Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Trashing Tassie ... it's beyond salvation 21-Feb-2011 At 8:23:12 AM Winston Smith

Message

I comprehend most of what Jesus is banging on about: having climbed in Tassie regularly over the past few years I also find the whole "no bolts at Ben Lomond but bolt the f*** out of everywhere else" quizzical to say the least.

I'm not advocating opening Ben Lomond to sports routes but I can see the absolute logic and benefits of re-establishing the chopped rap stations. These would alleviate the stress on the vegetation in the descent gulliies, negate the need to leave tat on the cliffs and ensure that all the mainland bumblies lured to the Ben by Climb Tasmania's guidebooks manage to spend more time climbing than walking to the crag and off the top of routes. Local knowledge is certainly a time saver when climbing at the Ben...

By the way, it is nonsense to have included rap stations in the most popular guidebook to the Ben - Climb Tasmania - and then chop/oversee the chopping of said rap statons, thus immediately making the guidebook outdated. It seems fairly self-defeating. (I know that the main Ben Lomond guide is up to date but I believe that most visitors use the older omnibus Climb Tasmania guide).

Having visited most of the Northern, East Coast and North-West crags I must say that the number of mediocre, badly bolted routes is staggering. Bolting practices have been developed over years here on 'the mainland" but it appears that Tassie sport route developers have decided to reinvent the wheel.

As a result I climbed routes at Hillwood where the crux was unprotected on several "moderate sport routes" and required additional gear to prevent a groundfall as well as routes where removable hangers had been epoxyed to carrots - in lieu of fixed hangers - only to have fallen off or have been souvenired.

In saying that, other routes we climbed at Hillwood seemed grand as were a couple of the ringbolted routes we climbed at Coles Bay - they climbed well and complemented the quality trad at the rest of that amazing granite destination.

Blackwood Rocks was an interesting afternoon's diversion on soft sandstone where worn and breaking holds will ensure that some routes get harder with the passing of time.

While it's easy to knock routes and to sound ungrateful, despite the sheer amount of time and money spent developing crags, it's worth pointing out that every time a route is put up you're staking your claim on climbing history. With that being the case it's worth ensuring that they're quality routes.