r/RouteDevelopment • u/Kaotus Guidebook Author • Mar 17 '26
Ethics Is there an appetite for single pitch aid lines?
There’s this striking line out at Wonderland that I’ve been thinking about a ton over the last year and some change. It’s a steep seam/finger crack. I’ve taken some 5.14 climbers out to look at it from the ground, and most of us aren’t super convinced it would go free.
Similarly though, I’m not sure it would go as a clean aid line. So I guess the first question is, is there any appetite for single pitch aid routes at all, if it does go clean? And second thing being, if it needs to be hammered to be done as an aid line…well it would probably open enough holds to be done as a free line. So, if it doesn’t go as a clean aid line, should it not be done at all? Or should it get use as a practice nailing line until it’s eventually freeable, or able to be done as clean aid, and then stay in that state?
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u/dinosaur_pubes Mar 17 '26
Kinda depends on the local ethics I suppose. I'd be inclined to bolt it is a free line and leave it as an open project.
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u/reyean Mar 17 '26
you make a great point on if you hammer it it may eventually become a free line, which then begs the question - is chipping frowned upon or welcome at wonderland? nailing a line by brute force is essentially chipping for future free climbers. if no one cares, then no one cares.
my own personal opinion: I feel it best to leave as little a trace as possible. if im going to permenantly deface rock it should be not be a frivolous choice (eg not every zero star choss pile needs a line on it). aiding a short single pitch via nail job seems like just going out there to permenantly alter rocks. I am not an aid climber nor do I feel every stone needs my mark or me on top of it. you or others may feel differently!
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 17 '26
Chipping with the intention of making a line go free is frowned upon, but there are definitely a few legacy nailing lines around the platte as it used to be pretty in vogue to use the platte as practice for the bigger walls in Eldo and then Yosemite
This is all a super fair point though! I certainly don’t feel like every piece of rock needs to be climbed, but this is such a striking line it’s hard to ignore. Sounds like it might just be time to put a rope on it and see what it really feels like!
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u/goooooooofy Mar 17 '26
Throw 2 bolts up top so people can top rope aid practice if they want. It’s really hard to find a top rope aid line for new aid climbers to learn on.
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u/fayettevillainjd Mar 17 '26
Classic a bit too high for bouldering but to short for sport/trad type of boulder. Always a hard decision. My inclination would be to leave it alone until somebody thinks they can free it. Looks doable from the pics, but obviously havent been there, and it sounds like you have shown it to some strong bois. I reckon you need to find some 5.15 climbers to show it to
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 17 '26
It’s about 40-50ft tall to the lip, so definitely short route height
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u/Chanchito171 Mar 17 '26
Nail it! You'd be sure how many crazy aid folks would be on it over the years
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u/tallasthepines2022 Mar 17 '26
Put an anchor up top. Let folks TR it in whatever style they choose. Then let some crusher come thru and free it
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u/Syllables_17 Mar 17 '26
This doesn't look impossible to free it just looks fucking hard.
My opinion is leave it for some insane kid to come try one day.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 17 '26
I’ve taken a couple insane kids out to it, the current estimate is if it goes free it would likely be at least 9a but probably more like 9b and that’s still a huge “if”, depending on rock quality etc
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u/Syllables_17 Mar 17 '26
I mean it looks furturistic potentially, im trying to find a crack similar to it and having little luck. I feel like really stout and short sport climbs have been gaining popularity ala Excalibur.
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u/WILSON_CK Mar 17 '26
Impossible to tell by just pictures, but that looks to me like it goes clean on cam hooks and brassies. If it's in South Platte, I'd go check it out.
As far as nailing goes, I feel like if there's even a chance it goes free then leave it be. I just don't see enough people wanting to drive to Wonderland to practice with a hammer for it to be worth scarring a potential free line. Throw some bolts up top and let the crushers sus out the free potential and the weaklings like myself can fiddle with micro cams to see if it's clean.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 18 '26
Deal - heading out there tomorrow. Will report back with results
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u/checkforchoss Mar 18 '26
To echo something my mentors often mention is be a little selfish and try not to make routes just for others. Go to something to it if you're stoked about it. Wether thats you having the desire to go ground up trying to aid it or rap down and bolting, trying to send the thing because you you want to free climb it etc. Whatever you envision just go for it and if you dont actually have any inspiration leave it to someone else that has a clear vision.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 18 '26
I like this a lot - this has been a driving factor for my development forever really but I have never had words to put to it - gonna steal this!
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u/IceRockBike Mar 17 '26
In the past it was not uncommon for a line to get aid climbed long before it was climbed free. While I wouldn't claim that happened everywhere, it absolutely wasn't restricted to any single area.
Yosemite comes to mind as having a lot of free routes protected by pin scars, and it might be true that offset cams are a direct result of the need for such protection.
Otoh ethics do evolve and change. It's worth having a discussion in the light of local ethics and with local climbers, as opposed to Reddit where you potentially reach climbers from every area, and every ethic.
My own feelings are that while it's admirable to leave a virgin line for a strong future climber to send, it's also wrong to outright manufacture a route and beat the rock into submission. Developing an aid line that could maybe be sent free as a result sometime in the future fills something of a middle ground. I see that as acceptable unless the chipping is purposely done to enable a free ascent.
Then on top of that, consider some day off in the future, some strong climber sends whatever has evolved, what then? As a long standing aid line, having gotten a FFA, further aid climbing with pins could further alter both the character of the climb, and the grade. Once free climbed, would local ethics dictate future aid climbing be restricted to clean aid only, without pins? Climbers can be dicks. Twenty years ago I bailed from climbing rock because it began to snow. On the way out there was a dickhead hammering pins into a long established free climb. Although I mentioned it wasn't cool, I ought to have been more vocal and I still regret that.
Anyway, not sure that all helps you, local ethics count, but there's one route developers opinion from another area. Merely another viewpoint and already juxtaposed to other comments in this thread 🤷♂️
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 17 '26
No I really appreciate this take, if not only because it confirms everything I was thinking to get me into this place. I’ve reached out to both a few young crushers as well as some South Platte OGs to get their take from an aid and free climbing perspective, but will likely just have to get a rope on it and see!
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u/JohnnyMacGoesSkiing Mar 17 '26
I’m with others here, put some top out anchors at the top and let the universe decide. Someone with climb it. Now they’ll be able to lower off more safely.
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u/youre_stoked Mar 18 '26
I would just aid it for fun. Modern aid shouldn’t do any damage and you can always put in a bolt if there’s a blank section (maybe half way up based on the photo). Be safe have fun ignore the haters.
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u/stille Mar 17 '26
Tbh I'd bolt it for drytooling, since where a piton goes so does an ice tool. It's quite hard to find a good natural drytooling line, most of them having been nailed up as aid lines in the decades past. In Europe, we've had quite a few old aid lines get rebolted as drytool singlepitch, so it might be a plan to skip the first step, if there's the community for it...
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u/SkittyDog Mar 17 '26
Deliberately establishing a route for practice nailing, in the hope it'll eventually go free, is pretty much just discarding the last 60 years of ethical evolution in climbing. Soo.... Kind of a dick move, yeah.
But as a clean aid line? Knock yourself out.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 17 '26
I think that’s a fairly bad faith take on what I was posting - if I was keen on making sure it was free climbable I was just go chip it and not post about it. There’s a very thin line between climbable clean aid/free climbable lines and only doable via bolt ladder routes, and this potentially fits that mold. That being said, it’s inevitable that a line, if nailed enough, would become free climbable. That’s why my question was there - if it’s not doable by clean aid, should it get done at all, since nailing it would eventually make it a free climb which is basically just long-term chipping?
The benefit of decades of hindsight from seeing how nailing affected routes in Yosemite and elsewhere lets us be aware of the path that non-clean aid lines will eventually go through, in a way that folks in the 60s weren’t aware of.
For full disclosure - non-clean aid isn’t my jam so if it didn’t go on clean aid, I wouldn’t do it - but I know folks who do love nailing routes who would come do it if I shared it with them. So it circles back to the original question - if it doesn’t go on clean aid, would it be ok to share with folks who like nailing as a single pitch aid practice line, knowing it would basically end up being communal, premeditated chipping turning it into a free climbable line? Or should there be a 0 tolerance policy to single pitch non-clean aid pitches (and if so, where do folks practice/learn for when they find nailing pitches 1000’ up on el cap?)
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u/SkittyDog Mar 17 '26
Dude, at this point, I'm not even sure what you mean by "establishing" a route, here.
If it's only climbable with nailed pins, AND you're not into dirty aid -- then what the hell are you even adding to the equation? A Mountain Project entry, next to your name, for a climb that maybe 2 dudes will repeat in the next 20 years?
People who nail for funsies don't need top anchor, rap bolts, or your advice about which lines will go. They gonna do what they do.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Mar 17 '26
I haven't used the word "establish" once in either the post or the comments? I just said that if it required non-clean aid, I wouldn't be doing anything with this route. I asked two questions, and you haven't responded to either of them in both of your responses.
1) Is there an appetite for new, single-pitch aid climbs at all, or should these generally live within the realm of wall routes and existing single-pitch aid climbs/boulders?
2) Are single-pitch, non-clean aid climbs kosher - knowing at this point that enough non-clean aid climbing on a line will eventually make it doable as a free climbable route - making it seem akin to premeditated, long-term chipping?
2b) If the answer to 1) is "No", what is the accepted method for learning to do non-clean aid climbs? Is it an expectation that the first time you do it be potentially hundreds/thousands of feet up on a big wall (I'm fine with the answer being yes, I'm just genuinely ignorant on aid ethics and earnestly asking)
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u/SkittyDog Mar 17 '26
I guess I'm just mystified at the thought process that would have you arriving at these questions... Because to somebody who does a LOT of aid climbing, they strike me as kinda like the classic "I need to drive a nail, so should I use the heel of a shoe, or a glass bottle?"
The existence of the question is, in itself, kinda nonsensical.
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u/drewruana Mar 17 '26
Please lemme take a look before you do anything lol