[MattH]

The next Peak Area meeting will take place on
Wednesday 10th June at 8.30pm
at
The Winking Man, Upper Hulme, Staffordshire ST13 8UH

http://www.winkingman.com/

Agenda to include:
Access Update
Guidebook Update
National Council Update including appointment of a new National Council Peak Area rep
Dogs at Bamford
Car Parking at Harpur Hill
A discussion about using a designated Peak crag, currently out of vogue, as a test-case to re-invigorate some of our limestone crags

There will be, as always, free food to follow the discussion.

Please note the later start time to allow people to get a quick fix at one of the nearby and totally delicious crags...

If you have any other items you would like to discuss please mail me (through my profile on here) in advance, if possible.

Peak Area Newsletter available for download as of this afternoon: http://www.thebmc.co.uk/News.aspx?id=3125

See you there,

[MattH]

On behalf of Rab who will be attending the meeting next week and putting the following to the group:

I have been driving up to Malham fairly frequently this Spring and due to the length of journey time, many subjects arre discussed to pass the time.

Last week’s conversation turned to the state of the Peak District’s Trad Limestone Crags; a very big question with few answers. It was only 20 years ago when the likes of Chee Tor, High Tor, Stoney and Central Buttress W-c-J were thronged with climbers and people were queueing to do routes. A very different tale now in 2009.

So what is it that has altered this situation; dirty rock, rotten pegs, lack of information or is it just down to lack of bolts and brave climbers. Any one of these might be the reason or a combination of all of them.

So, what should we do about it (if anything) ?

The easiest solution is to do nothing and let future climbers re discover these overgrown gems.

Another solution might be to bolt them, but that would be an admission that current day climbers are not as good as those climbing 20 years ago. Is this true?

A third possibility is to look at each crag separately and try and assess how it might be brought back into vogue. This might involve assessing the state of the in situ pegs, how dirty is the rock, what is access like, if the pegs are past it how can they be improved etc. If it was decided that it was salvageable then work could be done cleaning, information given out on the state of the routes and possibly even media attention be given to the crag.

It was suggested during the car journey that Central Buttress, W-c-J could be a good candidate. A high class crag, 3 star routes of all grades, a single buttress so that it could be looked at individually.

I wonder whether the Peak Area thinks this is a valid proposition ?

Rab Carrington
3rd June 2009.

[slackline]

Aside from the issue of encroaching vegetation and the effort required to return routes to their climbable state....

Why should anything have to be brought back into vogue?

Those who choose to avoid a venue miss out.  Those with a sense of adventure to go and try things will make the necessary effort to clean routes and will likely enjoy themselves in doing so and I'd imagine they accept that the routes are in that condition and aren't that bothered about putting the effort in to clean them (and see that as part of the attraction).

Anyway, might try and make it along.

P.S. - Were you at Stoney Tuesday?  If so I was the person who startled you slightly when I said hello on the way past.

[dave]

trends come and go. if people are not frequenting the peak trad limestone these dasy then fair dos. its pretty much a dead-end genre, no hard cutting edge routes have been done in 20 years and thus it won't get in the mags/videos like grit does, so no excitement and collective psyche. plus the season for trad limestone ain't very long (the crags need to be dry after winter but it not too hot, and not raining at the time unlike a lot of sport routes), so things will get less traffic as a result. plus the trend for a hotter wetter climate won't help. also the most popular sport-bouldering crags like the tor, rubicon, WCJ cornice, beginners wall etc all have short walk-ins and within striking distance from sheffield, whereas the best trad crags like high tor, chee tor, beeston, dovedale, moat buttress, central buttress all have either a longer drive, longer/more awkward approach or something like that which will tend to kill off the summer evening traffic.

obviously it'd be better all-round (i.e. better for the traffic on popular crags too) if more people went to trad limestone, but you can't force anyone. some good mag articles could stimulate interest, but who reads the mags anyway these days? Clearly the cycle of dirt/lack of traffic/dirt/unpopular route is a vicious one.

[Fiend]

Dave has a point, but tree clearance, path clearance, sorting out any of the typical muddy slopes at the base of limestone trad crags, fixed gear replacement, route cleaning, and highlighting revamped crags through all available media could go a long way to help.

[slackline]

[r-man]

some good mag articles could stimulate interest, but who reads the mags anyway these days?

Exactly, there's a growing proportion of climbers who get all their climbing gossip from the internet. I can't speak for ukc, but it's noticeable that when areas/climbs are discussed on ukb, a surge of new interest is frequently generated. The net is a great place to stoke the collective psyche that Dave mentions.

So perhaps when/if the BMC decides to embark on a crag makeover mission, it would be nice to accompany each effort with a well written online article, fleshed out with some decent photos and videos. Build up an archive of these and people will be able to dip in at any time in the future and find a less mainstream crag to get excited about.

[abarro81]

 

I'm not sure high tor counts as unpopular - I've not been thus far this year, but went a few times last spring and it was always pretty busy.

[Bonjoy]

I think people should think very carefully before opting for the apparently morally/intelectually easy option of suggesting the status quo should be protected.
My following points are very specifically about Central Buttress in WCJ.
Slack-line suggests that people who are psyched to do stuff at CB will go and clean up these routes then repeat them. This is a nice idea but it doesn't happen, virtually EVER. Why? For several good reasons, some of which I am acutely aware of having recently attempted to buck the trend and go clean up a route at CB:

• Many of the routes are in large part protected by pegs which have either disappeared or are best assumed to be very dangerous
• Many of the pegs are rusted in place hence preventing removal, or have broken off leaving blocked placements
• In many/most cases alternative placements for pegs do not exist
• Few people have a rack of pegs. I do but still couldn't re-equip the route I cleaned due to the factors above
• I spent about 4 or 5 hours on a rope attempting to clean and re-equip one route, even then I failed to achieve a satisfactory end result due to the factors above. I only work three days a week and find it hard to find time to do this. Almost everyone else lack both the time AND the inclination

In my opinion and as evidenced by a lack of traffic on all but a tiny fraction of the routes here, waiting for routes to get cleaned is the same as saying the crag is a worthless historical relic.
 No-one wants to die snapping a hold off then stripping a load of rusty pegs. The first ascentionists didn't and neither do today's climbers.
Don't get me wrong I'm totally against straight retro-bolting of the CB. What i'd like to see is a sensitive re-appraisal which puts the routes in something like the condition they where in at the time of ascent. When these routes where done they had a scattering of reliable (new pegs placed by experienced peg placers) fixed gear to back up what trad gear was available and make these inherently loose adventure routes justifiable. This re-appraisal would be something like the process that took place in Wales and turned the slate quarries from a neglected area where people only climbed a very limited number of routes to a quality venue where people want to climb and where the tradition of bold climbing is being upheld. Essentially CB was a crag with a mixture of pure trad and adventure sport routes on it, most routes having at least some fairly critical fixed gear. The rock is the type which will always be unreliable. Some crags still climb ok with loose rock eg crags at Gogarth and on the Lleyn, the type of looseness you get at relatively short overhanging crags like CB is a different animal altogether IMO, it makes for routes which are unappealling and unjustifiable to even the boldest if no fixed gear is used. I favour assement of individual routes and replacement of crucial pegs with decent 12mm bolts. In some cases such as the route I attempted to clean this might result in LESS fixed gear as replacing all pegs would go well beyond the minimalist bolting I'd envisage.
 I for one would welcome another more adventurous alternative to the tor of an evening and CB could be just that. It has a very short walk in (5mins if you wade the river), it has very clean rock by peak standards, it drys very quickly and it has loads of great looking routes. It does not deserve to be ignored by all groups of climbers, which at present and for many years it has been, just look at the number of logged ascents on UKC http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=154
 I'm a person who wants to climb the routes at CB in the state they where put up in. Unfortunately replacing the pegs is a none starter. My fear is that the re-assessment idea will be crushed by people who have never been to CB and have no interest in ever going to CB regardless of what gear it does or doesn't have. I also fear that eventually some renegade will bypass the climbing community and fully retro the crag, an action which would no doubt cause an initial outcry but would probably end up leaving it as just another sport crag.

BTW this is my personal opinion only and is nothing to do with the bolt fund. The PBF is donated to on a no-retro bolting basis and funds will remain for bolt-bolt replacement only unless there is an overwhelming mandate to do otherwise.

[Fiend]

Very interesting Bonners. I rather respect your ideas there, although I suspect others might not...