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BMC Top ten bouldering dos and don’ts (Read 5812 times)

shark

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BMC Top ten bouldering dos and don’ts
October 25, 2014, 01:30:41 pm
https://www.thebmc.co.uk/top-ten-bouldering-dos-and-donts
Posted by Rob Dyer on 23/10/2014

Farewell long summer days. Hello crisp mornings and cold evenings, sticky slopers and solid crimps. At last, bouldering season is here. But whilst you crush project after project, remember that the rock is your friend, not your enemy.

As climbers we all undoubtedly have some impact on the crags and boulders on which we climb. But this season, take a few minutes to think about how you can minimise your footprint at the crag. None of this is rocket science, and it comes down to a few simple principles: don’t do anything that might damage the rock, think about how your behaviour could affect others and leave the crag in a better condition than you found it. In a word: respect.

1. Park smart

Nothing leads to anti-bouldering feeling faster than a pile-up of badly parked cars blocking access.

Share cars. Think before you park. Try to be considerate and don’t block gates or entrances. Often by just parking a short distance further away you can completely eliminate any issues, meaning less stress for you and less work for our access team.

2. Be toilet trained

Nothing spoils a day out like stepping in a pile of someone else’s shit.

Try to use the toilet before you go. If you get caught short then bury your poo (around six inches deep to increase decomposition rates) and carry a zip-lock bag to pack out your toilet paper.

3. Go easy on the gardening

Think you’ve stumbled across the next bouldering mecca? Try to keep gardening and cleaning to the minimum required to make a problem climbable. Make sure you’re not removing any rare species before you get stuck in either. Removing big areas of moss or ivy may look good from a climbing perspective, but often significantly scaled-down cleaning will still make something perfectly climbable and is less likely to attract negative attention.

If in doubt about developing new areas, then give the BMC access team a call. We promise not to steal your project.

4. Clean your boots

This ridiculously simple tip is one of the easiest ways to reduce your impact and will also help you climb harder. With clean rock shoes, the sticky rubber we shell out hard-earned cash for will work much better and the rock doesn’t polish as quickly – a winner all round. We’ll trust the great Johnny Dawes on this one: “If somebody cleans their boots well, you can tell that they care about the rock and that they care about themselves, because, obviously, if you stand on a smear and your foot’s clean, it’s both good for the rock and good for you”

5. Consider others

When out and about, try and be aware of how your behaviour might affect others at the crag. Are you screaming wildly as you fall off again? Is your dog eating something, or someone else’s lunch?

Is everyone else at the crag glaring at you?

6. Brush off chalk

To us, chalk is totally normal. But we’re not the only users of crags and to non-climbers chalk can be incredibly unsightly, so minimise your use of chalk and tick marks.

Once you’re finished, brush away as much chalk as you can with a soft brush. If you need to mark a hidden hold, use a piece of tape instead of a tick mark.

7. No Wire brushing

This is a very aggressive method of cleaning and can cause serious damage to the rock. Why? On certain rock types such as gritstone, where a hard outer layer protects soft rock underneath, wire brushing can break through the outer layer and cause accelerated erosion.

If you need to brush holds, use a softer nylon or horse-hair brush.

8. No Chipping

We shouldn’t really have to tell you this, but if there’s one cast-iron rule in our sport of no rules, it’s never chip the rock. However, despites this, every year a crag seems to fall foul of a phantom chipper. Chipping not only lowers a problem to the chipper’s level, but also often leaves unsightly rock scars.

Leave the chisel at home.

9. No Blowtorching

In the past, blowtorches were sometimes used to quickly dry wet holds. But climbers quickly realised that applying such a direct heat wasn’t great news for the strength and stability of the rock.

Leave the blowtorch in the DIY store. Use a towel to soak up water on wet holds instead.

10. Don’t leave litter

Don’t leave anything behind after a session, including finger tape, banana skins and fag butts. For extra crag karma, pick up any litter you find out there.

Rob Dyer is the BMC Access and Conservation Officer for England. He’s happiest lashed to the side of a big wall, but we’re slowly converting him to bouldering.

Sloper

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Perhaps someone can drag him away from climbing and introduce him to the basic rules of grammar, or is d BMC fallin 4 da yoof brag innit? yo wazzup, funding bling bitch, wez well down with dat.

Thank goodness I don't give them a penny of my hard earned.

account_inactive

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That's a cluster fuck of error from the BMC despite the initial positive sentiment

petejh

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 ::) Blimey lighten up, bit negative isn't it? It's not that bad and it gets across an important message.

Offwidth

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Uk's premier bouldering site and with an admirable view on discouraging petty stuff like grammar nazis and that is the first couple of responses to a standard but important reminder from the BMC? Bouldering bad practice is trashing grit far faster than anything else.

Duma

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Sloper is not worth a comment, but Dylan, could you point out the errors for those of us less enlightened?

Sloper

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First of all we're not talking about UKB's finest grammarian Peter Andre complaining about 'loosers', we're making reference to our national representative body and I don't think it is too much to ask them to meet bsaic standards of literacy, if they fail to do so then their credibility to advance more difficult agenda is necessarily limited.

Saying brush off tick marks isn't enough, the BMC should be saying 'no tick marks', no comment on the fact that dogs aren't allowed at some crags (even if you're famous), no reference to checking the access status, no reference to SSSI's and basically don't remove vegetation, checking the access to a particular a crag and approaches, no guidelines to good behaviour, i.e. not hogging problems. 

This should have been a open goal in terms of good PR for the BMC instead it was an own goal.

petejh

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That will be the national representative body that you don't support with your 'hard-earned'. Sometimes it's hard, if not impossible, to give you the time of day Sloper.

Saying brush off tick marks isn't enough, the BMC should be saying 'no tick marks', no comment on the fact that dogs aren't allowed at some crags (even if you're famous), no reference to checking the access status, no reference to SSSI's and basically don't remove vegetation, checking the access to a particular a crag and approaches, no guidelines to good behaviour, i.e. not hogging problems. 

This should have been a open goal in terms of good PR for the BMC instead it was an own goal.
You could have just said that in the first place and it would have been more constructive than your initial load of rubbish. Although I'd point out that most if not all of what you list is covered in the more general access guidance, which the BMC does a good job of publicising. Maybe they should do a Latin version?


andyd

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no guidelines to good behaviour

Where's the irony emoticon when you need one?  :lol:

Johnny Brown

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Quote
I don't think it is too much to ask them to meet bsaic standards of literacy

Muphry's law never fails!

rginns

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 :lol: :lol: :lol:

duncan

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11. Let sandstone dry thoroughly before you try to climb on it (also applies to more porous varieties of grit). Damp sandstone is weak and holds don't grow back.

 

Fiend

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could you point out the errors for those of us less enlightened?

Yup, this:

Quote
Hello crisp mornings and cold evenings, sticky slopers and solid crimps.
Muggy as fuck, warm, wet, and forecast to be fairly shit for the foreseeable future!

Offwidth

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BMC score a (sic?) own goal in surprisingly hard fought friendly: BMC 10, Sloper 1?

Sloper

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Top internet hints, don't post when pissed.

Boredboy

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 no guidelines to good behaviour, i.e. not hogging problems. 



The spirit of exploration and adventure lives on in the bouldering community

Offwidth

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Has anyone seriously had to 'queue' unreasonably to try a problem. I know some areas get busy but its hardly like having to deal with rude top-ropers. My most common experience is often quite the opposite when joining several boulderers trying a problem: there is a great sense of witty mutual support.

dr_botnik

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I did once come across some guys who were "working" banana finger with gear and ropes in-situ. They did appreciate the ridiclousness of what they were doing and offer me a spot. If anything, I find bouldering one of the more social sides of the sport (probably a reason all these bouldering walls are quite successful...)

 

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