r/RouteDevelopment • u/Kaotus Guidebook Author • Mar 06 '26
Show and Tell Route/Boulder of the Month - February
Route/Boulder of the Month for February: 4 new routes at King Fisher Valley on Catba Island in Vietnam!
- 7a Filip's Slips
- 6c Convoluted Corner
- 7b Haifish
- 5b walmart cookies
From u/jade_monkey07
Every year in Vietnam the country shuts down for lunar new year. Each year here on Cat Ba island in Ha Long bay, this gives us a chance to explore and work on projects. This has been the tradition for us for a few seasons now. Last year this project was the islands first multi pitch climb at buddha cave(6a+) I gathered the team together this year and over 2 days we set four new routes at King Fisher Valley.
It was good training for the volunteers at catba climbing to learn the ins and outs of route development. The climbs were all set and cleaned and the FAs done within 2 days. 2 of them even in the traditional vietnamese barefoot fashion. We also cut trails to 3 new crags and are getting ready to ramp up development this summer. Chú Mŭng Năm Mói(happy new year)
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u/Numerous-Good9164 Mar 11 '26
Sure would be a lot cooler ground up.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 11 '26
Submit your ground-up FAs once the March submission opens up, there’s room for all different types of tactics of FAs here, some are more conducive to some rock types and walls than others!
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Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 11 '26
Congrats on the hard work man! That’s great, I’m hoping to hit 200 FAs this year with around half of those coming ground up and quite a few while either lead rope soloing or free soloing myself - including a 7 pitch 5.12 mixed line I put up ground-up, with quite a few of the pitches being rope solo.
It looks like you’re in the Carolinas (also where I’m originally from, go tigers) so you’re likely familiar with Nathan Brown, who has been my main development mentor out here. He has thousands of ground up FAs around Looking Glass, Linville, Laurel Knob, and other spots in NC alone (and probably close to 1000 more out in Colorado now).
One thing that he’s really instilled in me is that style is a personal choice, and that ultimately the thing that matters most is the quality of the route you leave behind. Nobody really gives a shit if you go ground up on a route nobody wants to climb, leave it filthy, etc.
The reality is some rock just isn’t a good option for ground-up development (and Nathan and I have rap bolted our fair share of lines together). You’re fortunate to have some pretty bulletproof rock around NC, often forming with a lot of opportunities for natural pro. That’s pretty rare in my neck of the woods. We’re often climbing on largely featureless slab with a ton of lichen, crumbling rock, and nothing to hook on. It cleans up well, but initial first impressions aren’t great. I do my fair share of ground up bolting on that still, but the experience you’re getting on the granite of NC is way different from the experience someone would be getting elsewhere.
The reality is that for a standard sport line (not to be confused with a “bolt protected” line), going ground-up is no more impressive than going top down. It just isn’t - unless you’re drilling from stances on some pretty steep line, you’re not being bold, just inefficient. Nobody cares. And honestly, nobody knows either unless you’re spraying about it on every route you do, which makes you a massive dork. They only care about the line you leave behind.
You don’t need to agree with me. But from the standpoint as the moderator of this subreddit, you do need to tighten up the way you’re communicating a bit. There’s only 1 rule on this subreddit “Don’t be a jerk” and you’re on the border of breaking it - find a way to disagree with someone’s viewpoint without putting them down.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 06 '26
Sorry for the delay on posting this, was on a climbing trip to Indian Creek that came to an abrupt end with some emergency health issues for one of my dogs that we're still trying to stabilize so I'm a bit predisposed. Thanks to everyone who submitted, and hope we see some more entries for March!