[Stu Littlefair]

If you’re not going back on your next outing it’s a perfect strategy.

[tomtom]

Been children busy...

Stu - thanks for opening this up - and sorry for calling you a knob. Type in haste repent at leisure (or something like that...).

When you read a Insta/FB post - you’re aware of any deliberations about going there or not - of which there clearly were.

Having been to Church >20 times - I always feel really self aware going there. Its someone’s village - its near someone’s houses - where people walk their dogs and ride their bikes. For a tucked away spot - I’ve met and chatted to many more people there than I have at numerous other locations. It would not be on my list of where to go.

Its something I’ve discussed with others who go/have been there (whether to go post lockdown) and the consensus (unanimous on those who participated) has been no. Theres another couple of insta posts by other Peak (I assume) based climbers visiting places that we’ve also discussed as being too close to peoples houses/small villages/footpaths.

Its a personal choice - and I’m really heartened to see you had a good old think about it - but I wouldn’t have. I also wouldn’t have posted about it - for reasons Paul mentions below.

I think TT has pulled me up for going to Church at the weekend. Even if he’s not talking about me, my Sunday activities fit his description of a knob pretty closely.  I’d be interested in people’s opinion.

My surprise is people posting where they've been on Insta (not necessarily your post Stu). Isn't this just asking for it to be busy/ier if you return?

Finally - not in insta but certainly on FB I’ve seen negative comments from climbers saying its too early to go out (on other people’s where I went pictures etc...). So clearly there are climbers around who don’t think people should be out.

Might have messed up my answers there - but bot to go - bath time.

[Bradders]

I think TT has pulled me up for going to Church at the weekend. Even if he’s not talking about me, my Sunday activities fit his description of a knob pretty closely.  I’d be interested in people’s opinion.

Absolutely nothing wrong with going to Church in my opinion. Yes it's in a village but it's not that small and there's plenty of room to keep away from locals, not bother anyone with parking etc. since it's on a main road. Good choice I think.

Only issue is if someone else is already there, in which case you'd gave to go elsewhere as there would be no way of distancing.

[Stu Littlefair]

Cheers TT - I’ve called others worse for less so don’t fret about the knob thing.

I do know what you mean about the place. It’s the first time I’ve been and when we got to the parking I definitely felt a bit conspicuous.

I thought it was an interesting example because people will be thinking of places where they think it’ll be quiet for a few weeks yet and it’ll include places they’re not familiar with. It’s worth seeing where the consensus lies for what’s kosher and what’s not.

[tomtom]

Thanks Stu 😃

I’ve thought long and hard about where to go - and I’ve been to the Wilton’s twice. My reasons were that they’re probably the closest to home, on climbing days there will be no one there apart from climbers (in the quarries) and parking is on a busy but remote road. Only other people parked up were smoking or walkers cars. It’s also big enough to soak up a few people if others are there - and you won’t meet anyone walking in (2min).

I think the tiny one person/party crags are trickier... you’re kind of more obvious even though tucked away etc..

I’m also quite Church sensitive  - as it were - after conversations with Carl (who wrote up / did the developments) about it getting a lot more traffic I got in touch with the BMC for the access note.

[Will Hunt]

There are lots of factors to think about. Is there public access to the crag or is access permitted by a private landowner? Who is that landowner and what are they like? Is there a history of access problems? How vulnerable is the crag to vandalism? How significant would loss of access be? How likely is the crag to be busy? Is it often busy? Has there been a sudden spike in popularity? Does the parking get on the locals' nerves? How visible are you when you're there? Some of these concerns are not immediately obvious to us townies (people with horses are normally more skittish than their quadrupedal charges).
Etc etc.

Given its vulnerability, visibility, sudden mass popularity, and private ownership with no legal right to access (I assume, happy to be corrected), I would have put Church as yellow or red risk.

But. I have discovered through work, where I occasionally liaise with landowners (from private householders to multinationals) over access, there is no factor that predetermines how welcoming someone might be. It's not about money or status, it's just about how nice people are - and there are nice people and otherwise in all walks. So it's nice to hear that, so far, the Church Crag people are nice. You don't know until you go.

Gate House is green risk on every count, but if the landowner's a knob, there's no cure for it. And what a coincidence that Nidderdale is a hotspot for raptor persecution. No wonder the locals want us off their moors.
https://raptorpersecutionscotland.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/bop-in-niddaonb-evidence-report-final-sept-2019.pdf

I thought for a while before spraying on Instagram, but I've been trying to promote esoterica for years and been largely unsuccessful. I don't think that most of these crags are ever likely to be over capacity because many people would just rather not go climbing. There's other people sharing their visits to lesser frequented crags, so adding more choice to the psyche pool is only going to help spread people out.

[webbo]

Come August 12th I wonder how much these land owners or tenants will be objecting to groups of people on their land. You don’t get much social distancing in the back of Range Rover.

[SA Chris]

Interesting t see what restrictions are like on travelling up to Scotland for the annual slaughter

[webbo]

I wouldn’t be surprised if come August groups of up to 15 people not from the same household are allowed to visit and stay in private residential accommodation as long there is no access for the general public.

[SA Chris]

Apart from members of the general public who are paid a pittance wait on their every need obviously

[Johnny Brown]

I'm wondering if the BMC advice to 'avoid popular areas' needs rewording. We seem to be getting a lot of problems with people seeking out obscure venues, whereas places like Stanage have not been at all busy. A couple of people have stated to me that the BMC are saying avoid places like Stanage, which is not what is meant if they are not popular. The big, open venues with no access issues should be first choice imo, with the obscure alternatives as a back-up plan.

PS Cheedale is all dry from what I could see, so lots of options there.

[Offwidth]

I agree away from encouraging a mass stampede that will annoy some (like the police commissioner), Stanage is OK if you can park sensibly and I worry about recommending small esoteric venues for occasional inexperienced climbers. Nearly everything at Stanage is graded right, solid and clean. Even when the parking is rammed there are good routes on sections away from the honeypot areas that may not have seen more than a few ascents a year. Some big places like Wharncliffe are better still: not in the Peak NP for starters.

On the subject of Wharncliffe and people who can deal with esoterica I was on upper tier in the woods on Monday and conditions are amazing after all the dry weather. Plenty of boulders and microroute walls there with unlisted lines as yet; albeit with low extreme minor classics like Mark chalked up, so some people know. Even met someone climbing in the quarry next to the short-cut approach to the Deepcar end .. I looked with a pal 15 years ago and  that's esoterica with quite a few knobs, albeit mainly as it's damp and dirty. People are reporting the same for southern grit venues that are slow drying.. Dukes in particular.

[Will Hunt]

My thought process has been that there are bound to be lots of people who do go to Almscliff or other popular crags, and that's fine so long as carrying capacity isn't exceeded. I can do my bit by not going, which helps to make room for the people who inevitably do. It's also probably the best excuse I'm ever going to get to go to one of a long list of crags that I've been meaning to visit for years.

There's been a lot of people pointing out that if everyone just goes after esoterica then that will get really busy. This isn't necessarily true because it ignores the fact that there's far more esoterica to disperse across. Certainly Yorkshire is like an iceberg, with the bit above the water being the tip - 20 or so popular grit crags which people know about and get regular traffic. What lies beneath is some 200+ venues. Lots of them are small, but if you arrived and found it too busy it's unlikely you'd be far from somewhere else to climb.

[Bradders]

I think TT has pulled me up for going to Church at the weekend. Even if he’s not talking about me, my Sunday activities fit his description of a knob pretty closely.  I’d be interested in people’s opinion.

Absolutely nothing wrong with going to Church in my opinion. Yes it's in a village but it's not that small and there's plenty of room to keep away from locals, not bother anyone with parking etc. since it's on a main road. Good choice I think.

Only issue is if someone else is already there, in which case you'd gave to go elsewhere as there would be no way of distancing.

Just to expand on this, in relation to Church specifically but applies equally to lots of areas beyond those mentioned below.

I've just had a text from a friend who's dropped into Church today to find a large amount of mud smeared all over the lower part of the wall. Basically kids drawing pictures with the mud / generally splattering it everywhere.

Last week I went to Sprotbrough and found a family building a den right underneath the crag. There was a massive fire pit underneath part of it.

Yesterday I went to Levitt Hagg and was greeted by a couple of teenagers smoking weed around a big fire pit in the middle of the quarry. Beer cans everywhere.

What I'm trying to illustrate is that many of these venues are really quite vulnerable to damage from non-climbers. I remember Anston Stones having very similar issues in the past, and climbing access was proactively encouraged as a means of helping provide a more responsible presence to avoid damage to the area generally. My personal view is that climbers generally are a responsible bunch and visits should therefore be encouraged, if anything to help mitigate that risk of damage from others.

On the point around avoiding honeypots; I agree JB I think the advice to avoid e.g. Stanage maybe isn't quite the right approach. The advice should be to maintain social distance, and be prepared to move on if others aren't doing so.

[Offwidth]

I think there is esoterica and then there is esoterica. Some of your unknown stones venues are as good as some popular places and normally in condition. Mind you after all these downgrade efforts they might need a health warning on standards for the non lanky. In contrast esoteric for say Agden can mean climbing Jenga and for say Wilderness can mean wait for a one month dry spell and numerous obscure quarries can mean organise a crag clean up first.

[tomtom]

Thats a shame about Church Bradders - never seen anything like that before.... Plenty of other spots around that little bit that are just as good for messing about in - think it might be deliberate RE putting off climbing?

[Bradders]

think it might be deliberate RE putting off climbing?

No definitely not. Hand prints and what looks like a stick figure family drawn on and apparently was a big family with kids walking away with mud all over hands when my mate arrived. Clearly just messing about / doing anything to entertain the kids.

[cheque]

There’s an unfortunate Catch 22 with the very nature of esoteric crags- not everyone knows about them!

In this weeks Power Club there’s my report of no climbers at Rivelin and another of 6 parties at Dovestones. Pretty easy to see that well-meaning people are avoiding places that they think will be busy and going to the most esoteric one they know of (the most obscure in Eastern Grit) which is also the most esoteric that many other people know- Will’s idea of hundreds of equally weird and small venues is great but most people simply don’t have any that catalogue of venues on their radar at all.

It’s not really a problem in this case (Dovestone can handle six pairs of climbers as well as Rivelin can) and I don’t have a solution but it is a fly in the ointment of the “don’t go to popular venues” advice.

[petejh]

What better time for the BMC to commission an article (or series of articles) highlighting good esoteric venues in England and Wales to visit over the coming months. Would give the masses a heads up of some places they probably wouldn't have thought about visiting.

[dunnyg]

Will could write an unknown stones article for the other channel/BMC and spread the Word

[Will Hunt]

https://unknownstones.com/crag-summary/

The table is a very minor arseache to keep up to date when there's lots of development going on, so may not be the most up to date.


https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/unknown_stones_recent_developments_in_colsterdale-9071

[Offwidth]

There’s an unfortunate Catch 22 with the very nature of esoteric crags- not everyone knows about them!

In this weeks Power Club there’s my report of no climbers at Rivelin and another of 6 parties at Dovestones. Pretty easy to see that well-meaning people are avoiding places that they think will be busy and going to the most esoteric one they know of (the most obscure in Eastern Grit) which is also the most esoteric that many other people know- Will’s idea of hundreds of equally weird and small venues is great but most people simply don’t have any that catalogue of venues on their radar at all.

It’s not really a problem in this case (Dovestone can handle six pairs of climbers as well as Rivelin can) and I don’t have a solution but it is a fly in the ointment of the “don’t go to popular venues” advice.

As an esoterica enthusiast I think plenty of people do know but don't care. Unknown Stones is a largely ignored rather than being an unknown resource. That's just the choice of most.

Rivelin is maybe a bit warm for the current weather but Dovestones Edge and Quarries (if that's what you mean ), would have been in perfect nick... Probably even Shining Clough and Ravenstones would have been good given how dry it's been. Dovestones is a big place and  could take 60 sensible pairs let alone 6;  the Quarries have the longest straight up low grade classics on grit, which oddly get hardly any traffic.

[SA Chris]

Dovestones is a big place and  could take 60 sensible pairs let alone 6

That excludes me then.

[galpinos]

Rivelin is maybe a bit warm for the current weather but Dovestones Edge and Quarries (if that's what you mean ), would have been in perfect nick... Probably even Shining Clough and Ravenstones would have been good given how dry it's been. Dovestones is a big place and  could take 60 sensible pairs let alone 6;  the Quarries have the longest straight up low grade classics on grit, which oddly get hardly any traffic.

As cheque was talking about Eastern Grit, I assumed he meant Dovestone Tor.

[Offwidth]

Lots of rock up on the Derwent Edges as well and being as dry as it is it will also be unusualy good May conditions for some greener routes in that area.