I'd like to apologise to all local guides and members of the Association Des Guides du Val d'Hérens as well as any blog readers who may have been upset by the comments I made in the blog entry on August 21st 2009. To suggest the bolts were placed by "a fat/lazy local guide" was offensive and silly.
The Swiss Mountain Guides Association see safety and the prevention of accidents in the high mountains as their responsibility, and following a series of accidents on this route they decided to place the new bolts. I have been threatened with legal action should I try to remove the bolts, so I'd like to make it very clear that this is not my intention. I am too fat and lazy to carry a spanner all the way up there anyway.
I still don't understand or agree with the placing of bolts on existing mountain routes, especially when those bolts are within 20cm of good runner placements, but I realise this is just my own personal climbing "ethic" and others may see things differently.
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