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First in best dressed? 9-Apr-2013 At 6:23:14 PM rowan

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On 9/04/2013 Chris Coghill wrote:
>On 8/04/2013 rowan wrote:
>.
>> To quote Chris Coggil "It's great down there as it's
>>not national park so you can cut down as many trees as you want."
>
>
>By way of clarification... I have not cut down any trees at Elphinstone.
>This was a completely "tongue-in-cheek" comment that I made at one time
>(ie, I was being sarcastic!). It has nothing to do with how I feel about
>the situation.
>
>About the crack down at Pole 28, Neil is right. I had no idea that anybody
>had tried it before. I went down to belay Neil or bundy and saw the crack.
>There was no chalk and no signs that it had been tried before. There was
>quite a bit of loose rock, so I assumed it had never been tried (or cleaned).
>
> I tried it for a little while on trad, even borrowing a 00 Friend from
>Lee Cossey. After a few days, I became a bit worried that some of my gear
>was tracking through the crack, so I added a couple of bolts.
>Eventually I decided that the route was pretty short and obscure, and
>I may as well just fully bolt it to fit with all the other funny little
>sport routes at the crag. I had no idea that anybody else was keen to try
>it on gear.
>To tell the truth, it's probably better as a trad climb... as a sport
>route it's really pretty short and average, but adding the gear placement
>and ground fall potential (it's only about 4 metres high) makes it more
>of an interesting challenge. I'm not really keen to test the gear again,
>but I'm sure others are.
>I have no problems with the route being chopped, just hope it has been
>done more neatly than you did the Elphinstone one, rowan!

Sorry if you had nothing to do with the cutting of trees down there. I was bummed that so many were chopped and now it will turn to mud. I think more highly of you if you had nothng to do with that.

You are right Chris. It is a messy job. It is on the crack at pole 28 too. I have intended to clean them both up but havn't had the same zest as the first time round on them. Maybe it has worked removing the bolts from the pole 28 crack as you have now come round and agree it is better as a trad route. (I'm not sure why your gear came out because I fell off all over the thing going ground up each time and all the gear held. Maybe I have more modern cams.)

I think the removal of the bolts on the line at Elphinstone has been a fail. I don't think I will remove them again now I have had a day to think about it. Dr Julian Saunders claims if I remove them he will just replace them. If this were to become the case I think only the rock climb suffers. I will just clean up the ones I have already removed properly and climb the route on gear pretending the bolts are not there. This is a lesser experience on the climb but will have less impact in the long run.

The real shame will be if this route sets the standard for generations to come. I just think this is a backwards step in the way you should approach new routing in general. I don't think it is about making things accessible for the crowds but accepting the challenge presented. For me the challenge presented was obvious you could climb it with out the need for defacing the rock in any way.