|
Trivia Questions: First bolt ever placed on
Looking Glass? When?
Where? Who?
Answers: 1965, on the first pitch of "The Womb", by me. Thirty-something years ago, color television was a novelty, blacks in North Carolina had to drink from "Colored" water fountains and very few people rock climbed. Fewer, still, knew what to do with a Rawl compression bolt. I did! It took about 30 minutes of pounding, twisting and blowing, but I drilled a little hole and hammered the sucker home! That one bolt provided us with a belay anchor while we tried to find a way up to the top of Looking Glass. Five years later, "The Womb" was partly-aided and climbed for the first time. Fast-forward to early 1999... I receive an E-mail message, asking me if I know about bolts that have been added to two very popular routes, "Sundial" and "Gemini". Looking Glass now has more than 150 named routes and is probably the most famous climbing area in the Southeast. "No, I don't know", is my response. Hoping it's not true, I use E-mail to start asking around. Very quickly, I hear that the bolts have been added, found, removed and the holes carefully filled-in. Unless you know exactly where to look, you'd never know about these bolts. End of story?Not quite. Technically, (for right now, anyway) the placing of bolts is not against the law. Traditionally, (and Southerners put a lot of store in "tradition"!) adding bolts to established routes is only done (A) with permission from the person who first did the route and (B) when the safety of future climbers is compromised if bolts are not added or replaced. Two true stories... 1. At the South End of Looking Glass is a very popular top-roping area, just to the right of "Bloody Crack". Many school, camp and other groups bring beginning climbers to this spot for their first climbing experience. Years ago, a tree was used for anchoring top-ropes. Now, it's necessary to utilize various cracks and build safe anchors yourself. After talking with a number of people who taught climbing there, I took it upon myself to place two sets of top-roping bolted anchors. These were state-of-the-art bolts and hangers, hidden from view, etc. I knew that these would be safer than anchors climbers would be building and they would save time for the teachers, too. I never had a chance to use them. Someone removed the hangers and mutilated the bolts. All that's left now are some white spots on the ledge, indicating that something happened there. 2. Last winter, Harrison Shull and I talked about the possibility of moving the rap route on "The Nose" somewhere other than where it had been for years, right down the climbing route. Climbers and rappers were all trying to utilize the same bolts and ledges, causing confusion and raised voices. Safety issues were being raised, too. The question was put before the climbers in the area. Mark Bishop, the editor of "Boulderdash Magazine", asked for reader response. Overwhelmingly, the climbers wanted the rap route moved! The Carolina Climber's Coalition did the work and the anchors remain undisturbed. Why these two, very different reactions to adding bolts on Looking Glass? Since I did the first ascents on all the routes concerned, my permission wasn't an issue. With the bolts on the South End, I did not talk to enough climbers about my plans. Where I wanted to make the area more accessible, there were a number of climbers who felt that there was more than enough access already. Looking toward the future of climbing, on Looking Glass and at other sites in our area, I think it would be wise for newly-arrived climbers to ask around before adding any permanent protection to the local rocks. Traditions die very slowly in this part of the country. Whether that's good or bad can be argued, but it is a fact! Steve Longenecker, February 1999 |
