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The Eyrie, Mt Boyce retrobolted! Badly... 2-Jan-2017 At 11:40:14 AM Macciza

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Hi all, (take 2, lost first edit, hope this is as good),

After making the initial posts I took it upon myself to start the removal process on 31/12 and got about half of them out, before dropping spanner down abseil gully whilst doing the very top one (now covered in red tape to warn against its use) before getting back on line to discover that Tim had realised the error of his ways and was going to remove them.

I managed to catch up with Tim at a party that night and we had a very good long rave about it all. There is backstory to all this where Tim has previously done some quite good rebolting work but copped flak for bolt-for-bolt replacement of old carrots with gluein hanger less bolts, being told he should have updated the routes fully to modern standard.... Can't win either way it seems, I feel for you.

I would like to congratulate Tim for owning up so quickly and in such a lions pit as Chockstone and Facebook- I don't think he has 'lost honour' in old world terms. There are many people would not have done so and there are a number of people who only operate in the shadows....

I should also thank him for bringing this whole topic glaringly into view for our BM climbing community. I believe we need to maintain the history and style of earlier climbing and that includes trad routes and routes with hanger less bolts. It also raises the issue of the somewhat rampant sport-ification of most of our crags with almost every previously trad crag being affected by new or retro-bolting.

Hopefully the discussions ensuing from this will contribute to improved behaviours all round, and a better knowledge and understanding of the issues for all concerned, particularly newer climbers/bolters coming out of the gyms

Cheers
MM