In reply to UKC Articles:
I noted these lines:
"Cochamó new routing is a slow and dirty business but incredibly satisfying. Climbers realised early on that the crack lines on the walls weren't always what they seemed; often they'd be closed, flared and impossible to protect. In fact, the easiest way to identify a good open crack was through the lines of vegetation seen running down the wall – vegetation can only grow where a gap exists for water to run down and soil to collect. So to get into these cracks, you need to dig away at the vegetation and remove it first before climbing."
And later on there is some recognition of the wonderful vegetation in the valley. I wonder if we could hear about the plants being removed - are they common or rare? Do the cracks full of vegetation form part of special cliff based ecosystems.
Are there so many of these vegetation filled cracks that cleaning a few for climbers won't make a difference or is it possible that we'll look back in 20 years and wish we'd taken a different approach?
We rightly get upset when there are threats to the landscapes we enjoy climbing in - perhaps we need to encourage environmental impact assessments when promoting new routing, especially in less visited parts of the world.