Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Boganville 6-May-2010 At 10:35:55 AM onsight

Message

Gee Martin!

Firstly Martin, your efforts to paint me as someone who is solely motivated by money and who does not contribute anything is so far from the truth as to be insulting. Those comments are a reflection of you Martin, not of the reality of the situation.

I’ll try to be brief. I think Steve Grkovic and Megan Turnbull have done a lot of incredible work putting up new routes and mean well. But personally I think they — and you — are a bit off target on this issue. And if you want to totally change the way things have always been done in this country, then I’m not sure that you are going the best way about it.

Earlier I received this from you in an email Martin and I quote:
“I have been bolting a few routes here and there in established areas around the Blue Mountains over the past months and years. I would be happy to share this information with you in exchange for 50 ring bolts…”

And later on this:
“As for my own small bolting efforts, I will not contribute the information for free; and I ask that you do not include my new routes into the new guide book unless you comply with my request.”

Yep.

So now as far as Boganville is concerned, about a month ago when I decided that I would have time to include Boganville in the new guidebook I phoned Steve and asked him if he’d provide any information. Right from the onset of the conversation Steve made it patently clear that he was not at all interested in providing any info because I hadn’t paid (yes, money) for the bolting of NEW routes. Since this conversation I’ve had email correspondence with Steve and Megan and the question of whether Steve had initially said he wanted me to pay them personally is something that we do not agree on. Whatever, I’m not interested in the semantics. They definitely expected me to pay someone for new routes, if it wasn’t them then they never specified who else I should be paying, or who else they were speaking for, and they never mentioned a new route fund or whatever else I should be paying to.

It’s fine. It really doesn’t bother me; I understand people have different agendas. But for a whole wide range of reasons I’m not going to pay for this sort of info. And I’m already committed to what I think are much fairer ways of giving back to the climbing community (Trackcare especially). I’m not going to change my decision on that just because a few people demand it.

Boganville has been around for years. It’s on public land. It is a solid one hour hike out along Narrowneck and will never be all that popular. Other people have also developed routes there and those people appeared quite keen for the area and info to go in the guidebook. They were helpful and perfectly happy to provide info when I approached them. I considered a bunch of issues and decided to put the area in the guidebook. I put in all the info I could get from various sources, provided a little warning and explanation why the some info is lacking. I’ve not made up names for Steve and Megan’s routes there, though easily could have, and think a whole bunch of routes called “Unknown” is a little boring myself.

So anyhow I had phoned, texted and emailed Steve and Megan. Asked them and tried to encourage them to provide info about this or anything else for the guidebook. I tried to give them every opportunity but it was clear that they were not interested. It’s their decision but personally I think they’ve missed out on a great opportunity.

Boganville is a nice little addition to the guidebook. But to keep it in context there are of 45 different areas and approx 2700 routes in the book. The book is the result of an incredible amount of work, not just by me but by many people. The amount of work that some people have contributed is absolutely phenomenal. I know that a lot of people care about this book and the quality of the information in it. If it was all about money for me then this book would simply not exist in the form that it is. It would have been finished months earlier and perhaps the toll it has taken on other areas of my life would have been avoided.

Martin, you just sound bitter to me and this is whole lot of sour grapes for sure.

This is also whole lot of crying over spilt milk. Steve and Megan wrote this to me in an email: “Our contributions to the development of Boganville have always been with a view to future publication, and that has not changed. It may be this year, or the next.” The info on Boganville was going to come out soon anyway!

Finally Martin, please stop misrepresenting conversations to which you were not privy. And please stop being so hypocritical.

Anyway this thread has been interesting if for no other reason that it is so rare to see so many Chockstoners agreeing on something!

Cheers,

Simon