In reply to Yorkspud:
I don’t want to start another argument and I understand your environmental position and concerns. I share them to some extent and agree that climbing in general has an environmental impact and new routing on crags like Gigg South probably has a higher short term impact than some other aspects of our sport but let me try to explain my perspective.
Let me start by saying that I agree that it seems a shame to me that the truly great routes on right wing of Malham Cove are no longer as popular as they once were. Even more to the point I remember the left wing of Gordale being inundated by dozens of climbers most weekends during the early 1970s but I doubt if a dozen climbers climb there in a year these days. The same could be said for crags like Hawkswick and to a lesser extent Gate Cote Scar and even Attermire is very often deserted these days. The reality is that fashions change and the mainstream moves on.
I am not a trained ecologist but I do know that some of the plants and grasses growing on the Limestone Cliffs are fairly unique to that environment but overall they are locally fairly abundant and my discussions with reps from the National Park and English Nature (now Natural England) are that the rarest species occupy damp dank gullys and cave entrances rather than the drier vertical environments on which we climb.
I also believe, from experience and my own observation rather than any scientific study, that once a crag or a route becomes unpopular it is very quickly, one could say almost instantaneously in evolutionary terms, reclaimed by the flora and fauna which lurks in the wings on the bits that none of us would ever want to climb on. Take Yark at Gordale as a perfect example. In the 1970s it was a great climb as popular an E1 (then old school HVS) as any in Yorkshire. It has now been completely reclaimed by the Ivy and I doubt it would be climbable at all now without a massive gardening effort.
The same thing happens on the grit. During 1989 to 1991 Tony Barley and I spent almost every available climbing day creating what some may call environmental terrorism at Eavestone. We used saws, shovels, yard brooms and even a winch on one occasion to dig out around a hundred or so climbs all of which we thought had great merit at the time. However, fashion wasn’t really with us and not enough repeats were made over the ensuing years and on a recent visit this Spring I can hardly see some of the buttresses we climbed never mind the individual routes. Nature fights back very quickly and our long term impact is, in my opinion, negligible.
Virtually all human activity has environmental consequences. I just wonder how many acres, nay square miles, of concrete and tarmac will replace natural habitat on land set aside for a couple of weeks of athletic events in 2012 in the London area. And that impact will last long after the athletes have left. I could quote dozens of other examples and I truly believe our impact as climbers is pretty small by comparison. If I though otherwise I would act very differently.
Dave