UKC

The experts say 5 to 10 years of heavy summer rain is coming. The high UK crags could suffer as fewer climbers will go there because of the rain which will become ice and crack the rock. Then the mountain plants will arrive to further crack holds. Some of these plants are protected. It is easier to go to a indoor wall/ boulder/ roadside crag. The walks in will become more difficult. Whilst this heavy rain continues all the high crags will become more overgrown and the rain then ice will harm the crag. So then after 5/10 years climbers go back to doing what they did many years ago, gardening and banging in old stuff like channel pegs to replace the weeds. That is how The Lakes climbing started, but there were too many accusations of over use of protection, mainly from people who were safely doing later ascents on safer rock because of the cleaning already done and with access to good route descriptions. Assuming that all this rain happens,

In reply to mockerkin:
That really is a depressing way to look at it. Don't believe the 'experts'.

In reply to mockerkin:

I'm glad you're worrying about this for me. I think carring the weight of the future of high UK crags would crush me.

In reply to mockerkin: Been a slow day ?

Just get out and enjoy it when you can and remember that any day on the hill or crag, raining or sun shining, sure as hell beats the f*ck out of a day at work.

In reply to mockerkin:
Oh well, at least that means that limestone crags have 5/10 years of reduced polishing. Preserved for the keen and stupid 'til 2023!

In reply to mockerkin:

A hard rain's gonna fall you say?

In reply to mockerkin: Are these the same 'experts' that predicted Global Warming, now morphed into Climate Change?

In reply to Jim C: Long term it may still be Global Warming.

In reply to mockerkin:

So climb in the autumn through spring if its gonna rain in summer

In reply to mockerkin:
Are these the same experts that in the 90s were predicting an annual drought? It's very easy to be believed when you predict 10 years of whatever it's doing at the time.

In reply to Timmd:

Or the opposite!

Choose to believe whatever expertise you want, someone is bound to b right, I just hope it is the ones that have cost us billions already, if not , I am going to be a tad annoyed at all the subsidies I / we have been paying for naught.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-global...

In reply to mockerkin:

"*summer* rain... which will become ice"

No it won't. Even if it did, the relationship between total seasonal precipitation and the water content of voids and cracks is very complex. distribution of rainfall is much more important. Also, rare summer freezing is only going to be made rarer by warm humid conditions.

"Then the mountain plants will arrive..."

Are they going to grow in some magical soil that has been created in <5-10 years? It's good to know any damage we've already done is so easily reversible, although it does rather negate your punchline.

Good imagination though, you could probably make a Hollywood disaster movie out of a WI meeting.

In reply to mockerkin: So you're saying our adventurous mountain crags might become a bit more...adventurous? Perish the thought. And just think of the flora and fauna! It might have a chance to grow undisturbed by climbers, what a disaster that would be!

It's quite depressing how a nugget of very valid, interesting data can be put through a series of uninformed imaginatoria and come out with such definitive conclusions. The thing that's even more depressing is that, due to the complexity of the issues involved, refuting such claptrap* takes a considerable amount of effort.


*The journalism and proliferation thereof, not necessarily the research cited.

In reply to mockerkin: anything the "weather experts" predict, you can safely expect the exact opposite to happen! i have since went out & invested heavily in sun cream & beach balls!!
roll on record busting summers for the next 5-10 yr!!