UKC

I will be coming along to this provided I am not working on the day, but reading the description noted that

"Climbers wanting to help out should bring the usual gear for these sorts of events"

forgive my ignorance but what is the usual gear?

In reply to eschaton:

Often cakes!

In reply to Offwidth: Like the Offiwdth dude says, it means cake, but I have updated the info a bit to make things a bit clearer. Try this:
http://community.thebmc.co.uk/Event.aspx?id=2613

In reply to eschaton: Ok thankyou Martin, I shall start baking!

In reply to eschaton: Just a quick bump for this thread to remind everyone that the cleanup is happening this Saturday. Jobs for the day include cutting down trees on the quarry floor to open up the crag and encourage it to dry a little quicker, placing of new belay stakes along the top and cleaning routes.

Calderdale Council who own the site have been really positive about this project and want to encourage climbing here as much as possible. This is fantastic to see and quite a refreshing position from a landowner - the council would like this project to be used as a case study to show other councils and landowners how things can be done.

The Council are bringing a long some of their volunteers and the tools they have available but if you have anything along the lines of the follwing available it woulkd be great if you could bring it along: bow saws, gloves, sledgehammers/posting hammers, patio knives etc. Also dont forget to bring appropriate climbing gear to set up abseils if you want to get invovled with cleaning routes.

It would be great to get a good turn out of climbers on the day to demonstrate our keeness. We're meeting at 1030am at the bottom of the crag, but I'll be there from around 1000am. Cake will be provided and it should be a good day - see you all there!

Rob Dyer
BMC Access & Conservation Officer

In reply to Rob Dyer, BMC:

Can I just extend thanks to both Calderdale Council (Dave in particular!) and those that did turn up (I
guess everyone else was at Tremadoc, right?) and, of course Rob and the BMC for working with the council so well; providing the new stakes... and the new cakes!

The council's volunteers had already moved a lot of litter, and will be back to remove more - we removed and replaced the old stakes (there's a couple of scaffold pole ones that proved reluctant to move, so they'll be angle-ground back to ground-level, but the rest were fairly easy to take out!) Down in the quarry, the main focus was the under-utilised right-hand bay, so we cut back brambles, saplings and felled a couple of small birch trees plus one that had fallen across the path between the bays.

Can I ask if any of the local activists, especially those involved with the clearing and re-development of the right-hand bay of they want to strip ALL the mid-height ledge system of brambles and soil? It's a big job that'll need spades and quite a few people. Either contact myself via the forum or Rob Dyer (plus I believe you can post on the Yorkshire Area part of the BMC community site). The right-hand bay will only get better with more use and cleaning, so, please use and clean it! Does anyone local have any opinion on removing vegetation from the left-hand natural outcrop?

In general, can I ask that people who use this venue make an effort to keep the brambles down (at the base of the routes) and remove the litter that this place unfortunately accumulates (usually beer-cans and disposable BBQs).

Finally, this is a great example of the BMC, local climbers and the local council working together for everyone's benefit: long may this continue!

Cheers,

James

In reply to PontiusPirate:
Was a worthwhile day even though not too many people turned up; I went away with plenty of bramble scars (and a box of cakes!).

Difficult call on the right-hand bay routes, but it would be good to see them in better nick. Hopefully the new guidebook will present the bay in a better light to encourage more use.

The left-hand natural edges definately need clearing, again this would help improve traffic on the routes.

In reply to Alex Thompson: Have routes like Fairy Steps/Bull Crack/Fork Lightening etc. got dirty ? I have to admit it's a long time since I've been.

In reply to lummox: I took some turf & vegetation off the ledges & cracks on Fairy Steps, Curved Crack and Pulpit Route. Rob cut some bushes growing on the routes around rabbit ledge area.
The top sections of some of the routes were getting a bit grassy too, but generally the popular routes in the main bay are fairly clear anyway.

The council were all for promoting climbers at the crag, so would recommend you reacquaint yourself with the place!

In reply to Alex Thompson: Thanks for the work ! Will see if I can get a taker for a trip down south : )

In reply to PontiusPirate: Sorry i missed this clean up as i have been away.If there is still work to do,like the half height ledge or the left hand crag then i will have a day out there soonish and attack the bramblitis and weedolandia.There is a strange satisfaction in climbing something that has been reclaimed from the green munge.
K

In reply to lummox:

No they're fine. I must admit this is the first I've seen of this and would have come if I'd known but was somewhat surprised the main crag needed a clean-up. The Lower RHS was cleaned few years ago but that didn't really seem to make the routes more popular or attractive despite the immense effort put in

The terrible quarry further down the hill was excavated a while back for no good reason as far as I could see other than a few poor, loose routes with a few feet of climbing on them and a considerable loss of habitat including an owl nesting tree in one of the chimneys

In reply to Bulls Crack:

Just been for a walk don there out of interest and still somewhat puzzled. The few small trees/saplings cut down on the floor of the main quarry won't have the slightest affect of the face which isn't really affected by the remaining large trees much either - unless in absolute drying time I suppose. Only taking those out would make some slight difference and probably not worth it.

Good to see the Council taking an interest though so well done but there must be worthier candidates about!

In reply to Bulls Crack:
The Council chap said he was going to come back and chainsaw down some of the worse offenders.

The work in the quarry is still ongoing, he also said they are going to put some gates/warning signs on the footpath directly above the quarry, cut down the old belay "poles" and were keen for us to come back to carry out further work.

In reply to Alex Thompson:
I was there last night, should really have taken a yard brush to properly clean off some of the levels, shovel off the biggest clumps of soil and tug out the brambles on the rabbit ledge down climb...