In reply to Offwidth:
> their activity leader would always be aware of the issues.
As would climbing instructors. Unfortunately, from the regular and endless examples I see in the Peak, I can only conclude that the vast majority of SPAs (whatever they are called now) don't care. My comment seems unpopular, but I stand by it: the damage caused by people — predominantly climbers — to delicate routes that most dedicated climbers could aspire to — is far more of an issue than a possibly one-off instance of a group abseiling in the vicinity of a classic E9. There are a handful of people who are likely to get on the E9, and two of them don't see a problem if you take their words at face value.
Yes, I agree, they are both problems — but of completely different orders of magnitude. And it seems hypocritical to get worked up about others damaging a resource we can't claim sole ownership of when we can't even get on top of our own gratuitous and avoidable damage.
Naturally though, I'd be outraged if they were abseiling down Downhill Racer on God's own second choice of rock.