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Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
All NSW	(General)	(General)	(General)

Topic Date User

Kaputar - Euglah Rock 18-Apr-2017 At 7:57:17 PM Vwills

Message

Back to Kaputar this Easter, I have confirmed the identity of the retro bolter of the main wall at Lindsay Rock Tops. He is Herb Brandmeier, from Queensland. He wandered past us on our one day at Lindsay and looked at our trad rack and said " that's no use to you here" so I engaged him in conversation as to why many people, including myself were upset by the blatant retro bolting/ grid bolting at Lindsay, and as of last year, the addition of 2 sports routes on the main wall of the Governor which he is also responsible for. He and his friend supported their stance as "other people liked it", and "that's the way the sport was going". My arguments about risk , judgement and the ease of top roping these routes seemed to fall on uncomprehending ears.

Also at Lindsay was the shocking sight of the grade of each bolted route painted in fairly large and visible white paint at the base of each route. Interestingly these grades were about 3 higher than the grade of the old climbs when you had to do them on trad. I don't know if this is Herb, or someone else, but it is very ugly and totally unnecessary in the era of photo topos and online community databases like thecrag. It seems so out of place in a beautiful national park.

We spent the rest of the time at Euglah, where as the original poster pointed out there are a few dodgy expansions. But that bolter Robin Barley, has been very careful not to retro bolt or impinge on existing lines, and for his new routes has largely left routes as mixed routes when good gear placements are found and has tried to camouflage many of the bolts.

Sounds like some of this conversation needs to go onto Queensland forums.