UKC

BMC South-West Area has been running a review of the Avon Gorge Fixed Equipment Policy for several months. Following three rounds of consultation with the climbing community the first draft is now on public release at https://tinyurl.com/AvonFixedEquipmentPolicy. We expect that the policy will be discussed at the next South-West Area Meeting in early September (tba) and, all being well, the final draft will be voted on at the meeting after the BMC Area AGM in late November.

Comments are welcome before August 22nd; please email avongorgefixedgearpolicy@gmail.com.

Hi,

I was wondering why "safety" was not included in section 4 as a principle. Isn't that a strong principle reason to replace stuff as it decays? Just a thought.

All the best,

D

What sort of engagement have you had in the consultations with local climbers? Despite climbing a lot in the gorge and spending a lot of time on here I was only aware of the one meeting at the Nova Scotia a few weeks ago, which unfortunately I couldn't attend. 

Could you maybe do two things for me?

1) post the previous policy so that those who aren't in the know can see what has changed.

2) maybe explain what the access teams vision for the future of fixed gear is? I won't prejudice this with my own opinion at this stage as I'd like to know what the general feeling is... Of course I'm sure if I'd been at the Nova Scotia I would know, but I wasn't. Sorry!

While I know that this proposed policy is specific to the Avon Gorge, some of the proposals might need consideration in the light of more general precedent-setting. 2 specific points:

• 8g: There are trad routes with poor belays, where the seriousness of the situation is compounded by the belay, which is part of the overall route ambience. The Enchanted Broccoli Belay at Gogarth is possibly the most notorious example. Is it right that we should not require any justification from the access team for a change in a belay.
• 8h: What is the thinking behind the 25 year cutoff? Why does the time since the first ascent matter. There are a lot of still active climbers who did first ascents over 25 years ago. Mick Fowler. Johnny Dawes. Gary Gibson. Ron Fawcett.

Thanks for your point.

The key safety elements are that fixed gear is installed by experienced people using the best techniques and standards of the day, and I think that is well covered in this draft of the policy.

The initial call to all climbers for input was posted on the UKC forums on 09 Mar 2023. https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/crag_access/avon_gorge_fixed_equipment_po...? The reasons for developing a new policy were also discussed at the following BMC Area Meeting on on 9th May. The Bristol Activists open meeting was held on 7th June. After that, the first draft of the new policy was circulated to all those who had participated up to that point (~50 people) for comment then, following minor revision, published to this forum.

1) The 2012 policy is published on page 389 of the CC Avon Guide (2016). A scan of the text is at https://drive.google.com/file/d/15mzJIsDrZx4x_rqJXIcTPXsuf-71p2p2/view?usp=...

2) It would be premature of me to comment on this as the plan is to bring the Access Team into existence during the autumn.

8g. With respect I should point out that the situation at Gogarth is ethically very different from the situation at the largely-quarried Avon Gorge (Suspension Bridge is obvious exception).

8h. This is a practical measure.

It vests a huge amount of power in the Access team and access rep with very little oversight, doesn't it...

The Access rep getting the "no appeal" view on inappropriate bolt placement (sure, if it's on SBB it's black and white, but the wrangling earlier this year about the bolt belay on sea walls suggests that interference with other routes is a scale of grey).

Or the Access team being the ones who decide whether what they're doing is controversial enough to require explicit discussion at the area meeting.

I'm with AJM. It reads like the access team is the law. That might be fine for now but access teams can change.

Agreed

I assume the confusion is coming from the somewhat "If this and/or That, then this will happen" nature of the previous document?  I suppose the question is what are the BMC actually trying to achieve? Which is why I asked the second question, and it seems to me that it's a bit of an opaque way to go about it as by asking for a ring to rule them all, you're effectively allowing the access team to make decisions which some people will not be happy about. I guess that is the nature of the beast, but personally I am more interested in what the overall vision for the area will be rather than the specifics of how that is achieved. 

I've always felt the whole bolt's but only where we say so approach is a difficult sell. In my view, we climb for adventure, and the adventure is in climbing the pitch, not wondering if belays are safe or not. I can't agree with the idea that pegs at belays HAVE to be replaced with pegs which inevitably will rot and degrade. Honestly, what IS the point? Your belay is the last point of safety, if you can't rely on the gear at the belay, you're basically pointlessly risking your life more than you need to. By all means climb hard, scary pitches with poor gear - that is where you may find mental reward, but at least make sure what you're tied to on at the belay is worth its salt... After all this is a man made hole in the ground, in the middle of the city, with a huge road at the bottom etc. It's not a sea cliff or the mountains, and those will still be there for people who want completely free of gear adventures. Avon's never going to be like that...

And I'm sure someone will be along to say I want to dumb everything down, to that I'd say that if you really feel dumber tying into a pair of or a single bolt + supplementary gear at a belay you need a reality check. If you've managed to dice your way up some Avon chop route and then don't know how to tie into a trad gear belay, surely you've missed a large part of your apprenticeship? Be safe, take the bolts at the belay and be done with it. You're not dumber, you still have the skillset, you're just ensuring you don't have a belay failure...
 

Can still kill yourself but can't take your belayer with you. 

I'd love to see every one of the many thousands of pegs in avon removed and replaced with ~100 crucial bolts. I think Last Slip (E3 5c) is a great example of what the climbing would be like. One crucial bolt on a sketchy route but a known risk. I was suspect about many of the pegs (especially up on the ramp) 10-15 years ago. Like Rancho Cucamonga (E3 5c), it's got a crucial crux drilled peg. Replaced with a single bolt it would entirely retain the character of the route. 

...is there anyone still arguing that endless rotting pegs are the way to go? 

Nicely summed up and the new policy will allow for some form of that. 

To a certain extent it's implicitly always been the case - the people actually doing the work on the ground have a lot of say over what happens because they're the ones doing it. Overriding that requires some care and delicacy - you have to weigh up the benefit case of not only the action but the potential downside of losing the volunteer, and by that point you're potentially having to undo something physical, like chopping a bolt. 

But the current proposal, where the area meeting effectively gives a very large blank cheque to the Access team to do whatever they think is right with minimal recourse or oversight (the only control appears to be that you could elect a different access rep each year if you didn't like what the previous one had approved?), at a point where it would in Colin's words be premature for him to comment on what the team might consider right because it won't exist until the autumn, and with overriding principles that have a lot of grey in them.....

Whether I'd like it or not is irrelevant, but in terms of a thought experiment:

- bolts are obviously more sustainable than pegs (sustainability principle)

- many pegs when first placed were highly reliable, and so the character of certain affected routes could be best maintained by replacement of pegs with bolts (8b)

- the Access team believes this is self evident and should not be controversial to any sensibly minded person, so sees no need to escalate this to the area meeting (8a)

- you can replace any fixed gear on a belay with a bolt without having to justify why (8g)

It's easy to see a compliant trail through the policy that leads to comprehensive replacement of pegs with bolts. Like I say, whether I think that's good or bad isn't the point, it's more that there's limited checks and balances to stop it. The fact the authors have inserted a note below the principles saying that it shouldn't be read as implying this obviously points to this being a perfectly plausible way to read the rules themselves, but that explanatory note isn't actually a principle or a practice under the policy, it's just saying that isn't the current authors intended outcome. 

At the other end of the spectrum, it's quite easy to see how a very strict interpretation of what "protectable with modern traditional gear" and a very loose definition of what "readily reachable" means (how wide is "the line" of the trad route you are reaching from) could be used to entirely shut down bolts on any new routing in the gorge, given that equipment that fails the Access teams definition of those grey areas can be summarily removed by the Access team with no possibility of appeal.

Related to all of this, did the Avon Gorge Revival Project revive it? My impression is that it didn't, but maybe I'm wrong.

Colin,

I did explicitly point out that my concern was the precedent that might be set  - we need to be careful as we set policy, as it might be interpreted elsewhere as "If it's OK for the Avon Gorge, then why not here). So in that respect I think the example of Gogarth is relevant - how might actions in the Avon Gorge affect thinking elsewhere.

On the second point, we are in the 21 Century. I think as a matter of policy, you should always attempt to reach out to the 1st ascensionists (via UKC). It's not that hard, and it is polite. The way the draft policy is currently worded gives the impression that you don't care for the views of anyone who climbed a new route over 25 years ago.

Are you saying that this may represent... (drum roll)....The thin end of the wedge?!

What do I win?

Or more optimistically you can horrifically maim yourself but atleast someone will be there to cradle your bloodied carcass while you wait for a chopper to come for you.

I'm confused by the reference to this being a concise summary of the full document (for use on mobile apps). Does that just refer to the first paragraph?

Quick question: Will any of this chat be reflected within the discussion at SW area meet, or do we need to email the address given. I don't want to double up on comments!

Thxs

I agree.
In any case 8h appears to be in conflict with 4e under 'Principles':
"Heritage, taking into account the historical development of routes, and noting the
contemporary opinions of first ascensionists."

I would say that you vest that trust in every Access Rep and in every Access Team across England and Wales - normally that is implicit in any FEP - in this case we made it explicit.

Within the climbing community we operate with a vey high level of trust in each other. This means that those who bravely volunteer to act on behalf of the community on Access matters do so with a great sense of responsibility. Yes, Access Teams do change, but there is no particular reason why new volunteers sense of responsibility to local ethical values would be significantly different?

Thanks for your question, which is very pertinent.

The ClimbBristol project, with Martin Crocker as Project Officer and a team of volunteers, worked very hard over a three year period. In that time a huge amount was achieved, in particular:

- the scaling of loose rock from several major faces on the Bristol side of the Gorge, and the removal of vegetation;

- the replacement of a very large number of pegs, all of which is documented in an on-line spreadsheet;

- the instatement of several many dual ring-bolt belays where previously the belays had been either inadequate or down-right dangerous;

- the replacement of a significant number of substandard bolts.

ClimbBristol worked to a series of guidelines (see p390 in the Avon Guide) which were widely accepted by the community.

The outcome was fantastic, but the intensity of effort meant that the team disbanded at the end of the project and since then Access stuff has been carried on by a loose network of volunteers.

We recognise we cannot carry on relying on the loose network. We need to capture what was best about ClimbBristol, but do so in a way that means that the Access Team does not suffer from burn-out and is also able to refresh its membership as new volunteers come forward.

Yes

The essential point about have a lengthy and staged consultation process is so that the draft document can evolve to the point where it gains wide-spread acceptance as the basis for the Access Teams work over the next decade or so. I would genuinely hope that the draft that is put to the September BMC Area Meeting would not need significant material amendment before it goes for adoption at the November BMC Area meeting. 

So I would say that putting your points in email is more likely to influence the outcome than leaving it to the September meeting.

To save searching for the email address, here it is!

avongorgefixedgearpolicy@gmail.com

You don’t have to climb those routes though; this draft policy would seem to account for examples like Rancho alongside bolder leads maintaining the adventurous heritage and style in which they were eyed up and put up. Or am I wrong? 

So to surmise, you would like to see dodgy belays on principal? 

Hi Mike,

I don’t see the harm in keeping things as they are for, let’s face it, a fairly small number of routes that, subject to various checks and alignment with climbers and FAs. We can all make belays if we need to and if the concensus around a few adventurous test-pieces is to keep them adventurous then that’s fine with me. So you can’t really surmise that I’m happy with dodgy belays. Far from it. My nerves often needed a break or a different crag after too many sunny evenings chasing ‘adventure’.