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Trashing Tassie ... it's beyond salvation 13-Mar-2011 At 11:50:59 AM jesus

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If ya gunna come into da church , then dont throw rocks at the stained glass windows !!! RESPECT !!!!!!!!!!!

Winston has summed up the reality on the ground ... it needs fixing ... Neil is da man to facilitate ...

The ' no bolts at Ben / trash every other crag ' is the other theme here ...

Here is the political state of play in the U . S . & A . :

'...Fixed anchors in wilderness areas have been a hot issue since the early 1990s, when the first bolting bans were issued ... After several years of debate in which it appeared that bolts might be banned in many or all federal wilderness areas, a session of “negotiated rule making” took place in the late ’90s among the Access Fund, AAC, wilderness advocates, and the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Manangement.

Two main principles were agreed: There would be no use of power drills in wilderness areas (carried over from the 1964 Wilderness Act, which prohibits the use of motorized devices), but climbers might be able to hand-drill with prior authorization.

However, until recently, the federal agencies had not created policies to implement these ideas. “Around 2000, agencies agreed to go forward with these principles, but they never got it done,” says Jason Keith, Policy Director of the Access Fund. That is, until 2007, when the BLM issued an instruction memorandum regarding the use of fixed anchors. This policy recognized climbing as an appropriate use of wilderness; said that climbers might need prior authorization from land managers; and allowed “placing a few permanent fixed anchors to improve climbers’ safety on sections of routes where the use of removable hardware is not feasible.” ...'

Right ... thats the jist of what I see as the future of ' development ' at Ben Lommond , when I referred to QUALITY semi-bolted adventure routes ...

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