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Ben Nevis - Shame on you. What a waste of a crag. 9-Aug-2009 At 7:58:43 PM JBM

Message

After 7 years of driving back and forth past this crag I finally organised a look see for
myself.

Today me and a buddy did a trip to Red Rock. My impressions:

1) Drive-in was easy and quite pleasant with cup a of coffee and the heater full bore in
the truck
2) The area is beautiful
3) Despite all the angst around finding the abseil start, we walked straight up to it
4) Given it was 4 degrees and windy, we were so keen to check out the climbing we
rapped in and pulled the ropes behind us in full belay jackets
5) The moves were great, the rock was fantastic, the views incredible
6) The whole experienced was flushed down the toilet due to an incredibly shit bolting
practice.

I mean, honestly, were we going through a "Bachar-Yerian" machismo phase when this
crag was developed or are we that freaking cheap?

Look, I appreciate the whole bolting from the ground up mindset, but effectively the
development of these routes in the style in which they were done has ruined the
crag/routes for countless generations to come.

After finishing for the day, I could not help but think what a great crag this would be if it
were properly bolted (read:developed). And don't even get me started on the use of
carrots....

Someone has clearly gone to the effort of putting in some beautiful belays recently.
Thank you.

However, the routes suck in their current state and the crag is ruined.

Now before you go spouting off about "adventure", I'm not opposed to the occasional
necky line or bold run out. But it's a low angled granite slab for god sake - not some holy
obelisk in Sheffield.

Well, now I feel better. However, it would be nice to see this crag properly used and
redeveloped. How many other 150-200m routes have we got 2 hours from Melbourne?