TALKING POINT
The State of Scottish Climbing
Kevin Howett, MCofS National Officer, explains the background to revisions of previous guidance on the thorny subject of climbing good practice; John Watson and Dave MacLeod offer their thoughts; and leading activists give their opinion on the future of Scottish climbing
The development of Summer
& Winter Sport climbs
Introduced by Kevin Howett
In recent months the BMC initiated a discussion through Summit magazine on 'The State of British Climbing'. More accurately, it's a discussion on the state of English and Welsh climbing and the only comment from Scotland was my tongue-in-cheek opinion that, “there's no shortage of adventure up here … without pegs, bolts or any type of fixed gear”.
But the Scottish scene has been undergoing great changes over the past 10 years, with the development of sport climbing venues at all grades; the continued discovery of many new adventurous on-sight (and mostly peg free) venues; and whilst the ethics of winter climbing has, as always, been a subject of discussion, the new discipline of dry-tooling brought this to a head. For this latter reason, MCofS instigated a winter ethics debate last year, through Scottish Mountaineer and a meeting at the Ice Factor to gauge opinion.
The MCofS is nothing more than the sum of its membership. As a body it hopes to represent the views of those members, however disparate. And climbing is a broad church nowadays, with numerous disciplines and specialisations, and we try to gather a consensus from all of them in order to speak to government and government agencies as a single voice. As you can imagine this is not easy!
When negotiating the Access Legislation through The Access Forum we had to be able to show agencies and landowning organisations that we were responsible folk; that we respected the environment and did all we could to be 'minimal impact' users. This ethic directly affects our actions on the crags and cliffs, summer and winter, and is linked to our sports evolving ethics.
That's why we have developed guidance on good practice with a “MCofS Bolts Policy”, advice on “Nesting Birds and Climbers”, the “Scottish Crag Code”, and “Winter Climbing – A Code of Good Practice”. There is no doubt that such 'responsible' attitudes will be all the more important in the future, with the new access legislation and access code now enacted, and it would be far better for climbers to agree such codes amongst ourselves first, rather than have other agencies foster uninformed codes on us (look at the USA and Germany – where Government and conservation agencies have all but banned climbing in many areas).
The Bolts Policy was the result of a discussion of over 100 main activists in 1990. It sought to make sure that bolting did not overrun traditional development, but at the same time allow a place for sport climbing. Activists have interpreted the ideas in the 'Policy' in different ways, and have at times gone against some of those guidelines.
The winter guidance was distributed for comment through the magazine and website and finally passed at AGM in 2002. Besides tackling the issues of potential damage to rare Alpine plants, it also looked at 'what is a winter ascent' and the 'dry-tooling of rock climbs' – two related issues. It also stated that it was the view of the majority that bolts should not be used. Then dry-tooling became established as an all-year round activity in Newtyle Quarry and now has a growing band of devotees. This further confused the whole issue for some, who could not see the differences between climbing in winter on out-of-condition rock and the new discipline.
The debate at the Ice Factor saw almost everyone agreeing that the newly evolving dry-tooling was a separate issue, a realisation that its practitioners did not agree with climbing quality rock lines, nor established routes so there would be few suitable venues, nor did they agree with climbing in winter on out-of-condition rock climbs. The meeting also brought up the idea of identifying certain crags where winter sport routes could be developed akin to those in Europe, Canada and the USA. This was not totally dismissed by those attending the meeting, but which venues were acceptable became a difficult issue.
In summer the bolts policy has not always been absolutely adhered to - the particular guidelines being ignored are the 'mountain crag' and 'sea cliff' issues, 'retro bolting', bolting natural crack lines and limiting development to the harder grades. As a result bolted climbs have been established at the following venues, with varying degrees of acceptance:
Cave Crag, Dunkeld (accepted in limited areas);
Dumbarton Rock (accepted on certain lines);
Creag a Bhancair, Buachaille Etive Mor (still contentious and not accepted by some leading climbers);
Angus Quarries (fully accepted)
Glen Ogle (not contentious and now accepted by most);
Steall Hut Crag, Glen Nevis (contentious);
Newtonhill, Aberdeen (accepted);
Cambus O'May Quarry, Deeside (accepted)
Weem, Aberfeldy (accepted);
Arbroath sea cliffs (initially contentious although now seems to be accepted by most);
Rock Dust Crag, Pitlochry (accepted by most);
Creag nan Clag, Duntelchaig (accepted);
Benny Beg, Crieff (accepted by most);
Tighnabruaich, Miracle Wall, Cowal (accepted)
Stronachlachar & Inversnaid, Trossachs (accepted)
Back Yard Crag, Gairloch (new and probably little known)
The Bone Yard Crag, Isle of Lewis (new)
The decision to bolt the Tunnel Wall of Creag a Bhancair was made by leading activists. The issue was later discussed at a seminar held by NTS who agreed that climbers themselves should sort that particular issue out, but as the bolts have not been removed by their detractors more lines have been added recently.
The decision by all the local climbers (from Crieff to Auchterarder) to bolt Benny Beg was done after a lot of local discussion with the landowners and local businesses, Perth and Kinross Ranger Service and then only after discussion and agreement by the Sports Development Committee and the Executive committee of the MCofS. Nowhere else has such consultation been undertaken before a climber placed bolts; other development being undertaken by the activists independently.
Whilst the MCofS Sports Development Committee were analysing views after the winter ethics discussions, particularly regarding the use of bolts, we came to realise that many of the issues are relevant to both summer and winter and it was pertinent to revisit the old bolts policy at the same time as the winter guidance to update both to be more relevant to today's climbing. The old policy was written in an atmosphere of concern for the future of traditional climbing, but after nearly a year of looking at what was actually happening on the ground, we concluded that, in the main, those fears have proved to be unfounded and a balance has been gained – sport venues increasing alongside the rapid development of adventurous climbs throughout the country.
The main criteria that define a crag as best suited to be a sport venue appears to be related to the 'feel' of the crag. Benny Beg offers a good example of this idea. It is low-lying, although technically easy, there is little protection so it cannot be used by novices for leading as the routes are virtually all deck-outs. It has no history of recorded climbs, has no real natural definitive lines which give classic style routes (you can climb anywhere from 4b to a maximum of 5b). As a traditional venue it is essentially nondescript, where top-roping by groups was the main activity. In many people's eyes, the top-roping scourge currently running through climbing is more of an issue than bolting as it demeans climbing and does nothing to help develop good leaders. Benny Beg as a sport venue on the other hand appears to be a more positive addition to the climbing scene, born out by the regular traffic in the evenings and weekends by climbers of all abilities who enjoy the place immensely.
The Arbroath sport climbs are another good example. Although there is no question that they are sea cliffs, most visitors agree that the venue, being loose and sandy, short but overhanging, is fairly worthless as a traditional climbing area, but bolted, it does offer some significant climbs. Some have voiced the opinion that perhaps the demarcation into 'adventurous' territory was made with the bolting of The Red Head, which compares with North Devon Culm and these would be better as serious traditional adventure lines.
Ethical issues that remain contentious include bolts placed on 'traditional feel' lines with good gear placements, a general acceptance that 'mountain style' crags should still remain bolt free.
As a result, the MCofS has prepared an updated form of guidance, which embraces this idea. It can be used for deciding on suitable venues for dry-tooling and winter sports climbing as well as summer rock. This is a first draft to help promote discussion. Do you feel that this guidance would give a better solution as a compromise between the development and the safeguard of both styles? We hope you will send in your comments, which we will use to draft a final version to be put to the MCofS AGM in June 2005.
There are also the important issues of our conduct on the crags: destruction of important plant species both by summer 'gardening' and winter ascents 'out-of-condition'; the damage of quality rock climbs by winter ascents; the overuse of other in-situ gear (pegs etc); and crag etiquet. Previous guidance on winter and summer crag-use has also been amended to take account of the proposed changed guidance on bolt usage and these too are reproduced here as Draft Revisions. Together they give a code of good practice that will hopefully encompass the majority of climbers views, will safeguard adventurous climbing, help better define the now established sport climbing views and just as importantly, safeguard the natural environment of the crags for continued access and enjoyment.
Please send your comments to me, The National Officer.
Post: to the MCofS office marked “Ethics Debate”
Email: kev@mountaineering-scotland.org.uk
Also comment through the 'Pitch-in' pages on our website.
Further Reading for the philosophically minded:
“Traditional climbing: metaphor of resistance or metanarrative of oppression?” by Jackie Kiewa; Leisure Studies 21 (2002) (see www.tandf.co.uk/jounals )
“Weather Variability and Scottish Ice Climbing” by Andrew Joyce of the Environmental Change Research Group, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Durham; Scottish Geographic Journal 117(1).
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