[IanP]

I agree broadly with the above posts but I still think it should be tackled on a route by route basis. Climbing Mad Dogs a couple of years back it really felt like a metaphor for lime trad generally - first surrounded, then outnumbered and finally castrated. As much as most of us value High Tor etc, I'm not convinced the process will stop to be honest.

Hopefully the risk with a route like Mad Dogs is that it's a trad (ish, there was always a lot of fixed gear, even when I first did it in the late 80s) route on a crag that in general is much more suited to sport climbing.  Crags such as High Tor and Chee Tor in the peak and Malham Right Wing and Blue Scar main Wall in Yorkshire provide a climbing environment very obviously more suited to trad climbing and we shouldn't have any problems drawing a line well before them.

As someone who pretty much only sport climbs these days and who supports the equipping of sports crags in the Peak and Yorkshire I'd also strongly support attempts to stop any encroachments on to crags like High Tor.    In fact I'd probably support removal of existing sport routes if it was suggested - Malham Right wing is never considered as an area for sport routes and the same position might work for crags like High and Chee Tor

 

[Johnny Brown]

I hope so. Though I don't know Malham well, all the supposed trad crags in the Peak have sport routes on the wings and a smattering of bolts in the middle. The spread might be slow but it just seems inexorable. I can't see a day when everyone sits back and says, 'yes, right, we've achieved a balance now'. There's always another route that might be more popular with bolts...

[Neil F]

Climbing Mad Dogs a couple of years back it really felt like a metaphor for lime trad generally - first surrounded, then outnumbered and finally castrated...

So true JB, and it seems ironic just how mediocre were the examples of the Brave New World which rendered this onetime classic obsolete.

I'm sufficiently realistic to know that the likes of Fey or Mad Dogs will never again enjoy their previous status as classic trad climbs.

But at the same time, I'm glad I am sufficiently ancient to have enjoyed them in that state.  Both were brilliant outings when I first led them them back in the early eighties.  Fey was particularly memorable.  You left gear way below, as you committed to the run out, first out left, then back up and right to join the flake, where I remember a few anxious moments before a big friend was seated and clipped.  It would have been a true journey into space if you'd fallen off at that point.

I remember leading Shazam at the same time, which featured a really intriguing puzzle to enter the top groove.  In retrospect, it seems a great shame that the "original" routes with the best climbing, have so often been superseded by crap eliminates which climb the walls either side - on blatantly chipped holds in the case of Marshall Music (and numerous other routes with the same first ascentionist).

Greed and grid bolting have a lot to answer for...

Neil

[Johnny Brown]

Inspiring stuff, a few more stories like that and they might be popular again! I wonder whether a decent definitive guide might help too.  I'll be sure to take some trad gear next time, get them done before they get assimilated...

[Sam]

Inspiring stuff, a few more stories like that and they might be popular again!

if they were clean then it may help more.  Realistically, who is going to get on these things which haven't seen an ascent for years, given the state of the bolted routes down there after 1 winter? Not me. If people feel strongly about these not getting "assimilated", then perhaps a hour on a rope with a few brushes would encourage people to take a few wires down next time. If they are good trad routes it would be shame for them to to the way of white gold, but at the moment it's somewhat moot as none of them get climbed!  Perhaps even a bolted belay/lower off would be a reasonable measure.

[dave]

I don't know the routes in question, but they would have to be pretty fucking nails trad routes to make anything other than lower-mid or warmup sport routes. Once they're bolted, thats it, there's no going back. We gain a couple of routes which in the grand scheme of sport routes are easy (is there really not enough low-mid sport in cheedale?), and loose a couple of trad routes which might not get climbed 99% of the time but at some point might gave a few keen individuals a bit of pleasure in the future. Personally I wouldn't go doing trad at the Cornice, but some folks would. Just cos something doesn't get done a lot doesn't mean that it has to be bolted. Every square inch of rock at a nominally "sport" crag doesn't necessarily need a sport route on it. Can't be all just get along?

[mark20]

Judging by one of the posts on rockfax, it sounds like War Memorial was once fully bolted but the top bolt (also on Fey) was chopped
http://www.rockfax.com/databases/r.php?i=2534
I've done the route a couple of times and had a problem with placing some trad gear in the top flake. It's specified in the guidebook and is easy to place. I think it's the best compromise where an old trad route meets and new sport route.

It would be nice to leave Shazam, Fey and Crime as trad routes, hopefully I'll do them one day when I'm not such a punter!
Thanks
Mark

[SA Chris]

You had a problem, or had no problem?

[Stabbsy]

Every square inch of rock at a nominally "sport" crag doesn't necessarily need a sport route on it.

It's a shame that this sort of balance isn't recognised by more people. A perfect example in Yorkshire would be Trow Gill, where there's so many bolts now that the lines are no longer obvious, even with an up to date topo. The end result is a half-decent crag ends up being a mess, filled with mediocre lines which take something away from the good stuff.

Is the situation with the Cornice routes comparable to things like Deja Vu and Superdirectissima at Kilnsey. They offer something a bit different to the normal sport stuff and might not get climbed as often as the fully bolted routes, but they still get climbed. I don't think these routes should be fully bolted, even though they're surrounded by full sport routes. Just because a route's less popular doesn't mean it's ripe for bolting.

[mark20]

Yes sorry, I meant
"I've done the route a couple of times and had NEVER a problem with placing some trad gear in the top flake..."

[bigdrew]

I would also rather see them left as they are. War memorial sees plenty of traffic as it is, and not having the bolt at the top adds interest to what would be fairly mindless moves if it was to be bolted.

As already mentioned there is no need to bolt every square inch of the rock, there is already a vast amount of quality sport, 3 more mediocre low/mid routes won't add to the crag.

Personally I don't get too exercised about certain limestone trad routes getting retroed if it means they get climbed. Wouldn't like to see High Tor or Stoney being bolted but wondered if you did this to routes on somewhere like Dovedale Church would they then get traffic.

Dovedale church should NEVER be bolted.. Despite the routes not been done all that often, they are good when they are, and a great adventure.

As much as most of us value High Tor etc, I'm not convinced the process will stop to be honest.

Also agree with this. I've not been climbing (or even around) long enough to say.. But I get the impression that the line of what can or can't be bolted is moving in the wrong direction...

[Hydraulic Man]

I know the first ascentionist of Fey would  not like to see the route retro bolted. No issue with replacing missing pegs with bolts though if that makes sense..........