UKC

From this thread https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/brin_rock_retro_bolting-781254

I have decided to try to organise a meeting, inviting local views on bolting, retro-bolting and the possible clash with trad climbing in the Highlands. I have been getting in touch with some people that I personally know in the area which are, were, active crag developers either for trad, sport or both. I have also tried to contact well known figures of the highland climbing community. If you are one of them, and I haven’t contacted you it’s only a matter of time (finding contact details). But feel free to drop me an email via my UKC profile.

A venue has been found on principle and a format is being trashed out. This is the early stage and lots will have to be confirmed but expect something in the autumn based in Inverness.

At this moment in time, the format envisaged is that of a panel of volunteers representing the full spectrum (from lean and mean sport climbers to gnarly and bearded traditionalists) and a chair. They are likely to be using the current Mountaineering Scotland guidelines as the basis for the chat. https://www.mountaineering.scot/activities/outdoor-climbing/ethics 
The hope is to inform new comers to outdoor climbing of the existing ethics and etiquette and to point to resources available for people wanting to start developing sport climbing.

I am inviting people to put fully formed questions on here.
Not a rant , a personal attack or some stream of consciousness: use the other thread for the above. Or even better come along to participate: we all come across so much better face to face! Our online personas are very often not particularly realistic and/or flattering.

The best questions will direct to specific crags and routes. They will avoid naming and shaming (as this is no conducive to have a civil chat: MODs might come handy in here?). They will highlight ALL points of views. Ideally not just vociferous vexed trad climbers but also from avid sport climbing  fans, preferably from the Highlands and from Scotland (I believe the BMC does its own things in England).

And bear with me for further details: I am doing this voluntarily but also intend to continue to have a life (work, interact with family and hopefully climb). I am only likely to get a bad name and upset people from this. Yet I do think that the time is ripe to revisit this thorny issue.

Regards

This is specifically about bolting in Scotland: https://www.mountaineering.scot/assets/contentfiles/pdf/Appendix-III-F-Clim... 

Erick, good effort starting to organise this.

I think for the meeting to be really valuable, you will need the main sport developers in the area to attend.

With that in mind, my thought is this: if I was one of those people, would I want to be there?

I'm not necessarily sure that I would. The fact that a meeting is happening assumes dissatisfaction with the status quo. If I am not dissatisfied with the status quo, not to mention that I might have reason to anticipate personal antagonism from those who are very dissatisfied and therefore most strongly motivated to attend, what is the incentive to be there? What likely outcome could be to my benefit?

So I think it would be good to clarify the intended outcome of the meeting, beyond the stated aim to 'invite local views'.

The buffet that Erick is laying on.

incentive, to have a clear view amongst trad or sport crag activists where bolting is and isn't acceptable. Then there won't be vigilante action chopping bolts where they are considered acceptable. The same can be applied to replacing stakes, pitons, ab points. If everyone either for or against is informed it's win win for both sides. 

With more and more people coming to outdoor climbing via the indoor route, as opposed to walkers/ scramblers then clearly defined boundaries are good for all. 

Yes. That is a valid thought that I have had myself. I am in the process of inviting those people (as soon as I have valid contact details in fact).
I have/ will have stated on that invite how incredibly thankful I am, and the vast majority of the Highland climbers are, for the routes they have put up over the years. Those routes are the ones I climb most often.

As the organisation unfolds, people I manage to speak to can relay my words and intentions to others.

This meeting is envisaged as a safe place to voice views and opinions: harsh words and animosity will not be welcomed.

I will restate my opinion, which is probably shared by many: there is a place for both disciplines, for existing crags and further developments. I partake in both myself and had happy times in Moy, Fidheal crag and Fleet crag. I, personally, prefer trad over sport but due to time pressure tend to sport more than I trad!

These will be precisely stated aims. Alongside, celebrating the diversity of our sport and getting a social gathering of as many of us as we can. We sometimes know of each other but haven’t met in the flesh: it’s always nice to put a face to a name I think.

I won’t be doing the catering. Perhaps you can volunteer yourself for that part? Be warned, I like my greens 🥬 

😉

Maybe I should be holding this reply for the meeting, but some of the points in ExhiledScot's post are the problem with this subject. It's easy to discuss hypothetical situations of what is or isn't suitable for trad/sport, but the reality on the ground isn't so binary . It's full of edge cases and exceptions which are hard to capture in agreed guidelines, and this is generally where strong feelings emerge.

For what it's worth, I applaud Erick's willingness to tackle the subject, but think it will be important for all to have a clear idea of what they want to achieve from the meeting.

I agree, it's grey at time not black & white, you'll get that traditional trad crag which has zero bolts, but we could put two more routes up that gap between x and y if we just bolted it etc.. perhaps the answer is we don't have to have routes on every bit of clean rock. Scotland isn't short of rock, it's not East Anglia, we can just leave some places to be.

I thought we had this all agreed… Dave was in charge of staging bolt chopping incidents, I would be coordinating our useful idiot’s retro-bolting of Centurion and you were to arrange the venue and ticket sales to an enraged climbing community. Doing the purvy comes under the “venue” heading in my book. FFS Erick you only need to order a Just Eat delivery from Greggs and some patties from Maccies, is that really too much?

Interesting idea. I can imagine it might be the kind of thing I would like to give my tuppence on and listen in to but it's a 6 hour round trip to Inverness so depending on how long it was planned to be, that starts to look like a 2 day event for me, which is a pretty big chunk of time to take out to debate ethics.

How do these things work viz who comes and who speaks? Can anyone come? Or only those you have contacted to invite? Can anyone speak? Is it one person talking at a time or do people chat informally in small groups? Do the more important people present their view then accept questions? Or are there a set of open questions decided, like an agenda beforehand and then each debated in series? Do you have some kind of maximum number in mind to avoid there just being too many people for everyone to get a chance to say something? Does it look more like Question Time with David Dinglby... Dingarbly... Danginbie... whatever.

Make a weekend of it and tick off those retrobolted routes!

Probably some sort of question time format?  Definitely take questions from the audience. The panel to then discuss these questions. The questions need to be framed in a civil tone and not be some personal vendetta, diatribe or weird rant.

There is value for time for informal chat after: a sort of collective digestion. The issue here is if people stop being civil to each other. Any organiser has to take this possibility into account. I may be earnest but I am not naïve.

 It’s really an ongoing work as to the final format. I welcome suggestion in direct emails. The panel members should be well known and regarded activists in the region: solely because they know the score and have invested their own time (and often money) to make routes happen.

That’s not to say that route users don’t have a view to share.

I'm not familiar with the way you are using "tick" here... are hip, cool young folk now using it as slang for "chop"? It's so hard to keep up with the lingo these days...  ;P

Don't think I can give any useful insight into how to arrange a debate/discussion but I'll drop you a mail anyway as it would be nice to get a final date further down the line so I can work out whether I am likely to be able to come.

Hi all,

I have contacted many people. I only have 3-4 people I still want to exchange with. People have engaged with me well, and I have had great and interesting discussions.

Unsurprinsingly, many people would rather stay out of it. I understand why and respect their decision. 
 

I would contend that a public meeting is far less likely to descend into vitriolic attacks than an internet forum. 
I would endeavour to keep the tone civil but I cannot guarantee that it will. Being an eternal optimist, I really believe it will.

Once I know I have secured a decent panel and trashed out the organisational details, I will advertise publicly a date and invite views to be shared: likely some sort of googleform or online survey. Those questions can then be shared with the panel so that they can be prepared as to the type of things that they will need to be ready to deal with. Though, I also do intend to take questions on the day. 
 

Keep your eyes peeled and your ears tuned. 
As previously mentioned, feel free to email me via this site with your own views, insight and questions.

The dreadfully optimist French Erick (so unlike my country’s usual stance… perhaps that’s why they kicked me out?!? 😉)

Well done. 

Bumping this up. Still actively working on it.

Are more and more people really “coming to climbing via the indoor route” and going outside?

Crags suffering neglect and vegetation taking over, both on sport and trad crags suggests that this is not the case.

And as for clearly defined boundaries? Climbing was always a sport of wild at heart, stuff the rules type of folk so drawing a boundary just encourages climbers to step right over it.

I'm not sure I follow your logic here, Neil. These do not seem mutually exclusive to me, with an assumption that 'indoor bred' climbers favour honeypots/convenience. 

I see this too, at my local crags. Maybe people just aren't into climbing as much?

Wild at heart - Are you even kidding yourself? Perhaps weirdos and introverts; the socially maladjusted? But probably just the “strong minded”, ie having little consideration for others’ views…

I've long considered this to be a myth. 

It was interesting during the pandemic. Climbers and hillwalkers, which I thought to be fairly individually minded folk and unlikely to follow rules simply for the sake of it, did just that. Even when the likelihood of infecting someone by going for a walk in the hills on your own was vanishingly small. 

Much less so on sport crags I would suggest. Traffic seems to increase hugely as soon as something is bolted.

I wasn't worried about infections on the hill, but was worried about having a minor accident that could result in a very public rescue.

Exactly - It was the "well I can avoid everything myself" attitude that caused many of the problems. For instance, the couple from Edinburgh that thought they could have a quick day out in Glen Nevis and didn't put their handbrake on and their car slid into the river next to Paddy's bridge, necessitating a huge call out of scuba rescue specialists, tree surgeons, army recovery vehicles, etc, etc. 

This isn't the full picture down here in the Peak District. Ok, there isn't much retro bolting happening, but you get bolted sport crags that are polished and popular and others, often nearby, that fade away into obscurity. 

Perhaps there is a level (in terms of number of sport crags) at which climbers don't so much flock to the crags but get diluted between them (or just go to the better ones if there are better and poorer ones).

In any case, there was a lot more rule following from outdoor folk than I would have expected/predicted.

Bit on the back burner but not forgotten. I have been battling with shingles these past 3 weeks. Stay tuned.

Hi Toby, some thoughts about sport crags being less popular.
Is it because they have a narrower range of grades?

Or even that the climbs aren’t that great?

The way they have been bolted, for example with a high first bolt?

The quality of the bolting varies and iit is perhaps a bit rich of people like me (non bolting) to expect great lines with nicely spaced out équipement. But there are crags I won’t visit again due to answers to my above questions. 
My local crag is relatively good though if I am honest I visit more to do with convenience. Good workout outside isn’t something to sniff at!

As an outsider (I've never been to Scotland) a sensible outcome would be for 'pile of tat' belays to be replaced by high quality bolted / wire strop belays with an active maintenance schedule. No-one goes climbing to see piles of tat, and no-one goes climbing for their belay to fail.  Ever since I started climbing in the 90s climbing literature and courses have always told people to remove old tat and replace it with their own, yet we still have piles of tat - the 'best practice' obviously isn't working.

Probably a mix of all those things. I was climbing at  Harpur Hill Quarry just last night. We did a 6a and 6a+, both had chalk on them despite recent rain (so I guess had been climbed since the weekend) and whilst not exactly polished, you can see obviously what footholds most people use, they had 231 and  263 logged ascents here on UKC. Then literally 30 metres or so a long, we did a 6a that had 7. It was a bit rubbish and I snapped one hold but it is strange how big the difference is on one crag. The bolts on that one were new glue ins but they were still shiny expansion bolts. The two pieces on the lower off bolts though, were quite rusty so that maybe put some people off. 

Can't edit now but:

Should read "were NOT new glue in". Sorry

There are a lot of relatively new, relatively poor lower grade sport routes in the Peak. Some of the newer venues are full of such routes. The better routes / venues do get a lot of traffic though. I’d say the lesson is don’t bother bolting something unless it’s going to be a decent route.

I think high first bolts are good. Climbers should just buy a clipstick. There seems to me to be wide ignorance that clipping low bolts above ones head on the standard indoor spacing can cause the leader to deck if they slip. Last time I visited my old local wall in Nottingham someone almost hit their belayer whilst trying to clip the fifth bolt above head height when exhausted (and failed and fell).

I suspect there was a lot less rule following than you think. Just the clever ones were surreptitiously walking and climbing, and keeping it off social media. While socially distancing and being sensible.

Have you considered a Zoom meeting? There are a number of advantages. Nobody has to travel for miles, if anyone starts to misbehave, they can be muted or just kicked off the call. During covid, BMC area meetings were all zoom and seemed to work quite well. The obvious disadvantage is that you can't chat informally. A hybrid meeting, like many BMC area meetings now is another possibility, but only so that if you've got a really competent technician running the technical side of things.

Good luck.

A proper meeting with a sense of occasion and where climbers can meet, chat and bounce ideas about is far better for something like this.

Still battling ill health folks. No further progress made. Apologies.