"sport climbing is neither"


After some comments I've heard about sport climbing recently, this made me laugh :)
"I was a child of the 80’s. When I was seven years old I loved a pair of purple tiger striped spandex and dreamed of growing a mullet.   Sport climbing was just hitting the scene. In my home state of Colorado bolt wars raged. The new school ethos was that American climbers were falling behind. Europeans bolted steep faces and therefore found newer gymnastic style of climbing making them better. The old school thought bolts were a desecration of rock, a show of weakness.  Climbing should be dangerous. If you are climbing above a bolt you are one of those spandex wearing, sport climbing pussies. And you shouldn’t have the right to call yourself a climber. “Sport climbing is neither,” they would say.Yeah, sport climbing is the safe type of climbing… right. That is what I was telling myself as I looked down and saw my rope hanging free for thirty feet then gently arcing towards my last bolt more than 40 feet away. I looked up… no more bolts in sight and no possible place for gear either. "


Thanks, Tommy Caldwell :)

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