Alan: I did a lot of routes after. How-
ever, the real difference -- apart from
just being able to put more bolts and
not be concerned about making things
more and more dangerous -- was the
power drill. That had a huge impact.
It had as big an impact on American
sport climbing as anything.

That's always been one of my regrets,
and there's nothing I can do now, but
I've felt that if in '83, '84, '85, when I
was devoting every day of my life to
the place, if I would have had a
power drill....

I think, though, even if I would have
had a power drill, I wouldn't have quite
had the balls to just spray bolts in

everywhere. If I would've had the power
drill and a "let's just go to town and drill
this place up" attitude, I would have
probably done two or three times as
many routes; they're so easy to do
now with the power drill.

That's why, when the people came in
'87, '88, and '89, routes were suddenly
really pretty easy to put up. So I did
put in quite a few after that.

Join us next week as we continue our
interview with Alan Watts as he talks
about how other climbers felt about
the techniques that allowed sport
climbing to gain momentum, and how
he has seen Smith Rock, and climbing
in general, change.

This is the end of part three of the
interview with Alan Watts. Part four
starts on Page 14.

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