A bounty is coming and “stay off my proj!”

The dry weather has arrived and crags are as busy as ever. Good thing there are some new crags that will be unveiled soon thanks to the continued donations to the hardware fund. Keep checking back here for the latest offerings.

There has been some interesting discussion lately regarding new projects that haven’t been FA’d yet, and how long they can remain a project (FA is First Ascent for those that may not know). Well I’m going to use this pedestal to put in my two cents on the matter (even though I haven’t been personally affected by this issue).

There is no time limit!

I’ve always found it slightly annoying that some climbers think that once a route has been freshly scrubbed and prepped for an FA that all of a sudden the clock starts ticking. Just because someone decided to put in the effort and had the vision for the line, it doesn’t mean they have to be held by some arbitrary time limitations. I would argue that 95% of the new routes established in the corridor do eventually get FA’d by the person who put the time in to clean the route. Sometimes the FA is given to someone else as a nice gesture, but otherwise it’s given up because the developer can’t do it for whatever reason. In my experience, obvious lines that are too hard do get given up if they can’t be done for whatever reason. There has been the odd route that has been snaked for the FA but overall I think our community is pretty good about these things.

(I would also add that showing up at someone’s new line and trying to add a variation to their unclimbed line is not cool, again, patience is required.)

There’s plenty of rock to just waiting for a first ascent, so grab a brush and get your own FA. Otherwise you’ll just have to wait.

How do you know if it’s a new route project? Any tape/ribbon on the first bolt or stuck in the crack (usually red or pink), sometimes P or Proj is written in chalk, obviously a fixed rope still on it etc.

-P.Winter