[reeve]

Just a heads up that this is a week tomorrow. Some blurb:

Meeting start time 7.30pm at the Bamford Village Institute, meet at the Anglers Rest (over the road) at 6.30pm, with chip butties served at 7.15pm. Everyone welcome.

Updates from access reps with info on local issues, hillwalking reps' update, members council updates, and a feature on this year's ring ouzel project with Kim Leyland.

After the meeting we have Mel Talbot, crack climbing enthusiast,  star of the recent climbing film 'last forgotten art', and all round good egg, regaling us with tales of jamming across the globe. 'Ten lessons learnt in the Utah desert' promises to be an entertaining tale of Mel's mishaps and misadventures in all things crack climbing.

[shark]

Hi Andy

Sorry for short notice. Can you add this as a discussion item either to the main agenda or as an AOB item on behalf of the Peak Bolt Fund:

Proposed placement by Peak Bolt Fund of bolt belay/abseil stations at top of Boat Pushers Wall and Electric Quarry.

The ash tree at the top of Boat Pushers is dead and various ash trees above electric quarry are on their way out. Initial investigation indicate there are no alternative belays or they are set back behind a curtain of wild rose and bramble somewhere. To be clear abseil/belay stations are proposed not visible sport lower offs.

Unfortunately I will only be able to attend via Zoom. Will email you and access reps separately.

[reeve]

Thanks Simon, yep definitely will have that on the agenda.

It's in-person only this time, so I'm sorry if that precludes you from attending.

[danm]

I'm hoping to attend, and think it's fantastic that the bolt fund are willing to do the work. I'm slightly wary (hopefully needlessly?) around this coming across as an issue/agenda driven by the PBF though, given that there may understandably be some reservations amongst some people about bolt belays on trad routes.

For some context, I raised the spectre of these kinds of discussion being needed and ideally a consensus reached a couple of years ago with Rob Dyer after Nick Boden (Tufty) rang me to warn me about the number of dying ash trees on trad limestone, followed by a walk down WCJ with my Dad who is a retired tree expert, where he explained the likely devastation to come because of ash die-back. Then covid happened and Rob left the BMC and it dropped off my radar.

I think a discussion needs to happen but it would probably look better if it didn't come as a proposal from PBF? I know they are all dead sound, but you know what people are like.

[shark]

Thanks for raising this. If not from PBF then who? Personally I don’t think there’s an issue in putting the PBF name to this. It’s just a proposal and if there are objections or alternative solutions then we won’t do it. That’s just my view though. I’ll consult with the rest of the crew for their thoughts on this.

[danm]

My concern would be that some people might conflate this as bolters wanting to place bolts on trad crags. Some people get very easily triggered by even the suggestion of this and it might overshadow the real discussion (and reflect negatively on the fund, unfairly), which is, what the hell are we going to do with all the trad climbing in the Peak which is going to be affected by die-back? Do we let nature take its course and lose lots of routes because they have no belay? Do we place bolt belays in every case? Or do we allow bolt belays on a route by route basis after discussion? And if the latter, which amount of discussion and format will give us a consensus without becoming impractical? Once the overarching question has been answered, then we hopefully move on to who might do this work, at which point we can say "these total heroes here, aren't we lucky to have them!"

[spidermonkey09]

I dunno, feels a bit worry wart to me? They aren't lower offs bring proposed, they're belays/ab stations, and any trad climber with the remotest awareness knows of the coming issues around ash dieback. What's the alternative? In this instance there is no belay once the tree goes. What are any objectors going to object to?

Up to the chair to frame the discussion accordingly. Which of course Reeve will! I'm with Shark, don't think there's any issue with the PBF raising it given they're the ones happy to do the work (nobody else will!).

[danm]

Fair enough, I just didn't want folk to walk into any unnecessary aggro!

[Johnny Brown]

Can someone clarify what a belay/ ab station is and how it differs from a lower off please?

[shark]

Can someone clarify what a belay/ ab station is and how it differs from a lower off please?

Located somewhat back from the top of the route is my assumption if it’s to replace a former tree belay as opposed to something you clip at the top of the route to lower off.

[shark]

Fair enough, I just didn't want folk to walk into any unnecessary aggro!

Do you think it’s analogous to   Aldery?

[danm]

Fair enough, I just didn't want folk to walk into any unnecessary aggro!

Do you think it’s analogous to   Aldery?

No, there are significant differences between the 2 situations.

[kc]

Can someone clarify what a belay/ ab station is and how it differs from a lower off please?

In most situations they would be sufficiently inconvenient and set back from the edge hidden amongst ivy brambles wild rose and gorse with a sharp blocky muddy edge that you wouldn't want to run a loaded rope over.
 If an alternative tree like a Horthorn or natural rock placements can be found in close range and not behind a curtain of thorns then of course a bolted ab station may not be necessary.

[shark]

Ok. Another member of the squad agrees with Dan that it could be seen as pushing an agenda - which we really aren’t - it just seemed like a good idea for the specific instances cited above. I gather that persons unknown have installed one above Bitterfingers. No idea how long it’s been there. Also the tree for Wee Doris is dying.

Andy could you amend this to just having a general discussion by the Area on what, if anything, should be done about routes at Stoney for which now dead ash trees provide the belay (and potentially abseil retreat) where no other suitable natural anchors exist. If the Area would like bolted belay / ab stations (not lower offs) to replace the trees then PBF are willing to do the work.

[Fiend]

My concern would be that some people might conflate this as bolters wanting to place bolts on trad crags.

Yeah, leave that to Yorkshire and Llandudno where it's actually happening......

Good discussion otherwise. Hammering out a suitable future-proofing plan for trying to preserve trad which has issues with top-outs and disintegrating trees etc etc is important.

[Bonjoy]

I can't make this area meeting. The proposal sounds good to me though. The question of alternative arrangements/equipment where ash trees have been used for belays and ab stations is one which is cropping up on many crags, particularly on limestone. The suggested work at Stoney sounds proportional and necessary to me. It sounds like alternatives have been considered and that bolted ab stations are the lowest impact and most sustainable solution in the circumstances. Hopefully the meeting will confirm if this is the case. I'll discuss it with Dan afterwards if he's able to attend.

[Potash]

As someone who as been vociferously vocal in my opposition to bolts and pegbolts on adventurous trad climbing areas in the UK I'd like to express my support making peak limestone trad routes as accessible as possible, short of adding fixed protection gear to the actual climbing.

I am ambivalent about loweroffs vs belays. I know which would preserve the character of Oliver or Millionaires Touch the most and that would be inaccessible lower offs a meter below the cliff edge.

Certainly on predominantly sport crags it would make sense to put lower offs on the remaining trad routes.

[Johnny Brown]

Can someone clarify what a belay/ ab station is and how it differs from a lower off please?

In most situations they would be sufficiently inconvenient and set back from the edge hidden amongst ivy brambles wild rose and gorse with a sharp blocky muddy edge that you wouldn't want to run a loaded rope over.
If an alternative tree like a Hawthorn or natural rock placements can be found in close range and not behind a curtain of thorns then of course a bolted ab station may not be necessary.

Thanks Kris. I think I get the drift even if you've written that bolts would be deliberately placed to be inconvenient (e.g. behind thorns) whereas inconvenient extant natural placements (e.g. behind thorns) would suggest placing bolts.

I guess the key difference as opposed a lower-off is you'd have to a) top out and b) go looking for them.

I won't make the meeting and don't have too strong feelings about this location in particular, but can offer a few observations. Firstly, whenever anything changes the only suggested answer/ 'requirement' is always more bolts. Last time I did Bitter Fingers I didn't find it necessary to use the bolt belay; it is a replacement for a quick-clip previously offered by a convenient tree. Other anchors exist. Second, I'm not convinced the loss of an ash or two will mean a permanent lack of trees here. The timespan before other trees grow, (whether another species or disease resistant ash) may will likely be less than the lifespan of the bolts. If we put bolts in now I suspect rather than going back to trees we'll already have lower-offs. If you really want lower-offs it is easy enough to rig them as people often do.

[cheque]

Are stakes not an option?

Last time I climbed at Ravensdale with my mate who knows about trees he pointed out to me that all the trees you abseil off there are dieback-afflicted ashes. These would surely have to be replaced with stakes given the access there.

[kc]

Yes stakes are an option definitely because you can't bolt grass.
 I think every crag is going to be different. On Wildlife Trust land they would prefer no one top out at all. At High Tor the council would probably not be very keen on ropes crossing the footpaths or stakes creating a trip hazard.
No particular route at Stoney has been ear marked yet. It is just from quick observations about the trees. I plan to get out this week armed with secateurs and hut for natural alternatives before making any recommendations. And then others can go up and have a look for themselves before anything gets drilled.

[SA Chris]

These would surely have to be replaced with stakes given the access there.

Sounds like a high stakes game.

[petejh]

If there really was no other bomber option for a belay/ab point except for an Ash with dieback, then you could consider trialling peak-specific stealth anchors by cutting down the Ash, leaving a waist-height stump, drilling a 12mm hole vertically through the stump into the ground below, and resin in a 12mm stainless bar through the stump. Sling the tree stump with suitably old-looking rope and maillon to please the 'natural landscape' crowd and voila: a bomber and 'natural' ab anchor made of steel.

[kc]

How about a fat round wooden post with plastic branches postcreted into the ground.

[Bonjoy]

Stakes are an option. I wouldn't be surprised though if you had to use a big drill to get a decent placement on top of crags like Stoney where the soil is thin anywhere near close to the cragtop. At which point you have to wonder in what respect the stake is lower impact or 'more trad' than a bolt.

[Hydraulic Man]

The point of these bolt belays is not for trad climbers, it's to make it simpler to set top ropes up above Wee Doris and Cabbage.

I presume they would be set well back so you would need a spare rope as you normally do.

The trees are on the way out and currently in both locations lots of tat/static rope backing the trees up.

Any trad climber would sort a belay and you can walk off anyway.

[Neil F]

Did Om on Sunday and didn’t think much of the ash belay.  I then climbed the ash to escape the finishing ledge, so that probably contributed to my feeling of unease…   

It’s hard to know what you can trust with ash at the moment.

Neil

[kc]

The point of these bolt belays is not for trad climbers, it's to make it simpler to set top ropes up above Wee Doris and Cabbage.

Any trad climber would sort a belay and you can walk off anyway.

I wasn't approaching it from that angle but I know what you mean.
Without the routes being more popular or the introduction of wild goats someone will need to keep on top of the annual growth of rose and bramble so the leader can get back far enough to a living tree or somewhere to dig their heels in and also keep the descents clear.

[Hydraulic Man]

Totally agree with you Kristian.

It would be nice to see a few more climbers toshing in at Stoney and other crags keeping the veg down. The thorns at the top of Stoney are bad nowadays.

Plenty of retirees at Stoney nowadays who should be lending a hand.....

[reeve]

Andy could you amend this to just having a general discussion by the Area on what, if anything, should be done about routes at Stoney for which now dead ash trees provide the belay (and potentially abseil retreat) where no other suitable natural anchors exist. If the Area would like bolted belay / ab stations (not lower offs) to replace the trees then PBF are willing to do the work.

Sorry I'm a bit late replying to this - I've been away.

I'm going to add it to the agenda as a discussion about these specific examples - suggested by Kristian as an individual (who happens to have access to kit from the bolt fund) but not a proposal by the bolt fund per se.

Thinking ahead, this is clearly going to be a recurring issue in the White Peak and so I'm going to guage the general opinion and for a future meeting I would like to draw up a suggested criteria or decision tree for how activists could go about deciding what type of fixed gear (if any) would make a suitable replacement on a case-by-case basis. Obviously I'd like broader input in to this, and for it to be open for discussion before being ratified by consensus, but I'll leave that musing for after the meeting.

[shark]

Cool - as long as Kristian is ok with that

[Johnny Brown]

Had an hour on the mini-traxion here on Tuesday. I agree with Hydraulic man's assessment; these are not trad belays they are top rope anchors.

The trees seem ok for now and I don't think anything needs doing urgently. There aren't loads of obvious gear placements is a crack for small wires by the right hand tree (climber's right).

I won't make the meeting due to friends 50th, but my thoughts are:

It does need discussing, but I think any action should wait until there is a problem, i.e the belay becomes unsafe. The current belay has a load of in-situ rope linking trees. Some of the trees are quite a way back so given we don't know how the individual trees will survive I don't think we need proactive action which assumes they will all die, rot and disappear.

Ideally folk might not leave so much tat in-situ but for me a load of tat is preferable to bolts. Given only climbers will visit the belay ledge, and nothing is visible from the ground, for me the ethics trump the aesthetics here. Anyone claiming aesthetic considerations should be primary here should turn around and look at the substation for a bit. But the same is true of the Scoop Wall belay; there are no issues with topping out or visibility of tat so ethical considerations should prevail.

If ALL the trees do disappear, I think placing a few new pegs should be considered before bolting. As I said above, the dieback is unlikely to be permanent on the timescale that bolts are permanent. Many of the routes already have legacy pegs; generally none have bolts. Bolting blank rock on trad crags should be an absolute last resort.

[spidermonkey09]

If ALL the trees do disappear, I think placing a few new pegs should be considered before bolting. As I said above, the dieback is unlikely to be permanent on the timescale that bolts are permanent. Many of the routes already have legacy pegs; generally none have bolts. Bolting blank rock on trad crags should be an absolute last resort.

I think placing new pegs of any kind, but especially where there were none previously, is far more retrograde than a bolted belay/ab station. I've got no problem with tat but I find the idea that we should just wait and see if the trees die, when we know that dieback means they can fail very suddenly and without any warning, a bit odd. Its not Glen Nevis after all, its a bit of Stoney Middleton above a substation.

[Johnny Brown]

especially where there were none previously

There are lots of pegs in Electric Quarry. I haven't spotted any bolts.

they can fail very suddenly and without any warning

You have to visit the trees to rig the belay, you can give them a good tug and make an assessment. You make it sound like they could spontaneously explode at any moment. Assessing the gear is a key part of trad climbing. Clipping a bolt belay isn't.

far more retrograde than a bolted belay/

Interesting idea, how so? I can only imagine you think this because we've become far more used to placing new bolts willy nilly? Or perhaps because sea-cliff corrosion issues have contributed to a general idea that pegs are bad, or the general conflation of all fixed gear as the same ethically dubious compromise? I don't agree. Pegs require a natural placement, and the climber to make their own assessment of safety.

[spidermonkey09]

I mean pegs should only go in, if at all, on a like for like basis.

I get what you're saying about trad climbing and gear assessment but it just feels a bit forced to me. I know they're not going to spontaneously combust but trad climbing is not richer for worrying all the time about whether the ash you've belayed to is rotten inside. I have used the ab station above bitterfingers and thought it was a good idea. I think these suggested are a good idea too. I get where you're coming from but can't see an issue here. Obviously that's the point of debating it!

[Bonjoy]

I've been looking into the ash dieback question a bit and I don't think it's very likely that okay looking trees might actually be seriously weak and prone to failure.
Authorities like NT don't clear fell all ash trees even in areas of very high public use. The threshold they use for mature trees is over 50% loss of crown (only evident when leaves are out) or the presence of severe basal lesions. Basal lesions are disease infection from the base up. The disease itself affects the bark and leaves. The problem with these lesions is that they allow secondary infection with honey fungus, which eats into the main wood itself and it's this secondary infection which will cause the tree to fall over in time. So based on this, if there is less than 50% crown loss and no significant basal lesions it seems premature to treat a tree as inherently unsafe. Obviously caveats and other considerations apply.

[kc]

This morning I had a good look around the some of the belay trees above the following areas: Electric Quarry, Carl's Wark, Minus Ten, Wee Doris, Windy & Garage Buttresses. Just to be brief because I have taken a fare number of photos and notes. The only area that concerns me immediately is the Ash above Boat Pushers wall in the Wee Doris bay. There is a dead looking one on the lip and a very unhealthy one further back and a few more above Medusa in better condition. All of these have fixed rope around them. There are also several small Hawthorn saplings. Luckily there is ample natural protection available (hidden behind moss and ivy) in the step behind the trees so bolts or pegs would not be necessary at all in this area. I do think an effort should be made at least to remove the dead tree on the lip and the tat on all the Ash and dig out some gear placements and then monitor the demise of the remaining trees. By removing the tat people will more likely make a fresh assessment of the trees health.
Carls Wark is 50/50 Ash and Hawthorn so there is no issue there.
Windy and Garage do have some Ash belays but there is a wider range of species than in the other areas and a good selection of multi stemmed hazel clusters. Scoop Wall tree is not an Ash. The only thing that needs doing in this area is to move the fixed belay ropes from the Ash to the other species.
Electric quarry left side has a rats nest of ropes tied back to 7 Ash and 1 other. There is no immediate fear here just because of the numbers but this will change. There are a few gear placements but the angles are not great. I think possibly just a minimum number of bolts up here if placed far enough back in the optimum place could serve multiple routes.
On the right hand side of the quarry Damocles has a steep bramble infested grass slope leading to a lone Ash. Maybe a stake is the only option here. The tree at the top of John Peel is definitely on the way out and the little layered rock ledges above don't offer any reliable protection bolted or otherwise. There is a hawthorn someway back that could offer a hand line to assist the leader to push up through the thorns to find a fixing or and a stake.

[Mike Tyson]

Ash dieback is a real bugger. I’ve spent the vast majority of my time since I set my little forestry business up dealing with it. There are very obvious signs that a tree is suffering from it, as has been mentioned. However, we have felled trees that appeared fine, but we’re far from it. I would strongly advise everyone treats it seriously (which it looks like it is!) and is very wary of it. The structural integrity of the trees becomes highly compromised. Things to look for are loss of leaf cover, the trees holding onto their keys, brittle branches, lots of reactionary growth on the trees, by this I mean lots of small branches all over the trees, and we’ve noticed an orange staining on the trees up here too. It’s is literally in every part of the country, and the landscape will be very different in the next decade, a lot like what Dutch elm disease did way back when.

I was recently reliably informed that the forestry commission and the MOD have pretty much outlawed climbing any ash on any of their sites (I mean climbing to remove the tree) as the liability is too great. You’ll notice the National Trust, Woodland Trust and many other larger organisations/charities as well as local authorities, highways agency etc all simply do not have the resources or budget to remove all the infected ash. They will remove the ones highest risk i.e close to footpaths etc, but even that is taking an extremely long time to implement. Ash dieback works fast, so a tree can go from passable to dangerous in not much time at all. I’ll link below a BBC news article that is pretty good at summarising the problems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60929266

[Bonjoy]

Anyone interested in a deeper dive into the subject I'd recomend this Forestry Commision webinar, especially the first speaker.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zXA8SFuhSTs&t=54s&pp=ygUUYXNoIGRpZWJhY2sgZm9yZXN0cnk%3D

[reeve]

Just a reminder that the meeting in Bamford is tonight. Gathering in the Anglers Rest from 6.30pm, moving over to the village institute (just over the road) for chips at 7.15pm