To Bolt or Not to Be 5.14a

To Bolt or Not to Be is a sport climb at Smith Rock State Park in Oregon, bolted and cleaned by local developer Alan Watts before anyone had climbed it clean. Graded 5.14a, it is built from small, technical moves and difficult transitions that demand precise footwork, body position and efficient linking rather than raw power, with sequences that require careful pacing and close attention to where a fall is safe to take. Because the difficulty is spread across many hard moves instead of one obvious crux, it has stood for decades as a benchmark of technical, sustained sport climbing rather than a power test, and it is one of the routes climbers use to calibrate hard grades in the United States.

History

Visiting French climber Jean-Baptiste Tribout made the first ascent on November 7, 1986, at the age of 25, making it the first 5.14a climbed in North America. The ascent drew national attention to Smith Rock and to the bolting practices Watts had used to establish the line, and it helped pull elite free climbers from around the world to what had been an obscure crag in rural Oregon. The route has since been repeated by a long list of well known climbers, among them Jerry Moffatt, Ron Kauk, Lynn Hill, Chris Sharma, Dave Graham, Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden, Sonnie Trotter, Steve McClure, Adam Ondra and Nina Caprez.

On film

Paige Claassen vs 'To Bolt or Not to Be' (5.14a) (2013) follows Paige Claassen traveling to Smith Rock to attempt the route, filmed by Louder Than Eleven. The ten minute piece documents her process of working the sequences on one of American sport climbing's original testpieces, filmed in 2013.