[Percy B]

Just to let everybody know, Graham Hoey has done a fantastic job of resurrecting Mortlocks Arete on Chee Tor from obscurity by unearthing it from under the best part of 10 years worth of vegetation (especially the top pitch, which no-one can have done for donkeys). The belays have been sorted, rock cleaned and plantlife removed so that we can all go and climb what Graham describes as the best two pitch E4 on Peak limestone. A great job on this brilliant route, so now its clean again go and do it and hopefully it will stay clean for everybody to enjoy once again. First pitch is strenuous, second is technical - a brilliant combination. Many thanks must go to Graham for this work - two days of effort to get this route back from oblivion! Nice one.

[andy popp]

Respect.

[Fiend]

Excellent stuff, much respect to Graham.

[TobyD]

cheers to Graham - enjoyed first pitch today - it's awesome... as is Chee Tor in general; get yourselves down there.

[Johnny Brown]

Good effort, though I did the top pitch a couple of years back and didn't notice it being overgrown, just unpopular. Chee Tor could do with a renaissance before it gets turned into a sport crag.

[Bonjoy]

Good work that man. Have done the route twice, but not in the last three years, fantastic outing!

Chee Tor could do with a renaissance before it gets turned into a sport crag.

Climbed there earlier this year and have never seen it so busy.
"Turned into a sport crag", what are you talking about man?!  I could go into the reasons why this is utter rubbish, but I can’t muster the energy to go that far beyond my boredom threshold

[Johnny Brown]

That's great. If its so popular why was the most popular E4 in such a state?

Henry was asking if the retrobolted routes at either end are likely to remain so? He is very much for removing the bolts.

[andy popp]

What's been retro'd? There was always a little bit of room for bolting at Chee Tor (I've even bolted there myself) on the Ogre and Tequila walls and at spots on the upper tier. The crag even has a brilliant bolted but bold route (Laughing) - a style of development that in most cases is contrived and dissatisfying. At the same time great trad routes were still being found in the 90s, e.g. Seb's E6 up the right arete of Ceramic. Have realized this is looking like a case for bolting; it isn't but that doesn't mean the crag needs to be or ever has been entirely bolt free.

[fatboySlimfast]

If its so popular why was the most popular E4 in such a state?

This is an interesting point with regard to the state of some of the fixed gear, White gold last year was unclimable due to how dirty it was but also how shit the once suspicious(they did hold my frame back in '88 though) golo's now are. So do we leave it to occasional overly keen E6 leaders to risk, change the golos(highly unlikey you could do this) or put a bolt in.
Now I am not suggesting bolting, all I am doing is re-itterating comments that were made 20 years ago on the same topic by myself and others climbing down at chee tor, Ie the fixed gear was on the way out, what happens in the future to routes who rely on this type of gear. The Myrmidon to the right has a drilled peg doesnt it?

[Bonjoy]

There aren't heaps of people doing stuff over E3. Climbing a route is not the same as cleaning one. One ascent doesn't do a great deal to remove veg. Climbers are constantly told to leave crag vegetaion untouched, so it's no wonder Chee Tor looks so green. Perhaps guides should encourage people to remove veg from routes they do and/or take time to abseil and clean less popular things.
Henry mentioned new bolts near Doggone Groove to me when I saw him there a month or so back. I think he is mistaken and these bolts were placed years back. There is nothing at the other end of the crag to my knowledge (there certainly wasn't a month back). Could you be more specific, which routes have been retroed?
The existing sport/semi sport routes there all have old bolts. No re-bolting let alone retro bolting has occured there for years as far as I can tell.
Far from becoming a sport crag I suspect Chee Tor will revert to being a totally trad crag as I get the impression that the BMC are against re-equiping the existing sport routes, despite stuff like Boo and the Ogre being pretty classic and better suited to sport climbing than trad (unless limestone headpointing suddenly becomes popular).

[tc]

That's great. If its so popular why was the most popular E4 in such a state?

Coz everyone is out bouldering these days. Up here in the Lakes, many of the classic extremes on cliffs like the East Buttress of Pavey, Gable Crag etc are in a dreadful state. They're soon going to be lost forever if they don't get some traffic.

[SA Chris]

forever? That's a mighty long time.

[dave]

my guess is "forever" translates as "as long as it takes someone to be arsed to go and clean them again". So thats probably a fair bit sooner than forever.

[paul hesketh]

in reply to all:

its great that someone has cleaned MA up, i did it 10 years or so ago and i don't remember vegetation being an issue

white gold was different, always abit dusty though vegetation was again never an issue, the golos were hard to trust but then if i had been sufficiently worried one might fail i would have replaced them

has anything actually been retroed? or are there plans to retro?

ste_d logged in as ph

[Bonjoy]

Like I say I don't know of any retro bolting or plans to that effect. I'd like to know if anyone else has other info

[tc]

There is simply too much to clean and too few people interested in cleaning (and climbing) multi-pitch trad on mountain cliffs. Unless the route is a three star classic sub-VS or easily accessible (i.e. 10 minutes from the road) no one seems to want to know. The (relatively) new Gable guide, for example, gives out plenty of stars to some of the old classics. In fact, in their current vegetated state they are worth no stars at all.
The other thing I've noticed in recent years (fetches pipe and slippers) is that the average age of the guys who are out doing trad routes seems to have increased dramatically. My estimate: 40-ish. In other words, the same people who were climbing trad 20 years and more ago. Which begs the question: where are all the young kids climbing? They can't all be at Woodwell and the Bowderstone, surely?

[Bonjoy]

That's great. If its so popular why was the most popular E4 in such a state?

Henry was asking if the retrobolted routes at either end are likely to remain so? He is very much for removing the bolts.

If these do turn out to be retro bolted routes I'll be happy to help Henry remove them.

[paul hesketh]

in reply to Bonjoy:

me too

i'd be surprised if MA was in 'such a state' to be honest

does anyone have some up to date info on what state (i.e. vegetation) MA was in prior to the cleaning?

[fatboySlimfast]

Last year the bottom pitch looked ok...however the other routes near it were very dusty, veggie and gear placements full of plants and spiders. It was like on-sighting but with polished holds!

[abarro81]

where are all the young kids climbing?

They/we are all:
a) Robbing you whilst you're at work.
b) Mugging you mother whilst wearing hoodies and filming it.
c) Taking your hard earned taxes as benefit and spending it on crack. (wait, sorry, getting confused.. that's the immigrants isn't it. so hard to keep up with these steroetypes..)

I don't believe that there aren't yoofs out there doing trad, largely because almost all of the people I climb with are sub-25 and 90% of them climb as much trad as anything else. The lakes aint in fasion though - and nor is peak lime - it's pembroke and north wales that seem to get people more fired up... Largely a question of getting psyched for stuff you know more about I think.

[tc]

I work from home and have a big dog
My mother is well hard
I fiddle my taxes to pay for my own drugs

[SA Chris]

What I meant was that the wheel turns. Who knows what will happen in the next wave? loads of mountain routes go through cycles of minging / clean / climbed / minging depending on the weather / season / activists / enthusiasm / trends at the time.

[tc]

...it's pembroke and north wales that seem to get people more fired up...
[/quote]

Maybe. But where in North Wales are you getting your trad fix? The last time I was driving up the Pass there were a few teams on the usual Cromlech suspects like The Gates, Left Wall etc, a couple of parties on easy stuff on the Mot and Carreg Wastad and what appeared to be the rest of the UK's climbing population on the boulders. This is great for bouldering, not so great for the big crags like Cloggy and Cyrn Las and sadly neglected places like the Central Park Wall at Gogarth.

[Fiend]

The lakes aint in fasion though - and nor is peak lime - it's pembroke and north wales that seem to get people more fired up... Largely a question of getting psyched for stuff you know is soft touch

 

[andy_e]

Most of the youths I know are all into trad and are comfortable bumbling along at HVS, there's only a few people in the Leeds Uni club who only boulder (in fact, I can't think of any now that I'm not in it any more) and it's the same with the climbers at the school I used to go to.

[andy popp]

Going  back to what Bonjoy said I can't believe there should be any resistance to re-equipping Boo, the Ogre etc. This wouldn't lead to wholesale retroing of established trad routes. The sport and trad have co-existed happily at Chee Tor for years. For what its worth the bolts on Boobs should be fine. I (think I) did a good job on this.

[Houdini]

Just to chip in here but when re-bolting occurs do people over-drill allowing room to knock the old expansion bolt flush against the rock?

I despise the sight of threaded bar poking out, it's unacceptable.

[Bonjoy]

 Yes. That's a pet hate of mine too. It takes little extra effort to drill the added 3cm.

[Bonjoy]

As i've moved the original post to a new thread here's a copy of El Mocho's post (I don't know how to split posts but leave original post in place):

Good effort Graham, I keep thinking about going to clean routes down there but never get round to it. The last two times I have been down the things I tried were pretty bad (Autobahn - got up it by the skin of my teeth, and Midnight Summer Dream - failed) I did give M S D a clean afterwards so I think it is a climbable state now (the top was wet and dirty so I didn't climb that bit after cleaning)

I think the state of insitu gear is even more of an issue down in Pembroke and Cornwall as there is often a similar reliance on fixed gear which rots even quicker.

Maybe we need to start a cleaned/re-equiped thread:

Opium (great zawn, Bosi) is now clean(ish) and the pegs not replaced but unnecessary as they are easy to back up.

West face route (just to the L) pegs are stainless so in good condition and easy to back up (so maybe they should be taken out??)

[Percy B]

Just to chip in here but when re-bolting occurs do people over-drill allowing room to knock the old expansion bolt flush against the rock?

I despise the sight of threaded bar poking out, it's unacceptable.

Note to re-equippers - if the previous bolter has done this and you can't knock the bolts in, its pretty straight forward to snap the studs off by knocking them back and forth with a hammer until they break. They should break off flush with the rock leaving nothing sticking out. Most of the old bolts I've come across recently should probably snap off pretty easy (possibly just by hanging on them?!?!)
For the full service, take a spot of resin (presuming that you're replacing the old bolts with glue-ins) and fill the old hole to provide an 'invisible mend'!

I rarely venture onto Peak Lime until its become totally necessary, but I am constantly horrified by what I find. I belayed Sam on PUTP at the Tor the other day, and noticed that the lower-off is a single 1980's issue ring bolt. The route has new glue-ins, but the belay has not been replaced... which begs the question, WHY? Nobody should risk death lowering off one of the more famous routes at the Peaks 'premier' sport climbing cliff just because the lower-off failed! Its crazy.

As I mentioned before, I don't climb on Peak lime very much but next time I go out I will take a drill, and big brush and some new bolts to do my bit to improve the situation. My theory is that if you try a route and you notice that the in-situ gear is shit or the route is dirty, you should sort it out so that the next people to try it have a better experience. If a few more people did this, we wouldn't have a huge number of amazingly good routes reverting back to a filthy state 'cos nobody can climb them. I know that many posters on UKB already do sterling work fixing routes back up again, and maybe I'd be better off ranting at the people on UKC, but then again I wouldn't want to unleash a thousand drill wielding UKC'ers into the Peak to sort re-equipping out....could be a recipe for disaster!

[dave]

Perc, the cockfax database has this on PUTP posted by Clemmow when he rebolted it:

New Resin Bolts. However the same old lower off
remains as the rock at the top is a large hollow
sheald! <sp!>

Since he knows what he's doing with bolting and probably placed about 300 new bolts in requipping virtually the whole crag I would recon he left that loweroff for a reason.

[Bonjoy]

Best way to get around that is to drill very deep holes, say 250mm, and resin fix a cut sections of 12mm stainless threaded bar, which can then take a hangers. I did this on a couple of routes at LTQ rather than have to place the finishing belays lower than the climbing warranted.

[Percy B]

The Clemmonator certainly knows how to replace bolts - of that there is no doubt, and he has done amazing work re-equipping Peak limestone. However, if the rock at the top of a route is suspect, why didn't he (or anybody else aware of this) re-position the lower-off in some good rock somewhere else? (eg: lower down on the route? The top bit is a formality anyway after the meat of the route below...) My point is that if you climb to the top of this route, currently your options are to down climb it and lower off the second bolt, or to trust a 30 year old ring bolt in a piece of rock that is known to be dodgy! I'm sure Sam would have been delighted to know what he was lowering off from when he stripped his draws out of the route the other day  
At the very least the lower-off should be taken out so that a nasty accident doesn't occur - if the bolt doesn't break, it sounds like it might stay in the large piece of rock that falls off the crag and smashes your skull in....

Does anybody have any thoughts on a position of a new belay?

[T_B]

FYI

I cleaned Tequila last weekend. It just needed a brush and the grass pulling out of it. Though the start might need a bit more attention as I wasn't entirely sure where the holds were

Planning the same treatment for Golden Mile.

Tom B

[Gareth Parry]

What sort of state is the ogre in?

[Johnny Brown]

Looked like ten minutes with a brush would sort it out. No idea how good the bolts are, sorry.

[Bonjoy]

 I think it is still sporting the original ring bolts.

[Gareth Parry]

Any idea if its dry at the moment?

[Johnny Brown]

Looked bone dry last week. Chee tor doesn't really seep like the cornice etc.

[Paz]

Climbers are constantly told to leave crag vegetaion untouched, so it's no wonder Chee Tor looks so green. Perhaps guides should encourage people to remove veg from routes they do

 

I've just been ignoring the guidebooks and the conservationists on that issue recently and ripping out every bit of Valerian, Ivy and Brambles that I come across that I can on route.  Otherwise down here we're just going to lose the crags.  We're a fickle lot.  Climbers really are that influenced by what they see, and the appearnaces of a route - they were getting put off a semi-classic E2 by a particularly flowery bit, even though that bit's about VS, on bomber nuts and you've got an Eco bolt to go for.  If they don't know that then you cna hardly blame them. 

I can identify the nationally rare stuff and leave it be, so if it's unidentifiable I only rip it out if it's clogging up an essential hold or gear placement.  It maybe takes 10 or 20 minutes extra per pitch.