Last month we published the news that the Yeniçeriler route on the Western face of Mount Yeniçeri in Aladağ region was bolted by unknown climbers (previous news). Although no one knows who did it, the local climbing community suspected that it was team of foreign climbers who bolted an existing trad climb. While the climbing social networks were discussing the incident in detail, a local climbing team, who prefers to be anonymous, removed the bolts.

We interviewed the local team, who would like to see their act as a collective protest of the Turkish Climbing community against disrespectful bolting in Turkey’s high mountains. Although they are not against bolts in mountains, they simply could not accept the bolting of an existing trad line, which is not only unethical but also against the free climbing principles they strongly respect.

The team confirms the observations first shared by Engin and Rauf who were the first to find out about the bolting:
• Bolts were placed on sections that could easily be free soloed and near crack lines.
• After the 5th pitch the bolted line followed a variation to the left of the original route; however, they ran out of bolts after two pitches and finished their route with free climbing two possibly VI+ pitches and finally merging with the original route on the summit slabs.

As the team wanted to clean the route as much as possible, they removed the hangers and chopped the bolts completely and covered the holes with dirt and bushes.