[shark]

At the last Peak Area Meet, Ian Carr who is co-ordinating the Peak Lime guidebook talked about restoring Peak trad routes that had become overgrown and/or with rotting situ gear in an organised BMC funded way. There is currently a project of this type underway which was proposed and passed by Martin Crocker - "The Avon Restoration Project" - link to the minutes and an explanation can be found here.   

Compared to 20 years ago turning up at a crag like Chee Tor you would expect to find starred routes clean and climbable because they got regular traffic. You can't make that assumption today. There is a spiral of lack of traffic = routes get dirty = less traffic = routes get dirtier. Similarly situ gear is likely to be in worse condition than back then.

Lack of traffic can also mean a loss of access to more obscure buttresses where the landowners have become used to the buttresses not being climbed on and so the precedent/momentum for access can be lost.

There are a few thorny issues surrounding restoration. Some at the meeting argued for bolting neglected routes to ensure popularity and therefore traffic whilst this was understandably unacceptable for others. Another aspect is the case-by-case decisions on how to restore routes to preserve their original characteristics which can become frought especially on cherished classic routes. 

Anyway I would like to throw this open as it is sure to be re-visited at the next Area Meet.

[Three Nine]

Bolting to ensure popularity works. I'm all in favour (obvs).

[cheque]

I think something should definitely be done about this and I'd like to be involved.

Bolts could well be the answer in some cases but there are a lot of crags that just need the low traffic- vegetation- low traffic cycle breaking with a proper clean in my opinion. In some cases a decision needs to be made as to which bits are going to be left to nature and which are going to be maintained and work done to sustain this I reckon. 

[slackline]

It'll only be worthwhile putting the effort in to clean crags if that will result in attracting more people to the crag.

Besides which its not that essential, climbing overgrown routes can just add to the 'fun' as you can see how much vegetation you can coat your belayer in! 

[Johnny Brown]

Rather perpetuating the general vague view that trad lime generally is disappearing under ivy, I'd like this debate to concentrate on specific examples.

Last summer Chee Tor was dry and, for a while, all the E5s etc were clean and chalked. Chee Tor is not a problem in my view. Judging by the filth that accumulates across the river in one wet winter I'm not convinced long term improvements are possible here.

Similarly we visisted Central Buttress WCJ a few years ago as folk were saying if we don't retrobolt it it will be lost to vegetation. We found loose rock a bigger problem than vegetation of which there was little, with a rash of new bolts being more conspicuous.

I would suggest a yearly weekender (along the lines of the Tremadoc ones) might be a help. Probably late April/ early May?

[Steamboat Stello]

Never thought I would say this but having spent a bit of time at Moat Buttress WCJ and Windy Buttress (Stoney) this summer I'd be in favour of some further retrobolting on a route by route basis at selected locations! In my opinion it has worked brilliantly in these two places. I don't believe I or anyone else (ok maybe not ANYONE!) would have bothered going there if it wasn't for the excellent rebolting effort by Kristian(?) et al. You only need to look at the logbooks for Moat Buttress on UKC (sorry!) and you'll see no activity for 20 years then suddenly 15 ticks in a single summer. Obviously UKC is far from a respository of all ascents, but it is a useful indicator in this case. 

[dave]

I don't think anyone is suggesting retrobolting shit on stoney or Chee tor, they were talking about shit trad butresses that literally nobody has touched in say a decade or more.

[shark]

Never thought I would say this but having spent a bit of time at Moat Buttress WCJ and Windy Buttress (Stoney) this summer I'd be in favour of some further retrobolting on a route by route basis at selected locations! In my opinion it has worked brilliantly in these two places. I don't believe I or anyone else (ok maybe not ANYONE!) would have bothered going there if it wasn't for the excellent rebolting effort by Kristian(?) et al. You only need to look at the logbooks for Moat Buttress on UKC (sorry!) and you'll see no activity for 20 years then suddenly 15 ticks in a single summer. Obviously UKC is far from a respository of all ascents, but it is a useful indicator in this case.

AFAIK the work on Moat and Windy Buttress has been re-bolting old sport routes or bolting of new lines rather than retrobolting trad routes.

As it happens one of the example routes that Ian said he was in favour of revitalising and potentially replacing pegs with bolts was Kellogg on Windy Buttress.

[dave]

P.S. Its clear to me that the idea that just cleaning up some unpopular routes every now and again isn't going to touch the sides in the medium-to-long term. Trad limestone (espeially on the type of crag that are getting overgrown/dirty) just isn't that popular, and unlike grit its not near the cities, there is very little worthwhile under the extremes (relative to grit), it gets dirty fast, and its never going to be exciting/trendy/marketable/cutting edge like grit because there are no hard routes above E6/7 and no prospect of any in the future (as all the best hard lines are already bolted). There are not enough climbers operating in the trad E3-6 area with the appetite for peak trad lime to keep everything clean.

I'm not saying we should bolt things up instead, but I'm just saying, as I did at the meeting, that it'll take more than a few people brushing up routes to change the tide. You would need a full scale marketting offensive, supported by mags and websites and videos etc to change habbits. And still all it would take is a crap summer like we've just had for it to all be lost again. Lets face it, the '80s aren't coming back.

[Steamboat Stello]

Never thought I would say this but having spent a bit of time at Moat Buttress WCJ and Windy Buttress (Stoney) this summer I'd be in favour of some further retrobolting on a route by route basis at selected locations! In my opinion it has worked brilliantly in these two places. I don't believe I or anyone else (ok maybe not ANYONE!) would have bothered going there if it wasn't for the excellent rebolting effort by Kristian(?) et al. You only need to look at the logbooks for Moat Buttress on UKC (sorry!) and you'll see no activity for 20 years then suddenly 15 ticks in a single summer. Obviously UKC is far from a respository of all ascents, but it is a useful indicator in this case.

AFAIK the work on Moat and Windy Buttress has been re-bolting old sport routes or bolting of new lines rather than retrobolting trad routes.

As it happens one of the example routes that Ian said he was in favour of revitalising and potentially replacing pegs with bolts was Kellogg on Windy Buttress.

Ahh in that case sorry I implied they were retroed, if they had been I still would have been in favour obviously. Many thanks for those responsbile, pretty much rescued my summer!

[shark]

Lets face it, the '80s aren't coming back.

 

[nai]

Judging by the amount of traffic on Mecca recently maybe all we need is some girls climbing hard trad limestone to make it popular again.

[dave]

Kneebar traffic doesn't count remember.

[Johnny Brown]

As it happens one of the example routes that Ian said he was in favour of revitalising and potentially replacing pegs with bolts was Kellogg on Windy Buttress.

Ah good, some specifics! I have done Kellogg three times in the last few years. There is absolutely no justification for retrobolting it. The initial wall is a bit bold, but no less so than in the eighties (in fact less so with pads), and at no point is it either reliant on decaying pegs (bomber wires and small cams) or suffering from vegetation growth. On that basis I will personally remove any bolts placed on it.

[webbo]

Just when you think Peak Lime is going to be turned in to sport heaven, along comes someone to piss on your chips.

[abarro81]

Just when you think Peak Lime is going to be turned in to sport heaven, along comes someone to piss on your chips.

I don't think any amount of bolts could turn peak lime into sport heaven 

[sidewinder]

I don't think any amount of bolts could turn peak lime into sport heaven

because it's already there?

[highrepute]

The regeneration of Moat and Garage Butresses has been great and more of that kind of stuff would be awesome but as pointed out they were already sport venues. I'd be well up for similar crags being regenerated into sports crags if similar crags actually exist.

This all seems a bit vague. The only crags/routes mentioned are Chee Tor and Kelloggs neither of which should be bolted imho.

The only only trad routes that could be bolted that I can think of are the odd ones at mainly sport crags; such as, piranha and white bait at rubicon. But being where they are it probably not worth as there's already some good sport nearby.

I don't go to overgrown E3-6 lime trad crags to be able to name any that might benefit from a make over. Can anyone?

The risk is crap forgotten trad crags just get bolted and turned into crap forgotten sport crags.

[shark]

This all seems a bit vague. The only crags/routes mentioned are Chee Tor and Kelloggs neither of which should be bolted imho.

I don't think anyone suggested wholesale retrobolting of chee tor (which Im sure you know has some bolts on trad routes and a couple of sport routes).

A lot of the revamping is like-for-like replacement of pegs for pegs and threads for threads where possible with consideration for using a bolt where it isnt possible. That's diffrent from turning a trad route into a sport route. A trad route with a single bolt is still a trad route.

One of the crags that has been mooted for being revamped with replacement fixed gear is High Tor which by all accounts has declined considerably in popularity in recent years.

This has been attributed in part to the increased seriousness of the crag with hold loss making some routes harder and fixed gear ever rustier.

[Johnny Brown]

High Tor? Seriously? Maybe I missed the glory days of the eighties when every route was a line of chalked bomber holds with occasional gleaming pegs, but I suspect it was much as it is now, ie fine.

Having gone out there these last few years looking at these 'problem' crags, I am increasingly of the opinion what we have is a deterioration of the climbing culture (not just popularity, reputation etc) of a route rather than the physical part.

The last couple of years we've had 'reports' of High tor being retrobolted, and everyone shaking their heads with resignation. Now apparently its deserted and crumbling! If you were cynical you might think it was all designed to make it less offensive when it happens...

[Bonjoy]

Similarly we visisted Central Buttress WCJ a few years ago as folk were saying if we don't retrobolt it it will be lost to vegetation. We found loose rock a bigger problem than vegetation of which there was little, with a rash of new bolts being more conspicuous.

<indignant> No, ‘folk’ where saying, if irreplaceable (due to blocked/broken placement) pegs are not replaced with bolts, where it can be agreed that the quality and lack of alternative pro justify it, then the routes will either never get climbed or eventually get retrobolted. Which is exactly what has happened there and elsewhere (e.g. White Gold on Chee Tor). Somewhat more nuanced than your mischaracterisation. I’m pretty sure I, sorry ‘folk’, never claimed vegetation was a bigger issue than looseness either. No wonder these debates end in polarised indecision! </indignant>

[tomtom]

Easily fixed. For all the untrendy, undervisited crags - how about bolting on some cheerfully coloured plastic holds (that you change around every few weeks), constructing a weatherproof dome above and parking an expresso van below the crag.

[Bonjoy]

One of the examples which was raised at the meeting was the proposed replacement of the ‘bolts’ on Darius and Lyme Crime. As I said at the time, this I think is going too far. Judgement should be case by case and based on sound criteria. Such criteria should have, among other things, the key question – Is the grade and/or quality of the route most greatly altered by either the loss of that gear or its replacement with a bolt? To my mind in the case of the above two routes I think the loss of the bolts would not make the routes much more dangerous and would not reduce the quality of either at all. In fact removal of deathtrap ancient bolts would improve the safety and quality of what are quintessential and popular trad classics. On the other hand I think addition of bolts would diminish the quality by reducing the trad challenge of routes which a competent leader can protect perfectly adequately without.

[SamT]

High Tor? Seriously?

Was on high tor recently (only ever climbed there once before in the 90's) .  Reckon that Darius could pretty much have been done on the pegs and threads (and bolt) that were in-situ.  However, I trusted pretty much none of them. 

None of the seeming hundreds of threads were trust worthy.  Any peg I now treat with supreme distrust - there is no way of knowing if was placed in 1974 or not and I'm mindful of the london wall accident a few years ago (http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=44631 ... sorry).

And I'm not sure the bolt was particularly trustworthy either,  its an old angle iron type where the hole is too small to accept any modern crabs (wild country wild wires certainly wouldn't fit so it got threaded with a narrow sling).  I'd say that bolt was pretty crucial to the grade staying down at E2.  There's no gear after for quite some way past the crux.   

Solution 

To keep it at the same grade, I guess it takes a local/activist/caretaker to replace threads.  Pegs replaced unless near a good natural and for me - the bolt replaced with a stainless glue in.

no vegetation though.

Similar experience on Stoney this summer.  However, I find a lot of folks do moan about vegetation but  are seeming happy to climb past/around it and also let their seconds do this.  I can often be found showering my seconds in soil and undergrowth as I lead.  Even small stuff gets whipped out if convenient - from small acorns do oak trees grow. 

[SamT]

Just seen the above .. re Darius - I cant recall there being a bomber wire 6"'s to the left of the bolt.  I recall I was pretty well adamant that I was going to some how clip that bolt despite none of my krabs fitting.  Dont think that I'd have felt like that if there was a sinker bit of gear near by.  I suspect the next bit of gear was a crappy thread, and the one before that etc etc.

Those that know me know I'm not unhappy to run it out, but at a certain grade, one expects a certain level of gear.