[Bonjoy]

Oh, and you gave Wad to Somebody's Fool for E7 ground up...

I most certainly did not sir. He wadded me, with a dismissive remark regard the E grade I might add!  http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php?action=viewkarma;start=200 You can have your spanked ass back 

Forecast is looking poo again for Sat now.

UTG - I'm having a week bouldering up on Yorks grit 24th-31st. Staying in Pately Bridge. Pheonix Wall is number two (after a very tasty project) on my to-do list. Come join us if you get a chance. 

[jfw]

Oh, and you gave Wad to Somebody's Fool for E7 ground up...

I most certainly did not sir. 

twas me! with tongue firmly in cheek!

this thread started off with good debate - two valid view points well put forward - then all got a bit

[AndiT]

this thread started off with good debate - two valid view points well put forward - then all got a bit

I know, quality wasn't it. Food for thought and something to mull over and maybe might bring about a few second thoughts next time someone considers moving a 'death block'. Ho hum. See what the weather brings, had a lovely afternoon today anyway.

[Johnny Brown]

Has anyone else actually climbed it since JB's reportage (07/02/07) - or are the floodgates still to be breached?

Well I've done it twice since, BB Guns has also done it. Both times we've had to dry the wet streak off, a good breeze and it soon dries off. It is a corker.

It is undoubtedly the hottest tick in the peak right now, everyone I know is heading there on saturday if its dry. Best get there early before Andi throws the landing down the hill though...

[AndiT]

The landing will look the same, but when you fall on it it'll crumple into a big hole full of shitty sticks put there by Shaz. You've been warned.

[Johnny Brown]

No so clever Andi, for that to happen, I'd have to fall. Shame on you, your naive plan will cripple some poor innocent.

[a dense loner]

the shitty sticks put across the bottom of another problem getting a fair bit of attention looked like they'd do the trick today. if just for jims come back to bed pose

[AndiT]

If they're innocent they'll be expecting E5, so come what may.

[Percy B]

Seven pages?!?! You are fucking joking, surely? I thought this was a discussion on the type of block paving I should get for our drive....
Back on topic, I have nothing but admiration for the patio builders. I rarely have any excess energy at the crag for building stuff (although Mike Lea is pretty handy - a regular Alan Titchmarsh that one. Maybe that's why he's so short - carrying all them heavy rocks about!) However, I do like falling off onto a sensitively landscaped landing. Those who want to do it, push on I say, but make sure its necessary and doesn't look shit or you'll get places banned. Personally, I always try and use pads to sort out landings. It works pretty well and doesn't require so much effort. I haven't found many landings I couldn't pad out safely - ask Gaz Fatchimp Parry.... He was lobbing of Big Air repeatedly once we'd attended to the landing with 5 or 6 pads. Bouldering and highballing is something I like doing - breaking myself isn't. There are always exceptions that prove the rule - TAOWHW being the obvious one as there wasn't ever going to be enough pads up there to sort that landing out. Charlotte Rampling (E6 6b) at Gardoms is another case in point. E6 before the horrific block under the landing was trundled, and E6 afterwards. You're still fucked if you blow it, but you might be less likely to be really broken/dead now the block has gone. No patio or pad nest will make much improvement to things if you drop the holds at the top! Routes are routes - Boulder problems are buolder problems. I would still say that routes like Ulysses are routes even if you boulder them out with loads of pads. It is possible (even likely) to really nail yourself falling onto pads if you come off high enough, or don't land well. Apparently, climbing is dangerous...apparently...

[saltbeef]

nice one percy. i agree completely. yeah pads can hurt. i saw some guy bail off paseidon adventure repeatedly until his ankles blew apart (interesting choice). anyway consider yourself wadded. I'd be impossible if i heaven forbid properly hurt myself climbing, i'm bad enough with a tweaked pinky. anyway, its somewhat unlikely as I'm always at work when its nice. i'm working sunday so I'd suggest you get out then.

[slackline]

/via @moonclimbing

[andy_e]

On wandering past Pistol Whip at the cliff the other day, it's clear that the landing is eroding quickly due to the amount of foot-traffic the corridor gets. One obvious solution to prevent further erosion and flatten out the landing so it's a bit more like it used to be would be to patio and step the landing. However, there are a few issues with this.

1. It's a frequently used walkway. Would a patio make access easier and prevent further erosion? My thoughts would be yes, especially if steps building up to the patio were built too.

2. Stability. Is it difficult to build a stable patio? Would repeated wear and tear degenerate it quickly, given that hundreds of tourists/climbers a week walk up that corridor?

3. Material source. There's not a lot of loose rock around at the cliff any more. Where could materials be sourced from, at no cost?

4. Legal issues. Who owns the cliff? Would we have permission to build a patio? If someone rolls their ankle on a collapsing patio, who's in the shit then?

5. Aesthetics. Linked to 3 I guess. A rock patio would look unnatural, but, in its current state, a horrendously eroded channel arguably looks worse.

The other option is to do nothing and that it becomes increasingly highball and an increasingly worse landing, therefore putting people off this excellent challenge.

Thoughts?

[Will Hunt]

Patioing that landing could be really difficult for all the reasons you mention (particularly permissions, materials, and availability of labour). If you wanted to return it to natural then the landing would be sloping and then perhaps not an improvement for climber. At least now the landing just needs a ton of pads shoving in it and its all nice and level. Stepped would probably look a bit shit and would be a lot of effort for two problems.

At the moment it isn't too hard to try Pistol Whip as there are normally plenty of people at the Cliff and you can generally rally a few of them to chuck their pads into the pit and make it nice. I can imagine trying to do the same for Making Shapes is harder as it is within the reach of fewer people. The real problem will come with the inevitable worsening of the problem.

Whatever you want to do, the way to do it is definitely to get it raised with the local BMC access rep. The simplest solution to worsening damage would be to signpost people away from that gully to reduce the numbers of people using it as a thoroughfare. If the BMC could agree with the farmer to a birdban type sign at each entrance then that might curb the erosion somewhat. Its in the interest of the farmer too as, presently, there's a bit of his field which is vanishing!

[Johnny Brown]

I've only been to the 'cliff a couple of times in the last ten years, but I had noticed things had got worse. And Andy says, this is primarily a footpath erosion problem. Signposting folk away will at best slow further erosion, it is unlikely to stop it and will not repair it. At the Plantation we got a load of grit hardcore (sacks of crushed rock, not a Will Ackers DJ set). It is far from perfect but is a big improvement - effectively the erosion clock has been wound back ten years, ongoing erosion has been lessened and the vegetation is slowly encroaching back. It's not easy though, ideally you'd want some bigger rocks to form a foundation, and with any bare ground the water will still run off somewhere so you have to try to direct it. Plus you have to overcome your natural desire to only climb in a purely found environment and incur the disdain of ex-York climbers.

[Fiend]

Nice namecheck but he does more house and breakbeat I thought??

[El Mocho]

Nice namecheck but he does more is stuck in his house and because he breaksbfeet I thought??

Think a patio here might be a little in your face. As said the erosion is mostly from the hundreds of walkers going along here, if they all had to shuffle round some man made patio I don't think it would give a great impression and I imagine it would be really hard to make it look natural. Just chuck loads of pads under it?

[Fiend]

Yeah that is a point how did the lanky fisherman break himself??

[andy_e]

He went climbing.

Yeah, my thoughts were to incorporate the patio into the path, hence the steps, then people wouldn't have to walk around it. The problem is going to be that you'll need more and more pads over time as the channel gets deeper and erodes further up the corridor.

[Will Hunt]

If the BMC are prepared to chuck some money at it and round up a gang of volunteers then its a great idea. Fill in the hole with an appropriate substance and hope it sticks! Definitely needs organising through the BMC though as they may be able to provide funds, expertise, and liaison with the farmer.

The hole is manageable as it is now but it will continue to get worse.

[Johnny Brown]

At Stanage the BMC arranged for some hardcore to be dumped in the car park. It was then up to volunteers to carry it up the hill and do the work.

[tomtom]

Talk to the farmer (over the road from that end of the crag). He's a nice fella - and as long as it's not getting in the way of his cattle or sheep probably won't mind.

Even better would be to organise a bit of a day to tidy things up - repair the odd wall etc.. Sure he'd be appreciative of any help that way (under his direction I'd suggest). I've had a couple of chats with him as he rather resignedly repairs walls kicked over by chavs etc...

Anyway. I hope you were only going for a stroll around the cliff this time of year... Only just September yknow...

[Fiend]

BUMP for Dan C.....

[Fiend]

Summon the Pontificators.

I was exploring Fontainefawr in West Snowdonia recently, described in the book as "Please keep the noise down and leave no trace as the blocks lie on the edge of a nature reserve".

This is a somewhat interesting area of tumbling granite blocs, most of which don't actually have landings. To compensate for this and somehow pretend it's a feasible bouldering location, there is now a grand total of two solidly constructed decking platforms (fenceposts driven into the ground and 2-by-4 nailed wedged into gaps and nailed across them), one branch/log built platform, and six pallets patioing out a stream area. Given it's tucked away deep in the woods I doubt this is going to offend any passers by, but once the leaves are down it's probably visible on Google Maps.

It doesn't bother me personally, except for the fact that most of the comfortisation is useless for the high 6s I might be capable of (one of which half of you would land on the decking and the other half would continue nearly 2m down onto lumpy boulders), but it is an interesting interpretation of "leave no trace".

[Sasquatch]

wow...

Scroll down and check out the image of "The Engineer" in The Cascades. cool problem, but a massive wood patio was built which has since fallen apart and been rebuilt and fallen apart again...

https://www.climbing.com/places/the-classic-25-americas-best-boulder-problems/

[Mr E S Capegoat]

So I had a quick toppy on slab n crack yesterday amid the masses of PaD parTy sendtrainers. Anyway I was thinking it’s not to bad up to the first gear which is reasonable as long as the rock holds. The thing that bothers me is the landing. Otherwise reasonably flat apart from an old tv sized block right in the landing zone. It wouldn’t take much to trundle it to one side and fashion a a ‘varian style’ patio out of available raw materials and possibly a couple of ‘lakes style’ wooden pallets followed by a ‘life on hold’ style bouldering PaD mountain - at least 8 maxi pads to safe-ify the landing. This would bring the first half down to highball font 6C/+, (v5 or B0 in new money) with the gear already in place from a previous ascension-ist and solid beta combined with B1-2 ability a ‘flash’ could be on the cards. Regardless I feel any ascent in this style would be representative of a moral  and ethical leap in standards. With any resorting to ‘good old headpointing’ regarded as regressive and retrograde. My vote is for shifting that block in keeping with the ‘zeitgeist’ whatever that means. What’s the consensus?