[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.