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SW Area Zoom meeting 27 th Jan. Anstey’s issues. (Read 14663 times)

kingholmesy

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More than happy to send over the pics they aren't great as to see the boolts you have to get pretty close and then you don't really get a feel for where they are on the wall but more than willing to share.

Didn't get on the route as i said the first three bolts were missing with just the holes there! Also thought I might get lynched!

Cheers macca

Fair enough - I was more interested to get a look at the wall as a whole.  I've climbed at Maer Cliff a bit, but don't think I've ever wandered along to Menachurch.

In the interests of full disclosure I'm pretty much in the anti-bolt camp - but no lynchings from me!

macca7

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If you send me your number i can whatsapp you the topo for the wall the bolts are on. It gives you an idea of the line and then with images of the bolts you get a reasonable idea of whats what and how it all fits together.

I'm personally definitely not anti bolt but in noway shape or form am pro bolting of trad routes. I'm a trad climber and certainly don't want to see trad routes retroed however I do feel there is a discussion to be had around bolts in the right place. Its just an incredibly difficult equation to balance as once it starts there's no going back.

However this example does feel wrong. I'm slightly conflicted as it does open up a lovely looking peice of rock to be climbed however the cost is too great not every peice of rock has to be climbed and it doesn't even go to the top of the wall. A large price to pay for a small insignificant thing.

Let me know if you want the images

kingholmesy

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The concerns you have expressed there reflect my own feelings pretty well. I’ll PM you my number in a moment.

BrutusTheBear

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It's the second line that has been bolted in that cave.  Simon Young bolted an 8b ish route what must be over 10 years ago. I believe someone travelled from London to chop but couldn't manage the job because it's so steep.  Subsequently they were removed by Simon and he led the route on trad gear...or something like that... (point being it's the 2nd time that cave has been bolted).

Bonjoy

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I’m not averse to a bit of active crag management, w/wo landowner permission. In reality in many/most cases the landowner is unlikely to give consent, and would be sharing liability if they did give consent for an activity that’s not strictly legal. Which is all very well for low impact works that would probably go unnoticed in the short term and naturalise rapidly thereafter. The Ansteys work though looks ill-judged to me. The steepness of the slope makes the repairs look unstable and the works are clearly too big to go mostly unnoticed. It looks like a mountain to fix a molehill. That said I'm unconvinced a lengthy public argument on UKC is going to aid in minimising access fallout.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2021, 01:10:51 pm by Bonjoy, Reason: Spelling »

macca7

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 :agree:

Thats exactly what I was trying to say a few posts up!

I think the op of the ukc thread was just trying to point out the potential issues and get him to stop. However if you read the protagonists reply it appears he really doesn't see that a softly softly approach would have been the best way forward.

remus

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It looks like a mountain to fix a molehill.

Without getting in to the quality of the work, belaying anything left of Empire of the Sun was pretty questy and if the work ends up making it easier it'd be a significant improvement in that respect.

Duma

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It looks like a mountain to fix a molehill.

Without getting in to the quality of the work, belaying anything left of Empire of the Sun was pretty questy and if the work ends up making it easier it'd be a significant improvement in that respect.

you've got a pretty low baseline level for questy in that case remus!

macca7

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I guess the question is at what cost? As a long time ansteys devotee said to me. I've managed to climb there safely for 30 years without feeling the need for any of this.

Just because it makes our life easier does it mean it should happen, especially with such a high cost! The odd boulder moved a branch used to level off ok but this??

remus

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It looks like a mountain to fix a molehill.

Without getting in to the quality of the work, belaying anything left of Empire of the Sun was pretty questy and if the work ends up making it easier it'd be a significant improvement in that respect.

you've got a pretty low baseline level for questy in that case remus!

You know me Duma, Im such a delicate flower  :-*

Oldmanmatt

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I’ve just come back up to Walls hill from the “terraces”. It’s blowing a gale. I’ll walk home a process the images.
I cannot see this ending well. The works are massive and already falling down. I counted 20 stumps and there are huge stacks of cut wood. I went hoping it would be a storm in a tea cup.
It doesn’t help that there are tools and buckets left all over too. More in a mo.

Will Hunt

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I don't really want to stick my oar into a situation that I know nothing about, but the terraces do look like something that would give a civil engineer nightmares. Entropy has a habit of exerting its will on things like that.

And +1 to what Bonjoy said.

I think we do need to be taking more proactive steps to sort out issues like this at popular crags, though that's not to say that this is the way to go about it. I don't know whether it has really been worse this year than others, or whether we're just talking about it more, but paths do seem to be completely fucked at the moment. The proposed work to fix the field at Almscliff should have been done years ago. The tracks at Caley seemed particularly fucked up this year. Moughton Nab needs a proper stile putting in to stop the wall falling down. etc etc

The Don't Ask, Don't Tell stance might be the right thing for less popular crags, but for well-trafficked venues we ought to be proactively approaching landowners and offering to fix the issues. The Northumberland lot have a whip round every year to buy the key landowners a nice hamper at Christmas time.

duncan

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Thanks very much for that Matt. That sounds worse than I had feared. The ground under the Empire wall was starting to look worn and might have benefited from a little discrete stabilisation but the work done appears be both far too ambitious and badly executed. I fear we may have a problem on our hands with this. Are you able to attend the virtual BMC meeting? Your views as a local who has seen the work will carry much more weight than some incomer.

tomrainbow

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Exactly Will.

I think that in this particular instance it's the extent of the work, the profile of the venue and the fact that presumably the landowner has not been involved that sets alarm bells ringing. I plan to go over to check it out in the next week before the BMC meeting as often things can look worse in photos than reality, although from Matt's post it sounds as though in this case that isn't so.

Duma

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Am I right in thinking this is an SSSI, and there's no formal access agreement?

spidermonkey09

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I don't really want to stick my oar into a situation that I know nothing about, but the terraces do look like something that would give a civil engineer nightmares. Entropy has a habit of exerting its will on things like that.

And +1 to what Bonjoy said.

I think we do need to be taking more proactive steps to sort out issues like this at popular crags, though that's not to say that this is the way to go about it. I don't know whether it has really been worse this year than others, or whether we're just talking about it more, but paths do seem to be completely fucked at the moment. The proposed work to fix the field at Almscliff should have been done years ago. The tracks at Caley seemed particularly fucked up this year. Moughton Nab needs a proper stile putting in to stop the wall falling down. etc etc

The Don't Ask, Don't Tell stance might be the right thing for less popular crags, but for well-trafficked venues we ought to be proactively approaching landowners and offering to fix the issues. The Northumberland lot have a whip round every year to buy the key landowners a nice hamper at Christmas time.

Tbf Mick has been in constant dialogue with the farmer at Almscliff for ages and he has never been receptive to stone going down until now. I agree with the general thrust of your point though.

Will Hunt

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I don't really want to stick my oar into a situation that I know nothing about, but the terraces do look like something that would give a civil engineer nightmares. Entropy has a habit of exerting its will on things like that.

And +1 to what Bonjoy said.

I think we do need to be taking more proactive steps to sort out issues like this at popular crags, though that's not to say that this is the way to go about it. I don't know whether it has really been worse this year than others, or whether we're just talking about it more, but paths do seem to be completely fucked at the moment. The proposed work to fix the field at Almscliff should have been done years ago. The tracks at Caley seemed particularly fucked up this year. Moughton Nab needs a proper stile putting in to stop the wall falling down. etc etc

The Don't Ask, Don't Tell stance might be the right thing for less popular crags, but for well-trafficked venues we ought to be proactively approaching landowners and offering to fix the issues. The Northumberland lot have a whip round every year to buy the key landowners a nice hamper at Christmas time.

Tbf Mick has been in constant dialogue with the farmer at Almscliff for ages and he has never been receptive to stone going down until now. I agree with the general thrust of your point though.

Fair enough. Makes you wonder why the farmer wasn't keen on the help though. His field is slowly being washed away into the Wharfe.

spidermonkey09

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Fair enough. Makes you wonder why the farmer wasn't keen on the help though. His field is slowly being washed away into the Wharfe.

God only knows! I suppose the knowledge that the mud has been tamed might make it even more popular to the public, if such a thing is possible, which he probably wants to avoid.

cheque

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This looks mental. Has the guy who fucked up Aldery moved down south?!

for well-trafficked venues we ought to be proactively approaching landowners and offering to fix the issues. The Northumberland lot have a whip round every year to buy the key landowners a nice hamper at Christmas time.

 :agree: The way that access is handled in Northumberland is a great template for the rest of the country. I saw on the Facebook group where a new gated bridge had been installed and the guy posting had spoken to one of the fellas who said “we put an extra wide gate in so you could all fit your pads through”.  :hug:

steveri

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It looks poorly done and beyond a bit of discrete 'under the radar TLC'. I despair at the noise on ukc though (and I'm aware of the irony of posting that here). It's perfect fodder for an owner/interested party to limit access.

Seems like some climbers prefer the sound of their own voice to actually maintaining access.

Oldmanmatt

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Ok. Home and coffee in hand.

First. Me.
I am all for improvement at crags, path management and construction etc. My attitude to bolting, I keep to myself, because many trad climbers would lynch me if I voiced it. I wouldn’t dream of imposing it on others, though.
I own the local wall, the last thing I want to is upset anybody in the local community and had to think hard, walking home, whether to get involved or not.
I cannot condone what has been done and staying silent would be tantamount to doing exactly that.
I went today, even after viewing the photos and video, expecting a few small terraces, extending a few feet from the cliff and to see sensible work that looked bad because it was raw.

The work is immediately obvious, less than three feet from the “no access” access point. If you know the spot, that railing is still 10’ from the first step. It is not visible from the other side of the wire. So a dog walker reporting it is unlikely. However, whilst there, a dog walker came down past me a went off towards Redgate. So it’s going to be noticed, eventually, by someone who will make a fuss. The work, as you can see, extends 20’-25’ from the rock face. None of the trees cut, were cut to improve route access, they have been cut as building material. Note the distance from cliff to stump in the first shot:



The work extends all the way to the existing path at the top.

Terraces are excessively high in places. Bare with me, this is difficult to explain in the forum format.

The first “big” terrace is not very stable (work lower down is better than that higher up. At a guess, they started at the bottom). For reference the metal stake is ~4’ (or, just below my nipple and I’m 6’1”).


It’s at least 5’ high, and thats sat on topsoil. This end, is still quite dry. Heavier rain and time will wash it out.

The biggest terrace is 8’ minimum (though you could call the lower level a couple of feet right of where I put the stake, and then call it 10’)



This one is definitely unstable.

Mid height is a topsoil layer:



At the moment, it’s dry, close in to the face, but already under cut. If you move out along the terrace (it extends 20-25’ from the face), it is already moving and some of the wood used to retain the shelf is coming out on the lower tier of this set:



Many of the logs use to retain the terraces are unsecured, just laid across the slope, unstaked (staking will be hard).

There’s a lot of large boulders, propped up with logs. Some very large, >200kg at a guess:





Not finished, but posting so I don’t have to start again if something goes wrong...



Oldmanmatt

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To be clear, some of the work is pretty good and if this has all been done by one person, bloody effort! Several tons of earth and rock moved and a good ton of wood.

Tree cutting.

I counted about 20 tree stumps (not cut branches), a couple I couldn’t really age, some had had mud rubbed into them in a way that seemed as if they’d tried to hide the cut. Most were fresh and obvious. The largest was in fact around 30cm in diameter. It is both sides of the gully, not just Empire.
The amount of “stacked” cut wood is upsetting. It’s a lot, I hope the photos convey it.






Hard to show how far this extends down the slope from the obvious.

On the other side:




Stumps, some of, anyway:









You get the idea.

Oldmanmatt

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Looking back up.





And then, there’s this stuff:





Some things are just topsoil, no support:





That’s probably enough to convey to overall feel of it.

I am not a Civil Engineer, I’m a Marine Engineer (quite uncivil, too). However, some of this will need to be made safe. I realise it is unfinished.

It is just too much. If (and it’s a fairly big if) it comes to TCCT’s attention, it is almost certainly going to become an issue. It looks like it might take more than one growing season to green in and a bad bout of heavy rain is going to washout a lot of whats been done, higher up.
Not sure about the large exposed boulders, I’m trying to wrack my brains to remember if they were already exposed. Bloody slippery though.

Also and quite important.

Pretty sure the anecdotal pair of “slightly built” belayer and “heavy” climber (judgmental wanker) described in the UKC thread, was myself pinging unexpectedly off the first crux on Empire and a certain Toby D of this parish, who came up to meet me. I blame the plate in Toby’s head for my bruised Coccyx. However he did not end up above me and this was a situation we were both accustomed to by this point. It’s just a really soft catch...

remus

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Thanks for the pics Matt. It's a shame the work appears to be unstable, clearly a lot of well intentioned effort has gone in.

The couple of big boulders at the bottom were definitely already exposed, not sure about the ones higher up.

Oldmanmatt

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Thanks for the pics Matt. It's a shame the work appears to be unstable, clearly a lot of well intentioned effort has gone in.

The couple of big boulders at the bottom were definitely already exposed, not sure about the ones higher up.

Yes. It’s very difficult to imagine/remember what it looked like before.
But it was overgrown enough that you couldn’t alway tell how busy it was from the approach path.

 

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