UKC

An article in last week's English newspaper Costa Blanca News stated that local firemen are demanding tighter controls over people climbing in the area. A spokesman said that all climbers should be made to register with the local councils before they begin and when they finish their climb. The register should contain details of where the climb is to take place, the number of climbers, what time they expect to return and what safety equipment they are carrying.
This action is being demanded after a number of false alarm call-outs for the firemen recently when people left instructions about what they were going to do, but then changed their minds without telling anyone. The subsequent searches could have been avoided if the climbers in question had communicated their movements more responsibly.

UKC News - http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/

In reply to UKC News:

Surely this wopuld be difficult, if not impossible, to police.

In reply to UKC News:

Seems a bit badly thought out. If there is a problem with a few people not reporting accurately what they are doing, surely it would be worse with everybody doing it.

What about if NOBODY notifies their plans?

In reply to UKC News:

As me old mate Harry has said, this would be impossible to police.

Imagine turning up at a crag, having just registered all your details to find the routes you want to do stacked up with climbers waiting their turn, but knowing that a crag ten minutes down the road will be quieter....

Or, turning up with your mates, and deciding that you don't want to do the routes they want to do, and therefore decide to go your separate ways and meet up at the pub later on...

In either case, the details that you have just registered have changed and are inaccurate and useless to the fire department anyway.

Madness, I say, but I can also see the flip side of the coin, and understand where the authorities are coming from.

In reply to UKC News:

Maybe people can register what crag they are at via TXT, then the autorities have some idea on climber density etc, and TXT when off crag etc

In reply to UKC News:

The Crag-Cat at Sella takes not of whats going on!!

In reply to UKC News:

Shurely shum mistake. What happened to personal responsibility? Why not take time to check on people before bothering the brigade? Why not leave them to sort themselves out? Giving an indication of venue and ETR is sensible, but hardly cast in stone for reasons outlined in other letters.

The last time I was seriously overdue, we could have spent a comfy summer night out in the heather but struggled back so as not to face the ignominy of our mates coming to find us. In fact we found girlsfriend in bed, dinner dried up and no giving a damn. Only once have I been involved in a rescue of overdue folk - it was easy to ascertain roughly where they were as the car was found in a convenient layby.

Perhapos brain should be engaged before mouth?

In reply to BenP:

It was probably more the sort of article that was intended to highlight a problem rather than actually being a statement of intent. You can understand why it is frustrating from the rescue services point of view but, I agree, the proposed solution is completely unworkable.

In the forthcoming Costa Blanca Rockfax, we shall be very careful to inform people of the correct procedure when venturing onto the big mountain crags. I probably wouldn't have been so diligent in this were it not for this article, so in that sense, the article has had an effect.

Alan

In reply to Alan James, ROCKFAX:

I guess that even if climbers staying at the orange house were to tell the oranges that they were planning on climbing the Puig the next day then that in itself is a start. The only problem is, of course, not all climbers on the Puig stay here and also, as Ben said, those climbers could easily change their minds and go to another crag if the weather is looking a bit grim, or even head off for a meal after climbing and not tell anyone.

In reply to Alan James, ROCKFAX:
Hi Alan and everybody,

all of this problem comes because in the last few months happened some accidents and faulse alerts in the Benidorm area (Puig Campana, Sella, Ponoch, etc). Three british climbers in three weeks and falling down between 8 and 12 meters, and two false alerts at Puig Campana (one brits and the other spanish). All of taht in not much tahn two months. All of that could happen because there are more and more climbers in the areas. The accidents happened because the climbers really don't know the correct techniques to climb the routes and to descent, short ropes and don't know how to pass the rope by the ring's belay.

But the real problem is that all the firemen that participate in the rescues are from the Firedepartment of Benidorm and the major decides to protest because when happens an accident the middle of the firemen of Benidorm must to go to the accident. In that situation the town has the middle of firemen to control all the town with the problem that this carry.

All of that is a political movement to reclam more firemen at Benidorm, probably the next area will be the south of Alicante bacause it is happening the same that in Benidorm.

To control tha access it will be impossible.

Yours Sincerely

David Mora
Mountain Guide

In reply to Alan James, ROCKFAX:


I think this is an excellent move. I've noticed that there is a tendancy to treat mountain routes at sun-rock venues as extended valley crags rather than as bona fide mountain expeditions.

The silly thing is the same people probably wouldn't dream of heading for somewhere as relatively innocuous as Gimmer crag so badly prepared yet Costa Blanca has plenty of routes which compare with smaller Dolomite routes in seriousness.