Collective Knowledge
I’VE BURNED THROUGH THREE DRILLS since I started bolting in the 1980s. The latest fatality was a Bosch that survived a 100-foot plummet in Boulder Canyon in 2017 only to die last summer, a few hundred holes later. I love putting up routes—the thrill of finding a striking line, the perverse “pleasure” of bolting and cleaning, figuring out how to use holds no one’s grabbed before. When you establish a climb, it’s rare to find the easiest beta. It might only be you or a couple friends trying the climb, and it’s easy to lock into an “Oh, well, it goes this way” mentality. Over time, as routes get repeated, they often get easier: The holds are chalked, making sequences more readable; repeat ascentionists find nuances like drop-knees and kneebars; and…