UKC

Hi all, not sure if this is the right spot for this but hey ho...

Me and a mate went down to Tintern Quarry the Saturday just gone, we both noticed that there has been a lot of clearing of shrubs trees etc in and around the quarry.

As part of this it looks like access to the Lunar Landscape wall, gatecrasher wall, pine tree wall etc has been purposefully blocked off at the entrance to these walls by tree cuttings (branches etc) making it impossible to access these walls without either scrabbling across the screed slopes from the 30ft wall side or climbing up and out from the lower level.

I was wondering if access was purposefully blocked to these walls by someone or whether who ever was clearing the trees just decided to dump stuff here???

If this has been mentioned elsewhere on the forum my apologies.

Cheers,

Rich

In reply to knottylaner:

It would be worth E-mail Rick Sewards at the BMC. Hi e-mail is likely to available from them or alternatively a search on here. HTH.

In reply to knottylaner:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/profile.php?id=63557




here's rick's profile.

In reply to puppythedog:

Hi,

Thanks, forwarded on to Rick. It was just an observation we made, both of us were unsure as to whether or not it was a good idea to climb walls that appeared to be blocked off...curious.

In reply to knottylaner:

Thanks for bringing this up (and thanks for the email) - I will look into this tomorrow and post when I know more.

Cheers

Rick
Wye Valley Access Rep

In reply to Rick Sewards:

So what's the verdict?

In reply to knottylaner:

Spotted this a while ago, didnt think much of it, you could clamber over it or just walk around?

In reply to knottylaner:

I was also there on Saturday and noticed the 'pruning'; might also be worth mentioning that the gate was open too which I've never seen there.

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

Hi CM I did think of climbing over it, my only reservation was if it was put there for a purpose ie to stop people climbing those walls because they were unsafe, I thought best to avoid it until I knew what the craic was...

In reply to knottylaner:

Yes a fair point, but I couldn't see any evidence of rock work on the faces or any fresh rockfall? I think it's probably just a case of having to put all those trees somewhere and thats where they ended up

In reply to knottylaner:

Maybe it's some public spirited climbers doing everyone a favour

In reply to knottylaner:

Just from my experience of climbing on those walls they are quite unstable in places! maybe worth avoiding!

In reply to Euan McKendrick:

I think the whole place is pretty loose right...

CM, I imagined that could have been a possibility.

bpm, maybe so, at times climbing tintern does feel somewhat dubious haha!

In reply to knottylaner:

Dust wall is ok... bout it really!

In reply to knottylaner:

Hi all

Sorry for the delay in replying. After a little digging I think it is almost certain that this was not a deliberate attempt to stop climbing, but simply disposing of cut trees as suggested above. For the moment, if anyone wants to climb in the areas affected, I would suggest simply clambering over/around the cuttings as suggested by Cheese Monkey - I wouldn't use the scree slope to access these walls.

Rick