‘Several holds are reinforced with glue’ ≠ chipped, in my view. Most hard limestone sport routes are reinforced with glue. The Joker is reinforced with glue. The route could well have manufactured holds too, but that would be different from existing holds being reinforced.
An interesting comment:
La Dura Dura” has at least 10 holds made completely out of sika on a blank wall. And we are not talking here about consolidated holds! A good friend tried it a few years ago. This route is definitely hard as hell, there’s no doubt about it… The video generated millions (?) of views and a lot of money. Shouldn’t the fans and viewers know the whole story about this route? Can a totally manufactured route be a King Line? I seriously doubt it…
https://www.8a.nu/news/alex-huber-chipping-interview-xt86p
‘Several holds are reinforced with glue’ ≠ chipped, in my view. Most hard limestone sport routes are reinforced with glue. The Joker is reinforced with glue.
Perhaps 'chipped' is the wrong word, but I think it is good to be clear when a climb has glue or artificial holds on it, and to what extent it has been used. A bit of an impossible task to document fully, but good to try because I think there's a fairly common misunderstanding around the level of work that goes in to preparing climbs, particularly limestone sport. I think there's a bit of stigma around saying something is chipped or reinforced, but in practice lots of really popular climbs wouldn't exist as they do without a tasteful application of glue.
Indeed. Just need to be clear about the difference between reinforcing what was already there (pretty standard practice on the lime) and committing the ‘ultimate sin’ of manufacturing new holds for the purposes of making a climb easier. The ‘chipped’ tag on CH should be exclusively for the latter in my view.
imo the line between them is pretty thin really. Say you have a fragile flake that would have certainly fall off under bodyweight, but you use a load of glue to turn it in to a usable hold. I'd say that hold has been created in much the same way an enhanced pocket has been created.
Obviously there are degrees. Blatantly drilled pockets in the middle of nowhere and holds made from 100% sika being pretty grim, but subtly comfortised pockets and mostly stable features getting a bit of glue to make sure they hang around long term being pretty acceptable imo.
Not sure if you've climbed there (you're not missing out on much 😅) but some of the sport routes on garage buttress at stoney are good examples. The rock is pretty shattered and the FAs have used glue to reinforce some holds, but the routes basically end up following the line of holds the FA decided to glue up because everything else has fallen off!
Blatantly drilled pockets in the middle of nowhere and holds made from 100% sika being pretty grim
This is my interpretation of what the chipped tag should be used for. I think the bar of evidence for wielding the ‘tag of shame’ should be pretty high too. Don’t want to defame anyone or get into deep shit for doing so!
I'd quite like to avoid it being thought of as a 'tag of shame'. This is why it's not just a tag and allows adding some text, so that we can add some nuance into it. I think something like DNA (9c) is a good example, as I understand it it's pretty reliant on some tufas which aren't very robust so there's a decent amount of glue to reinforce key holds. For sure it would be better if it didn't need so much glue, but overall it's a very minor detraction from an absolutely rad line.
In my mind chipped and stabilised are different, and the chipped tag lacks nuance, despite having a text description. It gets your route onto the chipped list for one thing.
I think the reason for this is that actual chipping is just about the worst thing you can do in climbing and should never be condoned or normalised, whereas Mecca is held together with steel rebar and this seems completely uncontroversial.
Maybe the tag could instead be ‘artificial holds’. The holds could be sika, like on like on Justified and Ancient or drilled like on Hugh, with the text description qualifying it.
Stuff that’s been repaired like Mecca or the Joker, I wouldn’t include.
I also wouldn’t include climbs that rely on historical carvings like Gerty Berwick, Angel’s Share or quarried rock.
Maybe a discussion for the Discord?
Could have a word with a friend that cleaned/belayed Hamish on Dura pre fire to gain some clarity on how artificial the route is?
Yeah that'd definitely be interesting to get another view.
👍