UKC

We did a little climbing with the kids at Hawkcraig yesterday afternoon/evening.

The place is quite a mess.

There are signs of fires at several places along the cliff top, but they aren't too bad compared to the huge amount of litter on top of, under, and scattered down all over the scrambling descent at the West end - paper, plastic, beer cans, and broken glass.

Then, at the end, when we were climbing Fish Head Arete (VD) we became aware that someone at the top of the cliffs was throwing rocks down near us. They were out of sight, but I shouted to some other young lads we could see on the clifftop, emphasising that there were young kids at the base of the cliff, and they sorted it for us.

There were no other climbers there, despite the lovely weather; I suppose I know why, now. It's a real shame, as it used to be a beautiful spot to climb (despite the rock needing care due to being quite loose in places).

I'm not sure I'll be in a hurry to go back, and I'm not very keen on taking the kids again, due to the rock-throwing - although they did both really enjoy the climbs.

It’s been like that on and off since I first started climbing there. Good weather seems to attract the idiots.

I've been climbing there for 20 years, though very rarely for the past 5 or so, and I've never seen it as bad as this.

We've had a lot of issues with big gangs of drunk kid-iots in Aberdour recently, so sadly this doesn't surprise me. Noticed a fair bit of broken glass and a couple of burnt bits when I climbed there most recently, 10 days ago or so, but not had a stone throwing incident for a while. I always wear a helmet when sitting about under the crag for that reason.