Willamette Valley Sport Development
Donation protected
- Help support sustainable sport-climbing development in the Willamette valley. If you enjoy climbing on new routes with glue-in bolts, there is a way you can contribute!
- My name is JD Merritt. I’ve developed 62 new routes at crags near Eugene: routes for everyone ranging from 20 feet to 4 pitches, and 5.7 to 5.14. I’ve re-bolted many other routes, replacing aging and dangerous hardware. I’ve spent most of my time at Lookout Point and the Moondial, but have also bolted at Eagle’s Rest, The Garden, The Wormhole, Deception Butte, and Larison Rock. I believe the sport climbing in our beautiful backyard can be safe, environmentally sustainable, and user-friendly!
[Photo: John Sullivan.]
- To everyone who helped with fundraising and rebolting for Lookout point, thank you! With the help of some friends, we re-bolted the routes at the Pet Cemetary wall with long-lasting stainless glue-ins, and they are now some of the best routes in the area and will stay that way for at least 50 years.
- I’m asking for your help. Glue-ins with marine-grade stainless steel are the sustainable choice in our wet climate and in porous rock, lasting over 50 years. On the other hand, the often-used zinc-plated mechanical bolts can rust to the point of failure after just 1-5 years! This is a great deal for the developer on the cheap: they might climb it once that season and move on to damage more rock elsewhere, but the community is paying the real cost, with potential bolt failures that are impossible to visually assess and lead to accidents around the world.
- Glue-ins minimize visual and environmental impact, are vastly stronger, and resist corrosion even in the harshest environments. However, they are expensive, at ~8-15 dollars for one bolt and the required glue. This quickly adds up, with, for example: one 10-bolt route costing ~120 dollars with lower-off anchors, and another 100+ dollars even for homemade chain permadraws, and 200+ for cable draws. I’m on a grad student salary: for route development with glue-ins to be financially sustainable I could use some help. Since I’ve lived here I’ve spent thousands on anchors and permanent hardware. Permadraws and durable lower-off anchors can add to the safety and convenience of sport routes, but they add significantly to the cost as well. Besides bolts, we’ve spent a ton of time and money on tools, trail building, and landscaping safe and erosion-resistant belay platforms. We spend endless hours cleaning (this is the single hardest part of development around here). You’ll be supporting new bolting, re-bolting (with permission from original first-ascensionists or the consensus of the community), fixed hardware, ongoing maintenance, and all kinds of crag stewardship. Any contribution, big or small, will directly improve crags you can climb at!
- I want to open-source the route development process. Projects should be shared, and crags and routes should be a public resource. No more secret crags, and no more projects that remain closed or bound up with fixed lines for seasons (or decades!). Once a project is cleaned I often publicly post it as open. Anyone can try these. While it’s often convenient to bolt and clean alone, the rock belongs to all of us.
[Photo: John Sullivan.]
- Feel free to comment with feedback about the routes that are up, or what styles of route you’d like to see more of, grade ranges that should be developed more, an interest in development or climbing clinics, some specific route that needs a permadraw or sport lower-off, rock you've found that has potential, or any kind of stoke or idea you’d like to share!
[Photo: John Sullivan.]
- And if you want to exclusively support re-bolting old routes but not new-routing, no worries: feel free to pass this up and wait until we post the next goal for the Willamette Anchor Fund, or donate to the ASCA to support the nationwide effort. The list of routes that need replacement is long and ever-growing: any help is appreciated!
Organizer
JD Merritt
Organizer
Springfield, OR