Pre-clipping inflation

Back in the days, I have personally seen and heard about many top-climbers repeating routes with 3 to 11 pre-clipped carabiners. The rationale behind this related mainly to that it was possible to downclimb from the position, that others had done the same or it was due to safety reasons. This made me publish pre-clipping ethics suggesting that one quickdraw pre-clipped is OK if it is for safety reasons. Having two or three pre-clipped, although due to safety reasons, means ethical dilemma = yellow card.

The big controversy is created once the repeaters do not use the same pre-clipping FA ethics and it goes beyond the "two or three, although due to safety reasons". Then they have not redpointed it but instead done a valid five pre-clipped ascent. It is also important to say that any climber can make an ascent in any way they want as long as they are open with how they did it.

When it comes to down climbing ethics in order to have pre-clipped carabiners I am OK with that as long as you do not untie from the rope, and if you fall, you have to do the down climbing again. I have personally seen a hardcore climber do a route with three pre-clipped. Later, he started to project the downclimb of it and realised that it was possible including a jump, meaning he claimed the redpoint. This might seem utterly stupid but back in the days, prior to the published pre-clipping ethics and also that it was discussed a lot on 8a, it was quite common.

8a will not start name-dropping guys that have created and are using the pre-clipping inflation but I would like to encourage climbers to go for the full redpoint challenge whatever that means. Even if the local community or some top climbers have created some "special inflated pre-clipping ethics" for specific routes, a redpoint ascent should respect the FA ethics and not systematically push or go beyond, "two or three pre-clipped, although due to safety reasons."

Overall, the pre-clipping inflation obviously also partly could explain why there is grade inflation. It is easier to repeat a route if you have five pre-clipped compared to the FA which most probably had fewer pre-clipped quickdraws. It should be noted that when it comes to bouldering, we could also say that crash pad inflation also exist. As an example, most of the FAs in Fontainebleau have been done without starting on top of a crash pad. At the same time, it is quite common that once shorter boulderers do not reach the normal starting holds, they start on top of stacked crash pads.

In the same way, as with pre-clipping on routes, you can of course start a boulder with as many crash pads stacked as you want as long as you are open with how you did it. However, possibly you should give your multiple stacking pad variation a new name and grade?