I have recently come across some new chipped holds on the Bullet Hole boulder. This chipping happened sometime after April 2015. I’m not posting this to call anyone out; it is quite possible that the person or persons responsible do not know that chipping is unacceptable in this area and is highly frowned upon by land managers. This new “route” is just to the right of another chipped route and in an area where chipping happened in the past. Most of the chipping in this area is decades old and is looked at as an eyesore. If you are the person or persons responsible, please stop this practice.
Chipping, gluing or otherwise “improving” the rock to enhance a route is never acceptable. It robs future climbers of the potential to establish harder and harder routes. Chipping or adding holds to a route or potential route presumes that no one will ever be able to climb at a higher standard; therefore the thinking goes it is deemed to be okay to alter the rock. This thinking has been proven to be in error time and time again. This practice is also looked at as vandalism by many land managers, including the City of Grand Junction, which owns and manages this property, and it makes us climbers look bad as users of this property.
Please respect a no-chipping ethic. If you can't do this problem, try another.
Randall Chapman
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