call utter BS! Stakes = reduction of wild and untamed nature just as much as bolts, if not, all your other arguments are null and void as you are basically saying stakes are wilder and less taming, therefore less safe.
Post edited at 18:41