UKC

According to the winter conditions page this was climbed three times on the 30th. I was about half a mile away on that day and the ground was quite clearly not frozen even at 8am. When will people learn not to destroy the turf on winter routes by climbing them when clearly not in condition?

In reply to nigel n:

I guess it's hard to judge the manner in which they were climbed and whether any turf was damaged at all. However, surely there's a record in the logbooks of who did those ascents, so have you put this question to them directly?

In reply to nigel n:

Half a mile away where? The only sure way of knowing whether turf would be frozen would be to go on it, the face has a microclimate. I was thinking of going up myself as conditions looked promising. The ground was frozen the same morning at similar elevations and aspects on the eastern edges.

In reply to nigel n:

I went up on the 30th at about 3:30/4:00 am and the ground was definitely not frozen at the base of the gully so we decided not to try climbing it and walked out again. Everything was very soft and muddy on the approach with barely a frost.

In reply to Adam Long:

Same altitude and aspect. We've all climbed routes when not in condition I'm sure but why would someone want to publicise it on a forum?

In reply to nigel n:

Fair point. Surprised it wasn't frozen though, the morning the day before was a really hard frost. Inversion maybe.

In reply to nigel n:
N the lakes the ground was frozen solid in the valleys throughout the Christmas period. The problem was the higher you got the less frozen it became with the hard ground frosts we had it made me optimistic but didn't find anything to climb and was out for 6 out of 9 days looking.

In reply to nigel n:

I've climbed routes in the past when the turf hasnt been frozen because there has been enough snow that I'm no where near the turf. I was in france over New Year so no idea how much snow you got in Derbyshire but judging by the pictures I've seen of Sheffield it was probably quite a lot. I can't comment on whether or not it was in condition but just because it wasn't frozen else where doesn't rule it out.

In reply to Somerset swede basher:
We went up on the monday, there wasn't much (as in hardy any in the gully ) snow on it compared to the rest of the peak, or indeed the rest of back tor, and it was just frozen enough near the top but not really at the bottom, but once above the steepish pull at the start it was wiser to carry on than try and down climb.

It was thawing quickly by the time we got to the car so wasn't surpised it would be properly thawed by the tuesday a.m. In fact I recall we commented that we wouldnt want to climb it any later than we did.

finally, I can't think that back tor would ever suffer from a lack of turf through people pulling it off climbing!