This article was written by Pat Ament concerning bolt chopping wars and the current situation. It was previously posted on the "News & Info" board.

I can't say that I can defend Indy for his bolt removals. I'm not familiar enough with the areas involved, and I don't know exactly what he has done. He might win a battle here or there, in an attempt to remove bolts added to climbs first done without bolts, but the war has been lost. The bolt happy mainstream are in control. Indy is one of those rare few souls left who still fight the old battle of integrity in bolting. I view him as a throwback to a lost era, the best era that ever was, in my opinion, when climbers fought with every fiber and strain of their being to avoid placing a bolt. Indy seems to have been born in the wrong time. His respect for history and heritage are remarkable and undoubtedly are motivating factors for him. Although unwelcome in this day and age, his bolt chopping, I trust, has not been the random act of some mad ethical enforcer. I rather wish to believe that his efforts are precise and very selective and that he is involved in such action because he embraces a philosophy. Unfortunately that philosophy has only survived among a few souls, most of whom were the best climbers during the golden age of climbing--up through about 1970.

Bolt wars have been with us, almost since the dawn of climbing. There have always been people who were not able or willing to rise to the measure of the rock and who thus have come armed with bolts. It was obvious to any self-respecting climber that almost any clutz could bolt his way up a face of rock. It was hard work, but the rock would eventually yield with enough drilling--the Nose of El Cap as an example. Others felt that the rock deserved a fighting chance. They instinctively felt that bolts should be used to a very bare minimum. They would use slings around horns, and hooks on small ledges, and lasso flakes, and push their free climbing limits, and apply countless other creative tactics to avoid drilling a bolt. There was real art in these efforts. The Salathe Wall of El Cap was done with only a handful of bolts. To drill a bolt was, to the greater spirits of the golden age, almost tantamount to failure. It certainly was a violation of the ultimate aesthetic. The bolters, in contrast, had little or no sense of aesthetics and sometimes drilled right up a face where there were cracks a foot or two away or where there were other obvious ways of protecting and anchoring. Thus bolts were placed, and the higher order of beings chopped those bolts, and then the bolts were re-placed just as a matter of pride. Bolters felt they had rights! Finally many faces had bolt scars from these bolt arguments, and faces of rock were the real victims--to use an anthropomorphism. I do tend to attribute living qualities to rock. It does say in the Bible that the earth has a spirit and will one day cry out for vengeance for the sins we have committed against it. Well I don't know if placing a bolt is a sin, or if the earth is hurt too much, but I do know that I and others spent time patching ugly bolt holes and trying to restore rock faces to their original beauty. The whole affair of a bolt war tends to become highly immature, but especially for those who insist on bolts where they are in no way truly needed.

The traditional ethic began to define itself in England, where climbers went to every extreme to climb in natural ways and without bolts. There were climbers all over the world who avoided bolts at all costs. In Dresden, which had such a high standard of free climbing early on, the climbs of Oliver Perry-Smith and Rudolf Fehrmann involved long runouts and bold and brave leads which now would routinely be bolted on rappel. It seems that something has gone away--a spirit of adventure perhaps? Don Whillans and Joe Brown in England never placed bolts, and they were the best rock climbers in the world. Royal Robbins and Chuck Pratt, their equivalent in America, fought to every extreme to avoid a bolt. And certainly rappel-bolting was unheard of among these individuals. A ground-up ethic meant that bolts had to be placed on the lead. By the very tiring and difficult nature of the thing--standing on small holds and tapping with a hammer on a small, hand-held drill--it tended to limit the amount of bolts that would be placed. Even earlier than Robbins and Pratt and Higgins and Kamps and those great masters was John Salathe who really did a very fine job of placing as few bolts as possible. But rarely did anyone question the ethics of climbers when they were making a first ascent, unless their bolting was very obviously excessive. Ed Cooper and Warren Harding were excessive in their bolting, and Robbins took a stand against it. He didn't hate these people, but sometimes he removed their bolts. When he heard Cooper was going to attempt the North Face Direct on Half Dome, Royal stepped in ahead of him and did the route--and prevented a bolt job. But in general a first ascent party had the right to use bolts where they needed them, within reason. On the other hand, it was considered the lowest form of failure to place a bolt on a climb that had previously been done without a bolt. To add a bolt where the original leader had made a long runout was viewed as nothing less than a major crime, and it was not tolerated. It did not respect the first ascent party or what they had created. If it seemed a violation to chop such a bolt, it was a greater violation and demonstration of lack of respect for the first climber's art to have placed such a bolt. People have a right to bring into being a climb, and a route becomes a climber's art. One type of art, or style, is to rise to the measure of a rock rather than bring it down to his level. Bolting is at the heart of such a thought. The idea, the lost idea I will say again, was that the fewer bolts placed the better. The idea was to respect the rock and the idea of climbing and being the measure, and to respect the first ascent party and their creation--especially when that first ascent was a display of real integrity in climbing.

On Athlete's Feat, in Boulder Canyon, no one can now realize the brilliant and bold lead Royal Robbins made in 1964, when he went up and made those difficult face moves (now rated 5.11) without chalk, how he was forced to climb with tremendous mastery and control and make that slippery mantel move without protection. Bolters have placed two bolts there to protect the pitch. Ken Wilson, British climber and long time editor of Mountain Magazine, reprimanded me for not chopping those bolts. I had seen enough of bolt wars and rock damage. And now there are bolts everywhere. In the 1960's, in Eldorado and around the Flatirons, we saw all sorts of routes we knew would go. But we didn't want to bolt them. We practiced the art of leaving things "undone." It was obvious they would go, but we didn't exactly want to succumb to greed and force them by rappelling down and placing bolts. To rappel is to preview. We avoided previewing, although today to preview is viewed as absolutely necessary in sport climbing. We wanted the adventure, usually. Some of these routes could easily be top-roped, so we climbed them that way. Then later, a new generation came along and said, "Wow, look at all these routes those earlier guys didn't see." And they rappelled down and bolted them and claimed their first ascents. They also, yes, put up some new, extreme routes of impressive difficulty. But because the best rap-bolting sport climbers were the new "example," every Joe picked up a Bosch drill and began drilling. The bolt wars were on again, because some of these routes followed a line a foot or two left of an already established climb that had been done with few or no bolts. It was absurd and ugly, and contrived and vain, and many climbers who had long embraced a tradition of beauty and sparing use of bolts simply gave up and said to heck with it. Let the new generation ruin the area. It was clear to me that many of these new climbers, while exceptionally gifted and talented, lacked an appreciation for history or tradition. There were exceptions, of course, such as Peter Croft and John Bachar, the best climbers Yosemite has ever produced.

In the middle of the rap-bolting "revolution," Bachar chopped bolts all over the Sierra. Royal Robbins had led a beautiful climb in Tuolumne called "Gray Ghost," and it was a remarkable lead where Royal's creativity became very visible. He found little solution pockets and protected the route naturally. And he rose to the measure of the climb. Then others rappelled down and placed bolts, firing them in where they thought the runouts were getting a little hairy. Bachar chopped those bolts, out of respect for Royal and the traditional ground-up ethic of Tuolumne. That didn't mean Bachar hated sport climbers. He does a lot of sport climbing himself, but you would never see him place a bolt on a climb already established without a bolt.

In a sense, Indy is like Bachar. He is an exceptional climber who has an exceptional appreciation for history and certain traditions. He tells me he only chops bolts when they have been added to routes previously done without bolts, or where there are obvious natural ways of protecting. That seems to be a reasonable philosophy, and I tend to see the good in his actions more than the bad, but perhaps it simply is unnecessary. The bolters aren't going to change. They want their bolts. They need their bolts. They feel safer with them. And as far as I am concerned, they can have them. I wouldn't chop them, unless they began to appear on classic routes, for example in Eldorado, that are known for their exciting qualities and that require a climber to be the measure of the art. If someone bolted one of John Gill's beautiful high boulder routes in Southern Illinois, it would be a sad day, and such climbers would show real lack of respect for the greatest boulderer of all time. Indy doesn't realize that he is an anachronism now, that he is fighting a lost cause, that he was born in the wrong time. He would have fit well, I imagine, with the great climbers of the 1960's. He has a love of the rock that manifests itself in frustration when he sees bolts all over the place. He is a bit irrational at times, and that is something that perhaps endears me to him. It causes panic in many others around him. Indy, take a few breaths, step back. You have made your statement. Let the bolters have the last word. Let them have these areas they have claimed. They are painting with computers now instead of brushes, and they are moved by convenience more than style. That is the temper of the times. They are excellent climbers, and a lot of these sport routes are tremendous physical achievements.

If we look at the better side, the higher mind, of sport climbers, we can see true masters who are able to pursue their ideals while at the same time using few bolts. There are, amid the confused, uninformed, uneducated, traditionless, Bosch-wielding, happy-go-lucky masses, sport climbers who respect and honor the traditions of their predecessors. I am very heartened to know, in fact, that Lynn Hill and Peter Croft, to name two of the best climbers of the present generation, so humbly recognize whose shoulders they have stood upon to see the horizons of today.