Only after the mid-eighties did these severe rules ease up, when the South of France became the new center of the climbing universe. According to the motto “The end justifies the means,” suddenly any tactic was accepted in achieving a redpoint ascent. The resulting leap in climbing grades confirmed the new direction. It was the definitive end to an era that had favored the bold and the brave. Many climbers who before hadn’t dared to try routes with widely spaced protection now used a toprope to check everything out and to detour around the psychological barrier that had previously held them back.

Perhaps in earlier years we had squandered our potential with our strict rules, but it was a really cool situation and one that had always worked in our favor: those who accepted long runouts remained a step ahead, just like in the old days when we were still traditional alpinists.

Sport climbing was at its best when it existed only among insiders, none of whom expected to impress the general public. There was something familiar about the pilgrimage from one crag to the other, often seeing friends and well-known faces. Everybody was pretty laidback, and competitive thoughts existed only on a secondary level. I experienced the golden years in Buoux, admired Patrick Edlinger and the Le Menestrel brothers, and lost interest in traditional alpine climbing and its often contrived and multilayered ethics. Sport climbing got straight to the point: everything was visible to everybody, a redpoint ascent was a clear metric of success, and, unlike alpine climbing, everybody followed the same rules. Sport climbing was basically just the way I had always envisioned the future of alpinism: the same terms and conditions for everybody. Still, all ethical matters aside, going deeper into sport-climbing also helped me realize that it didn't make much sense, to search my limits on poorly protected mountain projects at a low athletic level... having to face risk mainly because of that. The logical plan was to raise my level through sport-climbing at first and then go back to the mountains. However, the plan failed, because in the ensuing years I found it much more interesting to push my limits in sport climbing (that in those times was still in pioniering stage).

Initially, sport climbing generated a certain amount of confusion among alpinists and the general public, but only for a short time. Then it quickly became assimilated and classified, in order that the public not experience any discomfiture trying to understand this bizarre new activity. Virtually at the last minute was a sense of and context for sport climbing found—we would officially compete against each other instead of ending up as useless alternative freaks, becoming more and more like our friend “Fred” the climbing monkey, not only physically but also spiritually. (By the way, I met Fred during a climbing trip to Red Rocks, and after I shared an apple with him he revealed the secrets of his climbing skills to me—not that they helped much...)