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TL;DR

Pinnacles climbing has had a long standing tradition to bolt ground up on lead. However, there has also been a culture where people who did not adhere to the tradition, by using the top-down approach, got called out and often driven out of the Pinnacles climbing scene. The tradition deserves its respect and is being passed on strong, but it’s time to evolve into a more accepting culture. Judge a new route based on its merit  – is it a good fit in the area and is it a good addition for the climbing community? – rather than based on the style employed.  

Pinnacles Ground Up Tradition

A quick clarification: in this essay, we are only talking about the two alternative approaches of bolting – ground up vs. top down. Ground up bolting refers to bolting from ground up on lead. Top down bolting simply means using a rope from above in the process, often referred to as rap bolting. Neither style has any inherent association with other controversial, sometimes illegal, bolting practices such as using power tools or intentionally chipping rock to make holds. 

In the scenario where top down could be a viable alternative, which is not always the case, the tradition of bolting ground up on lead remains strong in the Pinnacles route development community. This is evident in the questionnaire responses I received from a few recent and current route developers in the park. (If you are one of them, but did not receive the questionnaire, most likely I just got your email address wrong.) Following are a few bullet points:

1. Ground up bolting on lead, period! No exception.
2. The requirement on bolting only from stance has been relaxed, so aid gear for bolting protection is accepted. 
3. Purists do not pre-inspect, pre-climb (on TR), or pre-clean the route. 
4. Purists do not use existing routes or rope from above for bolting protection.
5. Backfill bolts by FAs or with FAs’ permission, to make the route safer for future climbers, can be done using a rope. 

Style vs. Ethics

I’m borrowing a section title from Brad’s (now out of print) 2007 guidebook. I think any outdoor enthusiast should follow the Leave No Trace ethics guideline to our best ability. Leaving a line of bolts in the rock has an indisputable impact. That is the sacrifice that the climbing community as a whole is willing for the world/nature to make for our own self interest. We can probably also agree that reckless littering of bolts on rocks is not ethical. Even though the judgement of recklessness can be subjective sometimes, most of the time, common sense prevails. Another ethics consideration is not something often brought up – although the FAs’ hard work and vision are deservingly applauded and even admired, their act of installing a line of bolts up a rock face denies future FAs’ creation and affects how future climbers ascend that same area of the rock face. This is one of those scenarios that the act of a finite number of people (usually two in an FA party) can have an impact on an infinite number of people of infinite future generations. 

A slight side note: many FAs have admitted publicly or privately that they put up routes for themselves. Decisions made at the time as the best for their circumstances may not be the best for the future climbers who stand below their route. Such reckoning should humble anybody, esp. the FAs. However, if I’m allowed to tease, prolific FAs are typically not known as a humble bunch, as the gumption it takes to put up routes, esp. hand drilled ground up on lead, would wear off any humbleness remaining. They secretly compare who exhibited more boldness. They can get competitive and possessive (heard of red tags?) and judgemental. Of course, there are exceptions, and you, my dear reader, might just be one of them?

Other than acknowledging any line of bolts installed is subject to ethics evaluation due to their impact, how they came into existence (as long as legally), whether ground up or top down, on lead or on top rope, should only belong in style discussions. Should the style be of anyone else’s business? Well, people argue about onsight, flash, redpoint, etc. to no end about OTHER’s ascents, so I suppose that’s just human nature. Let’s talk about styles then. 

The pros of ground up bolting are elaborated in the guidebook for everyone to read. I will quote a few supporting arguments. “Traditional ground-up first ascensionists emphasized adventure and uncertainty. They saw top-down methods as a way to place safety above adventure. Ground-up climbers were concerned that mass production of climbing routes would quickly use up a limited resource.” 

I am not here to bash ground-up style at all, so please keep that in mind when reading the rest of this essay. I simply want to give the top-down approach a fair public defense. 

What’s not fair is to automatically associate the top-down approach with “mass production.” Mass production is usually the result of using power tools. It is true that most people who choose to use power tools, whether legitimately or not, would elect to go top-down, but the top-down approach alone is not the cause of mass production. The few people who used power tools at Pinnacles, an act that almost jeopardized climbing access, also used the top-down approach, which gave it an unfortunate bad rep. It’s time to disassociate these two because there is no power drilling allowed in Pinnacles, period. 

I quote the stats given by GenAI, “Hand drilling a bolt in rock can take anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes per hole, depending on the rock type and the size of the hole. Power drilling, on the other hand, can significantly reduce this time, with some reports suggesting it can take as little as 5-10 seconds in certain rock types.” I hope this can help ease the anxiety of traditionalists at Pinnacles – as long as power tools are banned in national parks, there will be no mass production of routes, regardless of style used.

What I also see lacking is a fair presentation of the potential advantages of the top down approach. 

1. Top-down approach allows the FA to see beyond what they can see from ground or from their highest point climbing from below. If there is a best overall line going up that rock face, it can be discovered in the top-down approach, but often is obscured for the “near-sighted” ground up ascensionist.
2. Top-down approach allows, and often encourages, the route developer to climb the route (on TR), find the best flow, and pre-clean the route, which may very well unearth good holds/pockets that cannot be otherwise seen by the ground up ascensionist. In other words, the ground up approach has a self-imposed handicap by not pre-inspecting/cleaning. 
3. Top-down approach allows bolts to be placed at the optimal location for the future climbers because the first ascensionist can make infinite adjustment in their position before they start bolting. Ground up ascensionist is very much limited by where they can find bolting protection. 

I also want to give an objective presentation of the other limitation that ground up only rule poses. The ground up approach does not always allow high grade routes to be bolted safely – the steep angles and small features on the rock simply do not offer trustworthy bolting protections. We are not even talking about 5.13 grades or up; routes in the 5.11-5.12 range would require a very strong ascensionist to establish ground up willing to risk their own safety. Yes, it has been done before by a few legends when Pinnacles route development was in its heyday. Today in Pinnacles? I can count them – first ascensionist of this caliber – on one finger. (If you know, you know.) There is a good reason behind why many popular high grade routes were bolted top-down, albeit resulting in controversy or, at the minimum, finger wagging. It’s not for lack of ability – Chris Sharma has a few under his name – could it be that, it just… made sense to bolt some routes top-down? Argument has been made that it is elitism to make exceptions to the ground up only rule for those routes, but one can also argue that, just like strict voter ID laws disproportionately affecting a minority subgroup of people despite having their merit, the strict bolting rule disproportionately affect routes in the higher end of the grade spectrum. This is not a black and white issue.

Just to be clear, I am definitely not saying that “only good routes can be put up top-down,” nor am I saying “routes put up ground up are of worse quality or of only low grades.” Not at all! In the real world implementation, the quality of the route put up in either style can go both ways. No one can reasonably claim routes put up in one style are guaranteed to be superior to those of the other style, thus are of a better usage of the “limited resource.” There are excellent routes and trashy routes put up via either style. Examples are abundant. 

However, by definition, ground up ascensionists already put themselves in a smaller box in terms of what is at their disposal for putting up quality routes. While they welcome this challenge for themselves and often succeed to overcome (Impressive! Well done!), should they dictate this style upon everyone else?

I will be the first to acknowledge the adventure factor is higher in ground up bolting practice. After all, you, the practitioner, are launching into unknowns. You might keep making upward progress and satisfyingly establish a route you are proud of, but you might also hit a deadend. Examples of abandoned bolting projects are out there. If you choose to have the adventure including the heightened risk of protecting yourself on lead, you do you. But who is to judge other people adopting the different bolting approach are not having an adventure of their own? Also, why should it matter to anybody else anyway?

This is where the culture conversation comes in.

Culture Needs to Evolve

I know that this opinion will trigger some strong reaction/resistance from the traditionalists. As one pointed out to me already, “Pinnacles is the last/only place in the country where ground up is required. Leave it alone!” 

I am aware of the history. The ground up only “ethics” rule in Pinnacles was established by a democratic process – it was voted in circa 1989. But who were the people who participated in the voting? The traditionalists. When a predominantly conservative supreme court voted, Roe vs Wade was overturned. The outcome surprises no one. But does that mean the outcome, voted in once, should be set in stone forever? I sure hope not!

I respect tradition, but I believe tradition can also evolve. Do you know how long the tradition of only men being allowed in marathon races lasted? The 1972 Boston Marathon was the first sanctioned race that allowed women to participate! If we all followed the past traditions dogmatically and never evolved, the world today would be a much more scary and oppressed place to live in. 

The truth is I don’t even necessarily want the Pinnacles ground up bolting tradition to change. This is a strong tradition, and it’s passed on by tutelage and mentorship. Pinnacles will still be a place where routes are put up mostly ground up. I am not asking to change that. All I ask is to change the culture in which shaming/blaming/condemning happens to people who choose to use a different style. 

I believe one of the reasons that the ground up tradition remains so strong at Pinnacles is exactly because anyone in the past who didn’t fit the mold got driven out of the park. One story told to me recently was about a lady who “wanted to put up one route and admitted she did not have what it takes to do so on lead. [She protected herself with a rope from above.] She did one route and left.  She got some heat for it and accepted it.” (Update: found the thread. They chopped the bolts.)

Please sit back and think about it. She probably loved Pinnacles at the time just as much as others, so much so that she was willing to put in the hard work herself. But she “got heat” because of the style she chose for herself? Another similar story was recounted on Page 17 of the 2007 guidebook. These could be people who would have otherwise spreaded joy and made more contributions to climbing at Pinnacles had the culture been more accepting.

I am compelled to write this because of my very recent bolting project. It made me think a lot and my thinking evolved during this period. You might already have some preconceived notion of my bolting style based on the writing. I urge you to read on.

Hand Tools, Evolved

I anticipated that questions would be asked about my route establishment process knowing the Pinnacles history. I was right about that! In this section, I want to precisely and transparently describe the methods and thought process used to establish a one pitch variation on the Citadel: Hand Tools, Evolved.

On 4/12/2025, after thoroughly enjoying climbing the two well protected sport routes Get Smart and Mission Impossible, we moved a short distance up to the Citadel. According to Mountain Project, there is another sport multi pitch route, called Power Tools. I linked its Hand Tools P1 variation with its runout P2 clipping a few sparse bolts only. I thought that link was out of character with the well protected P3 and P4. Only afterwards did I learn who the FAs of Hand Tools were – Dennis Erik Strom and Clint Cummins. People asked publicly to have bolts added to both lower pitches to mitigate dangerous runout. Hmmm… I have easy access to the Hand tools FAs, but what about the runout 2nd pitch?

A week later, we went back because I’m curious to check out a way to improve the 2nd pitch of Power Tools for everyone. After I did the same linkup to P2 anchor, I felt deflated – there was no way! The runout section was way too dirty and loose; plus, retro bolting on this existing route is impossible based on the current “FAs are immortal king” mentality. Since FAs are no longer reachable, no one is allowed to make any modifications to their routes. I have my opinion about that “rule”, but it’s irrelevant to this writing.

While rappelling, I noticed the shallow chute straight down from the anchor is very climbable, and then half way down, I could almost see a path coming from Hand Tools on the left. Maybe there is a way after all! Funny how one can get hyper excited right after they experience disappointment. 

Once I reached the ground, wide eyed due to excitement, I asked Chris to belay me on toprope with the rope still through the rappel chains so I could check out the new path. Mind you, the start is about 50 feet to the left – I still needed to start on Hand Tools. If I came off, I would face a huge swing, smashing into the sloping ground or trees, or risking having the rope cut tensioning across the jagged rock face. We did coreshot a 70m on this project, which is in the trash now. At that moment, I had no fear though. And I did it – I climbed the new path without falling. I had a vision, and Chris was fully supportive! We officially had a bolting project.

Immediately, I jumped into action. First thing I did was I sent a bolting ethics questionnaire out because I genuinely wanted to learn what the current accepted practice is among the few active, or at least recent, “bolters” at Pinnacles. That part, I already talked about, so I will not repeat. You saw the bullet points.

To be honest, when I toproped to assess if the new path was even a possibility, in my mind it made a lot of sense (except for the risk I put myself in) – what’s the point in pursuing any further if that path would not go? So, when I saw the “no pre-inspection” rule mentioned in the responses, my jaw dropped to the floor. I’ll be candid – at the time, I literally said to Chris, “this is the stupidest thing I’ve heard – what’s the point of putting in time, money, and effort if you don’t know whether your project is worthy of all of that?” I believe all the FAs who had tens or even hundreds of ground up routes under their belt are brilliant individuals for their ingenuity to rig their bolting protections in Pinnacles and lived, so I was merely referring to the practice itself. Needless to say, that’s a rule I’m very happy to ignore for myself without any concern for anyone’s judgement.

We obtained the permission from Erik and Clint to add a 2nd bolt on the Hand Tools traverse, and borrowed bolting gear and a few bolts/hangers from Clint while Chris waited for his orders to arrive. (I never imagined a hammer could cost $150!) We even received a how-to tutorial from Clint in his backyard.

Chris and I returned back to the Citadel and finished bolting on two separate days/weekends. Oh, how I hate that loose approach (esp. in return)! However, our time to get this done was limited. Summer is coming!

Let me guess. You might have concluded that I’d be one of those rap bolters aftering reading my opinion. However, my opinion was not formulated right away. From early on, I was very much overwhelmed by the strong consensus in the questionnaire reponses – ground up bolting on lead, period! That said, I also paid attention to the loophole – backfill bolts on toprope/fixed rope is accepted. So, all I needed to do was be bold and put in bolts on lead sparsely. Then we can legitimately backfill the remaining bolts on fixed ropes, which would improve our productivity. That’s exactly what we did.

In this overlay, the bolts are color coded. Of course, all bolts were hand drilled. Orange x indicates the existing bolts when we started our project. I drilled four bolts on lead in a runout fashion indicated by yellow x. When I reached my bolt stance, I rigged my bolting anchor on mostly two (occasionally three) points. I’m thankful for my two-legged Petzl Evolv PAS which allowed me to clip into two anchor points while still on lead and steady myself. The four anchors have utilized a knob, a questionable extruding rock, one green Totem in a flaring dirt pocket, and many hook placements. I’m happy to report that all my anchors held me while I was laboring away drilling the four bolts by hand, ranging from 25 to 50 minutes each (plus 5-10 minutes of installing the bolt and hanger). I know… I was slow! 

I actually did have one well respected Pinnacles route developer tell me in advance that since the Power Tools anchor is above me, he would have no problem with me simply leading to my bolting stance and clipping into the fixed line from the anchor to protect myself. It still counts as ground up on lead, and protection shouldn’t matter. Well, I was quite sure that he, holding this lenient view for me, was the minority among the Pinnacles old guards, and I wanted to avoid controversy, so I decided to make and rely on my own bolting anchors after leading to my bolting stances. 

I have no idea how anyone could equalize their anchor points while on lead (remember, I still had to hold myself with one hand), which is what hook placements could benefit from. I simply relied on my adjustable PAS to keep the tension on my hooks. Needless to say, the risk was there –  I was on my bolting stance with a huge runout, often sideways, behind me, with hooks on questionable features – this is Pinnacles after all. Because of all that, I tied a backup knot below me on the fixed rope before I started drilling. (The fixed rope was used to clean earlier, and I used the fixed rope to pull up my bolting gear.) This in my mind is a smart and responsible thing to do – who among my critics would take care of me in my daily life should I get injured? Yes, I used a backup while drilling all four bolts ground up on lead held by my own anchor. 

I remember after I drilled the last bolt on lead (#10), I punched all the way to the anchor with a huge unprotected runout risking slamming onto the low angle slope below should I fall. The moment I hit the anchor, I let out an excited cheer, “My work is done!!!” I was referring to bolting on lead. Between the two of us, we backfilled four bolts, indicated by blue x in the overlay, sometimes working at the same time on two fixed rope strands. This is to make the route safer for all who would come and climb it in the future.

But was the work really done? 

Chris had a Whitney trip scheduled over the Memorial Day weekend. My mind was still on this newly bolted line. On Sunday, while he was driving back from his successful ascent of Whitney, I made a solo trip to Pinnacles. Bummer, Chris was not there with his National Park Pass, so I found out that now the day entrance fee to Pinnacles is $30. I free soloed, in the morning sun, the 4 pitch Costanoan carrying a 70m rope, my approach shoes, TRS gear, and a bunch of route cleaning gear. While the cleaning job was dirty, I found it meditative. I remembered years ago, Erik told me how using the side of a wall hammer is a great way to clean a route and finally, I understood what he meant. He was right! Always a cleaning fiend at home, I found brushing and brooming the dirty holds a very enjoyable activity. Hours passed by quickly.

On my drive back, I called Chris who just reached home. He required no convincing – we would make another trip back to Pinnacles the next day. This time, I would not need to lead the runout P2 of Power Tools yet again (after having done it 4 or 5 times this season). Instead, there is a brand new bolted line waiting for me.

Oh the joy and excitement of the first ascent! Yes, there are still sections on the pitch that might be loose, but nothing came off surprisingly on me. The moves are technical and interesting. We have officially done the FA/FFA of this new variation, linking Hand Tools, Evolved into Power Tools, and climbed all the way to the top for celebration. 

Good thing we did. The following weekend has a heat advisory forecasting 100+ degrees in Pinnacles. 

Epilogue

This project has been a true adventure for me. I am proud that I have the physical and mental capabilities to be bold enough to do what I did throughout this process, and I had the intellectual ability to follow a sensible and pragmatic action plan. (Sorry, if there was any humbleness in me before, it has been pounded away after those four yellow-x bolts.) Throughout the project I respected the current Pinnacles tradition and hand drilled a line of bolts on lead eventually arriving at the anchor. I do not hide the fact that additional tactics were employed that will be regarded as significant asterisks by the purest of the purists. 

I am not a person to tell anyone to “go to hell” (quoting a guidebook story), and I value approval from the community I am close with as the person who keeps the Mud ‘n Crud campfire going long past the party time. Because of that, I made the decision to approach the project against my instinct that rap bolting this variation would make the most logical sense given the Power Tools anchor from above. 

I knew our route and our actions would be judged. I already had people ask directly and indirectly how the bolts were put in. If I had put in the bolts top down, would they be chopped? I don’t know, but one thing I know for sure is the route on MountainProject and in the next guidebook would have “bolted on rappel” highlighted given the current culture. Is that kind of distinction constructive or even necessary? People who climb for the love of climbing will judge a route based on their experience instead of how each bolt was drilled. That has been proven time and again. 

The project opened up my mind to examine the current status quo with independent critical thinking. I’ll consider it a huge step forward if we maintain the current strong ground up tradition, but just lift the oppressive cloud that hangs over Pinnacles where a shaming culture exists that ostracizes others for simply choosing a different style and drives people away from a place where many people love.

But if I’m bold, I’d venture to say that IMO, to best adhere to the ethics of minimizing our impact — getting the best quality route value for the impact we inevitably cause – is to actually encourage pre-inspect and pre-climb when afforded such an opportunity before putting in bolts permanently. Of course, it can then be FA’s personal style choice to bolt ground up on lead for a good adventure and challenge. 

Am I pushing too far now? Peace out.

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