★★ No Beans for Bonzo 22

[Text below: edited extract from Redpoint article, 1993, by John Smart - Reproduced from ACT Granite, 2nd Edition, ANU].

'Before retiring to the slurbs and shutting my mind to it all, I put up a climb at Booroomba. I regarded it as the pinnacle of my slab-wall climbing achievements. There is nothing unbelievably hard physically about No Beans for Bonzo, but it’s a pretty fair mind excursion all the same. I left the project alone for years and years until I felt my climbing skill and my head were in such complete control that I could attempt it.

‘The tree runner was really was pretty useless (and probably more dangerous into the bargain). The pro in Integral devalued that line, but it saved the rock. Apparently it was frigging about with the pro (as well as the tree runner) which was the reason for the retro-bolting.’

‘My feeling is now that the six bolts should not have been added to No Beans. It’s not that bolting has altered the nature of No Beans, [it’s] that the route simply does not exist anymore. Perhaps it should now be renamed altogether as the Carter Route. Once respect for the style of first ascents goes out the window, where will be line be drawn?’

‘No-one (including me) can now replicate my experience in leading No Beans back in September 1981.’

‘Climbers need to stand back and decide whether preservation of first ascent styles remains important. I think it should be maintained – otherwise, we run the risk of endorsing health club tactics out there on the crags – it will be the end of wilderness rock climbing. It will be a disgrace if we all sit back and just allow that to happen. I feel that it is wrong to simply assume that gym ethics can be applied to wilderness rock. It is now time to turn up the heat on this issue before it’s too late.’