UKC

Went to Hodge Close today and horrified to see an outdoor group abseiling down the loose wall above arch where the diving board used to be. There were people hanging around at the bottom in the fall line on the ab and lots of loose rock on ledges on the way down that could be kicked off. I went over and explained to the instructor why I thought what was going on was dangerous and that i thought that he should move to a safer area of the quarry. He seemed to acknowledge my concern, but wasn't prepared to move. To cut a long story short, we got into quite a heated argument (during which some big rocks were knocked off by some of the abseilers) and eventually the instructor agreed to move the group to a safer area.

The group was doing a charity abseil for the charity Streetwise and the instructor was called Steve from Keswick.

Even though it is blatantly obvious that the back wall of Hodge is not a good place to take an group abseiling, if instructors are going to be this incompetent, should the bmc not make it more clear that this is not a good place to abseil? Maybe a sign at the top?

Hopefully won't see this sort of thing happening again.

In reply to Pete Graham: I used to use thhat spot regularly years ago until the rockfall. In my opinion, its now an accident waiting to happen and the instructor doesnt need to be a genius to see the objective dangers.

Thats a very scary story youve just posted and thank God no one got injured.

If the guy was from Keswick you would think he would have local knowledge.

In reply to David Hooper:

"From Keswick" could quite easily be "just moved there from the Big Smoke" or something such.

In reply to Pete Graham:

Looks like this one:

http://www.streetwiseproject.com/2012/03/08/sponsored-abseil-30th-june-2012...

In reply to Pete Graham:

Looking at the link - they run 'the 3 peaks too', so poor at site risk assessment and environmentaly unfriendly........

In reply to Howard J:
Streetwise but not crag or quarry wise.

A bit of background info. The back wall of hodge used to be relatively stable and well used by groups for a full rope length abseil to the old diving board. Since the mid 1990's there have been several major rockfalls.
The largest (estimated 4000 tonnes ) took out the diving board and put a tidal wave onto the car park 60 m higher and 200 m away!
AFAIK all local outdoor education centres give it a wide berth.
There is still a lot of unstable debris poised to fall onto both the abseiler and climbers/divers below.

Bonatti Pillar anybody?

In reply to Rick Graham: about 20 years ago I bivvied with a group in the huge cavern just off the divers' access tunnel (the one above the fixed ladder opposite the big arch). A few months later the whole cavern had collapsed. I don't trust slate .....

In reply to Pete Graham:

The link from there points to the following organisers:

http://www.verticalevents.co.uk/

"Our directors John Austin and Alan Barnes have extensive experience having both owned and managed outdoor centres in The Lake District National Park" Makes you wonder if they are doing a Bob Diamond (not knowing what the underlings are up to). Might be worth writing to them and also putting this on the BMC Lakes area meet agenda?