Practicum-- Angela

I've continued to follow and post on several rock climbing special interest blogs and forums and I've been coming across more topics that pertain to a few questions I posted earlier after giving my in class presentation. Maybe it's just because I'm looking for such discussions or maybe they're becoming more prevalent, but I'm finding that the online forums and comments on blogs really are tackling stigmas within the climbing community. In my questions I had asked if such online places could help overcome old stereotypes and set new protocol and ethics for climbing and I'm starting to find the answer is yes. The two prime examples I have come across have been a forum started with the question, "Why do other climbers hate boulderers?" (bouldering being a form of climbing involving climbing boulders usually 10-20ft tall without ropes and using large mats underneath to protect a fall), and a debate in the comments on a climbing news article over top roping an extremely difficult climb before climbing it from the ground up placing one's own protection.
Each place came to its own conclusions and the ideas of the people posting were on every end of the spectrum, however, like the typical bell curve consensus was found. It was determined that boulderers were not hated, they're just an easy target and bouldering is really something that every climber does at some point. The debate over top-roping concluded that while climbing is fun, it's not supposed to be reckless. Leading a climb from the ground up can be very dangerous especially when there is no fixed (pre-placed) protection to clip into and climbing something in this manner that is at the extremes of one's limit without the ability to know ahead of time where the best protection can be placed and how to protect the most difficult part of the climb is pretty similar to jumping on a climb that's at your limit sans rope and protection all together--it's just reckless and not worth dieing or really messing yourself up for.

I was intrigued to see these questions approached with such seriousness. One was important to reducing the "hate" in a community that prides itself on being "chill" and the other was a look into the seriousness of the sport and the mitigation of risk. There's a lot for people of all abilities in the sport to learn and online forum consensus in this case seems like a constructive way to negotiate the ins and outs of climbing ethics and more importantly create a sense of unity with in the community.