9 Things Everyone Should Know About Route Development
I can still remember the first sport route I bolted. It was on a giant granite boulder on a sun-drenched hillock of cholla, prickly pear, and scrub oak in Three Gun Springs Canyon, on the south side of the Sandia Mountains above Albuquerque, New Mexico. My friend Lance had found the cluster of rocks and brought in me and another friend, John. We labored in the high-desert heat, tapping hand drills with framing hammers, twisting and turning until our palms were blistered and raw.
We bolted a couple dozen climbs, each slabby, sharp, and so short that, ultimately, some self-righteous traddos would strip the hangers. The routes could easily be done as highballs today. But these micro-routes were ours, and we were proud of them. Most importantly, we’d caught the first-ascent bug.
That was the summer of 1989. I’ve since gone on to put up hundreds of routes, mostly sport, but some trad and mixed. Only a small percentage of climbers put up new routes rather than just contentedly repeating climbs, so we route-developer weirdos seem to find each other. This is a good thing: Establishing new climbs involves a grab bag of tips, tricks, and techniques that we can only learn by seeing, sharing, and doing.
Over the years, I’ve picked up nine key things about route development that are all worth knowing, whether you’re putting up your own climbs or just want to understand more about how the sausage is made.
1. Most rock climbs start out filthy.
If you mope around thinking that all the cleanest lines were done ages ago, it’s helpful to remember that even the classics likely required some initial gardening of dirt, moss, sand, and plants. The fact is, it’s hard to find an unclimbed route that’s born ready to climb—even a future trade route. Meanwhile, much of the potential remaining today will likely be chossier/dirtier/mossier (at first) than the OG routes were, especially on North American sandstone and limestone or in wetter areas like Index, Squamish, and New England.
Some thirteen years ago, my friend Ted and I put up a 5.13a called $oopr kr33m in the Flatirons, Colorado; it took us three days to clean, but nobody believes us now that it’s seen hundreds of ascents and is considered a classic. Just because a route is great now doesn’t mean it started that way: it takes diligent cleaning and often dozens of ascents to buff out new climbs. If you’re doing an early repeat, don’t gripe about loose rock and sandy holds; instead, bring a brush and help out.
2. Cleaning holds can be a huge gray area.
When developing on chossier rock, it’s nearly impossible to draw a clear line between regular old cleaning, “aggressive cleaning,” and chipping. Say you’re bolting an overhanging chosspile. The potential holds you spied from the ground turn out to be scary, hollow blocks, which you pry off to reveal softer rock. This softer rock will clearly break when grabbed, so you scrape it away down to solid stone. But now your newly unearthed crimp is covered in jagged little spikes, so you tap those away and then debate whether to glue the cracked back of the hold so it stays there when ascentionist #243 pulls on it.
So, tell me, did you just clean, aggressively clean, or chip? Have you been unethical or simply pragmatic? If you’ve never put up a sport route, it’s easy to be absolutist: “If a route requires cleaning and glue, then you shouldn’t climb it!” But the hard truth is that many (many!) sport climbs would not exist without such tactics, especially at the upper grades where the rock is less featured. It’s also true that the hardest climbs are on very overhanging rock, which, seeing less water- and sun-hardening, is often more friable.
3. There’s usually a reason a clip is in a “bad” spot.
The original mentality with sport climbing, as it emerged from traditional climbing, was to use bolts sparingly. So there were runouts on easier terrain, with clips placed high from stances to minimize bolt count; we’d lock off, stretch high, mark the bolt hole with chalk, and then drill.
Fortunately, the thinking has changed, with routes now bolted more consistently and with various body sizes and comfort levels considered. Why, then, do some bolts still feel misplaced? There might be a good reason for this: Perhaps the rock was hollow in the best spot. Perhaps the bolt is situated to keep the rope from running over an edge. Perhaps the clip is high to prevent an unsafe fall. Of course we first ascentionists do get it wrong sometimes, but it’s rare to do so among experienced bolters. And anyway, by using modern stick clips, stiffie draws, and extendo slings, you can almost always rig a route for your personal clipping convenience.
4. Putting up routes is expensive, exhausting, and strenuous; respect red tags.
On a new-routing day, I might carry a 60-pound pack—containing bolts, anchors, drill, battery packs, hammer, wrenches, blow tube, cordelette, traditional pro, draws, static line, rope protectors, brushes, and sometimes even a leaf blower—an hour uphill and then spend hours hanging in my harness. I’ll come home shattered, covered in dust, rock chips, and lichen, my elbows and shoulders wrecked, having spent up to $100 or more on high-quality ½” stainless-steel bolts and enduring anchors. And there still may be days of work ahead, relocating bolts and cleaning.
It’s thus extremely frustrating to have “bottom feeders”—people who don’t put up routes but are always on the hunt for something new—either “hopping on to have a quick look” or constantly asking when I’ll be done. Any critics/willful ignorers of red-tagging would do well to keep in mind that developers might also leave routes tagged because a bolt is bad or the climb still needs cleaning. The bottom line: Respect red tags. The route will be ready eventually. It’s not about someone thinking they “own the rock”; it’s about giving people space to finish what they started.
5. Developers should—but don’t always—consider access.
I wish we developers always considered what will happen down the road, in terms of impact, access, trails, and parking. But, realistically, we don’t always do so—we’re just psyched on this new line. And we usually have only a vague idea whether a route will become popular; that all comes later, when the community votes with its fingers.
That said, if you plan on wielding a drill or cleaning cracks and boulders, be proactive—know who owns the land (Gaia GPS and Onyx are both good for this) and whether there are bolting, landing-building, and off-trail regulations. Consider how sustainable the approach trails and staging areas are. You might even reach out to your local climbing organization (LCO) if you think your area will take off.
6. We don’t always get it right or conditions change—don’t trust hardware implicitly.
Just because there’s a bolt in the wall doesn’t mean it’s reliable, especially if it’s older. A few years ago, I clipped a bolt near Empire, Colorado, realized I didn’t like the looks of the block it was placed in, and so banged on the block only to see dirt coming out its underside. The whole thing was ready to go. Later, while doing bolt replacement on the popular Your Mother (5.12d) in Eldorado Canyon, Colorado, I had a bolt simply come out of the wall as I loosened it, sending spider-web fissures into the surrounding stone as the expansion pressure released. It gave me chills to think that dozens of people had probably hung on that bolt over the years.
Why does this happen? Well, developers can place bad bolts, and bolt and rock conditions can change over time, altered by freeze/thaw cycles, water streaks and oxidation, and repeated whippers. Inspect each bolt, and consider carrying an adjustable crescent wrench to tighten spinners.
7. Don’t be an asshole downgrader
The FA party’s grade is an honest assessment based on the best info they had at the time of the FA; they may get it slightly wrong, but that doesn’t give you leeway to be a knee-jerk, asshole downgrader.
On a first ascent, it’s true that it can be easy to overgrade. You’re often the only person working the route, and can get tunnel vision, both in terms of the line and beta. And routes can get easier as holds get chalkier and creative new beta gets crowdsourced. But I’ve also seen repeat ascentionists quite obviously ego-downgrade, giving a laughably low rating for lulz. As in: “Oh, you think you put up a hard route? Well, let me tell you why this isn’t the case—and why I’m a better climber than you.” This is a decidedly ungracious way of “thanking” someone who put time, money, sweat, and love into a climb for you to enjoy. Plus, we have Darth Grader these days to keep the sandbaggers honest!
8. Putting up climbs can be dangerous.
People have died putting up routes. If you’re going ground-up, you run the risk of taking big, sketchy falls on unprotectable sections. You’re also dealing with un-cleaned rock, with the peril of pulling off a loose block that then cuts the rope. And if you’re going top-down, you face very real dangers scrambling along the cliff top to find your line from above or while rappelling over sharp edges. Some of the sketchiest shit I’ve done has been while getting in anchors, including free soloing choss with 40 pounds of equipment on my back, rapping through shattered rock off subpar intermediate anchors, penduluming over sharp lips to stab a directional into a crack, and so on. If you start developing routes, be very, very careful.
9. Putting up climbs can also be rewarding.
Despite all the toil and travail, putting up routes has been the absolute highlight of my climbing career. There’s something so priceless about being at a crag first, before the crowds, experiencing it in its original state; about using your creativity to decipher cryptic sequences on holds that no human has grabbed before; about the massive buzz you get after a hard-earned first ascent.
Don’t believe me? Check out the look on Adam Ondra’s face after he finally sent Silence (5.15d) back in 2017, versus the quieter stoke—still there, for sure, but muted—after sending his four-millionth 5.14d on some weekend road trip with the family. As you may someday learn, there is no feeling quite as good as putting up a route that took your very best effort.
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