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death bolts and tree cutting at Earlwood


wallwombat

7-Mar-2010
11:44:30 AM

I thought it would be administered by Canterbury Council but it seems that NPWS look after it as part of Wolli Creek Regional Park.

Rockclimbing is mentioned in the plan of management, in as much as it says the sandstone escarpements between Girraween Park and Bardwell Park are currently used for rock climbing.

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/parkmanagement/WolliCreekMgmtplan.htm

I stand by what I said before. Self management is the way to go.

deadpoint

7-Mar-2010
2:25:15 PM

Can't see it being climbers, installing this crap and leveling the vegetation, but you never know!.

Points more towards commercial abseiling or the new rage boot camping.


Andrew_M

7-Mar-2010
9:15:35 PM

Self policing is definitely the best general rule, but in this case Nat Parks is aware of the bolt issue and seems to be dealing with it OK.

We passed a ranger on the way into the crag this arvo and he warned us of the dodgy bolts and said that they'd been pulling them but some might have been missed. He didn't stop us but recommended paying attention because dying would mean "a lot of paperwork for him".

Good to see a case where Nat Parks is using common sense.


nmonteith

7-Mar-2010
10:54:09 PM

Even weirder. How would the rangers know what is good or bad? There are plenty of really old manky carrots at that crag - are they removing them as well???


wallwombat

7-Mar-2010
11:45:17 PM

climberman

8-Mar-2010
10:15:02 AM

On 7/03/2010 nmonteith wrote:
>Even weirder. How would the rangers know what is good or bad?

You'd be amazed to know that some NPWS staff climb. Some even shave, shun woollen pants from the inter-war era, and clip bolts !


nmonteith

8-Mar-2010
10:41:03 AM

On 8/03/2010 climberman wrote:
>You'd be amazed to know that some NPWS staff climb. Some even shave, shun
>woollen pants from the inter-war era, and clip bolts !

Similar to my concerns with the Victorian Anchor Testing topic (http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?Action=DisplayTopic&ForumID=1&MessageID=82883&Replies=7#newpost ) I am also concerned that the park rangers are taking on the responsibility of anchor management. Removing one sort of anchor immediately implies that the anchors they have left are good. This many not be the case. If I was the NPWS I wouldn't be touching anything with a 10ft pole!


Andrew_M

8-Mar-2010
10:43:05 AM

On 7/03/2010 nmonteith wrote:
>Even weirder. How would the rangers know what is good or bad? There are
>plenty of really old manky carrots at that crag - are they removing them
>as well???

To fill in a bit more. When I told him that we'd already heard about the bad bolts, he asked whether we'd heard it from "Andrew" (didn't catch the surname - not me obviously) who was apparently a local climber who seemed to have some good working relationship with the ranger that we'd spoken to. It could be that "Andrew" had done the chopping, or perhaps he had reported to the ranger that the bolts had been chopped in a climbing community self policing action. He did mention that there had "apparently been some discussion online about it" which would probably be here on chockstone. Complete speculation. The conversation was pretty vague.

NPWS seemed keen that the orignal culprits be tracked down and set straight at least.

aforrest

8-Mar-2010
3:09:29 PM

G'day, this is the other "Andrew" in question. I hadn't realised this topic had raised so much much interest in what has happened down in little old Earlwood so I'll throw in what I know to shed some more light on the story. (Thank you Mike for starting up the topic).

I came across the recent dodgy bolting and tree removal a few weeks ago. I contacted the NPWS to alert them of these actions and organised a meeting to discus their removal. The bolts were that poorly set that we were able to unscrew a couple of them simply by hand on that day. The remainder (with the exception of the one Neil removed) were taken out the following day by the ranger.

We assessed the entire cliff top for other signs of disturbance and found that it had been limited to this one site. I highlighted how poorly and dangerously the placement of the bolts were both in the setting of them and in their positioning in relationship to the existing bolts. I then showed the ranger what a sound bolt should look like from the existing ones at the top of the cliff . There was never any discussion of testing the existing bolts nor to their removal and I don't believe this to be cause for concern.

Baffled why the new bolts would have been so poorly positioned to the existing bolts/anchors in terms of providing a back up anchor we could only surmise that whoever did this job had such limited knowledge of bolting safely that they likey be some local teenagers who would have liked to try their hand at it. I think this even more likely when you stop to think how the trees and bushes cleared from the top were indiscriminantly and recklessly lobbed over the edge to be found strewn across the track. It could be a fellow climber but its hard to imagine any climber could display such reckless and criminal behaviour in a national park.

Personally I'm appalled by these actions having climbed at this spot and enjoyed the only bit of bushland around the region for the past 18 years. I could not stress strongly enough to the rangers that these actions are not representative nor accepted by the climbing community.The guys responsible for the park know this and are grateful that there is a local climbing community proactive in the preservation of these areas. While they also appreciate the fact that there is self policing on these kind of matters they were also thankful that this problem was brought to their attention. Personally, I think working together with the land care groups helps foster a good long term working relationship between preservation and recreation within the park.

If you know who might have done this PM me and I can discuss it with the rangers further. I know they are keen to get to the bottom of it so that these death bolts don't reappear somewhere else.

Cheers


nmonteith

8-Mar-2010
3:16:37 PM

All holes have been filled and patched. Glue spoodge has been removed.


evanbb

23-Mar-2010
8:12:19 AM

Good stuff Neil. It could be a nice little crag with some attention. Track works and the like.

dmnz

23-Mar-2010
9:31:45 AM

Are you volunteering Evan?

tris

24-Mar-2010
1:47:53 PM

This thread is interesting. Adam G (hotgemini) and I removed a couple of bolts very similar to these from the wall at the top of Kangaroo Point.

The bolts were glued in with what looked like loctight and placed in one of the blocks which are mortared into the wall.

We never did identify who had put them there. They were placed close enough to other anchors to not make a lot of sense.

Tris


wallwombat

24-Mar-2010
1:58:42 PM

I think this mob do a fair bit of track work and such.

http://www.wollicreek.org.au/about_WCPS.html


evanbb

24-Mar-2010
2:22:46 PM

I would actually like to do some trackwork around here. Being in Tassie got me psyched actually; their facilities and tracks around the place are superb.

Might do a separate post actually.

yosemite05

25-Mar-2010
4:32:30 PM

Just got back from Earlwood and there are still bolt holes and spooge. One obvious one in the corner with the ferns. Impressive solo of the 23 by Mike Law.


MattyB

4-Apr-2010
10:26:57 PM

Went and checked out Earlwood today, nice little crag, albeit a little mozzie'd and moist!! Looking for some info on a route in the main area, on the arete over at the right side. On the left side of the arete is: The Count 19/20. This route I did was around 2m on the right side of that arete, with three BR, to share the same slab top out as The Count... Can't find any information on it after digging through the various online sources. Definitely not the hardest thing at the crag, but just curious if anybody knows the name and grade?? : /


nmonteith

5-Apr-2010
7:05:56 PM

On 4/04/2010 MattyB wrote:
>This route I did was around 2m on the right side of that
>arete, with three BR, to share the same slab top out as The Count... Can't
>find any information on it after digging through the various online sources.
>Definitely not the hardest thing at the crag, but just curious if anybody
>knows the name and grade?? : /

That route appeared mysteriously about 12 months ago (they also bolted a route at the far left end of the crag as well). It's probably about grade 18 with a tricky top-out. The route itself was soloed many years before it was bolted.

mikllaw

10-Aug-2010
12:30:40 PM

I took an after shot of the patching job to try and match Neil's shot of the 'before' mess. The technique was to mix glue and throw dirt and gravel at it.

SteveH

10-Aug-2010
12:37:27 PM

On 10/08/2010 mikllaw wrote:
>I took an after shot of the patching job to try and match Neil's shot of
>the 'before' mess. The technique was to mix glue and throw dirt and gravel
>at it.
>
Brilliant job!

There are 43 messages in this topic.