BMC Bolts
June 2nd, 2008 Posted in BoltsThe British Mountaineering Council (or the Association of Democratic and Liberal Minded Climbers) Supports Bolting.
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=301834
Roger Payne the then National Officer of the BMC in the November, 1991, issue of Climber Magazine wrote: ‘Further to Paul Mahrer’s letter in the February (1991) issue, concerning bolting and chipping and his proposal for an “Association of Democratic and Liberal Minded Climbers” (ADLM) – such an organisation already exists and has done so since 1944. The BMC is presently making considerable efforts to resolve democratically, and with a liberal, open mind, concerns about the use of bolts, which affects the whole of the United Kingdom. Via its affiliated clubs, area committees and special open meeting it is seeking to reach a **consensus view on where, and in what circumstances, the use of bolts is legitimate. Hopefully democratic and liberal minded climbers will respect that consensus and the views of the majority. The organisation is, of course, the BMC. **By buying and distributing – 10,000 bolts in 2007.
What have we seen in the 13 years since Mr Paynes bold assertion? As he wrote, two members of the BMC were bolting, with in excess of 150 bolts, the sea cliffs of West Penwith (Lands End etc) so much for democracy. So you are a member of the BMC are you? Are you aware that the the (BMC) has finally ‘come out’ in full support of the widespread (not so insidious now) bolting in the United Kingdom.
Just a decade ago, on a wide scale in British climbing, bolts were an absolute no no (except the tragedy of bolts at Great and Little Orme). Yet now (in 2007) we have grade 2 routes being bolted. Even Yorkshire has 50 or so bolted routes grade 5 and under. In the latest Yorshire Limestone guidebook, there was one grade 4+. Today (2007) the Peak Bolting Fund, OTE issue 47, April, 1995: ‘Bolting in the Peak District is to be funded out of BMC guidebook profits. An open meeting of the BMC Peak Guidebook committee voted – overwhelmingly in favour of contributing to the Peak Bolt Fund. A request was tabled at the meeting in March, 1995, that the Peak Guidebook committee, whose guide included ’sport routes’, should contribute money from its operating surplus. The meeting voted to give cash for – bolts…’ Apparently, a longstanding member of the guidebook committee was – visibly shocked at the decision…£1,000 was not considered a large amount of money to keep the Peak – a world class, environmentally aware, climbing area.??
The desease of bolting appeared full-time when a member of the BMC, Roland Edwards and his son Mark, placed in excess of 158 bolts in the perfect granite of Lands End.
Climber & Hillwalker (Letters), January, 1994: ‘I am delighted that Mark Edwards has admitted that he made a mistake in putting bolts on the granite of Sennen (Red Rose). I and others spent many years telling Edwards that he had made such a mistake. We have been reviled for doing so. I applaud also, Edward’s statement that there should’nt be bolts on granite under any conditions and trust that this includes rejection of the many bolts that he and Rowland Edwards, together and separately, have placed on the granite cliffs of Lands End, Pordenack, Carn Boel, Carn Les Boel, Bosisow Island, Pendower Cavern, Pendower Cove, Dirtchman’s Zawn, Folly Cove, Porth Loe Cove, Chairladder and Gunard’s Head…’, to name just a few.
Complaints (and direct action in removing the offending bolts though the damage had already been done)by other, concerned Cornish climbers was followed in October 1999 by – Spanish climbers (with a tradition of bolting)who complained about a member of the Association of British Mountain Guides (BMG) and his son both of whom, are members of the – BMC. Jose Miguel Garcia Fraile wrote: ‘As local climbers who have known the Edwards for many years it upsets us that, once again, they have introduced a new, and maybe unsafe system and put it into practice widely without a word to any local, Spanish climber, mountain club, refugio or Federation. We talked to Roland (Edwards), after reading an article, about the need to get consensus within the climbing community before proceeding with his new (commercial bolting system – ENP Environmental Protection.?) His rigid, unconstructive and negative attitude (nothing new there then) has resulted in us making this public protest… The love and respect that Rowland says spurs them onto developing routes and gear in a way that leaves minimal impact, does not correspond with reality: ‘think his routes are messy and unsafe.’ This is the right time and place, after so long (15 years), to denounce what we think is a blatant lack of respect for the rock shown by these climbers…This letter is a protest about the attitude and methods of the Edwards but also about the direction of our sport…‘
In 1994 also, in the April edition of Climber&Hillwalker 12 climbers signed (one Letter): ‘The climbers involved in the “day of action” at Carn Vellan (Land End) last year reject entirely the claim made by your correspondent Jim Perrin and in the letter by Crispin Carpenter published in the Mail page of Climber that our bolt removing and chopping was “vandalism” or “anti – environmental”. The damage was done by those who placed over 50 bolts on the cliff, in the process of doing that they have left many rawplugs and a large amount of epoxy resin on the cliff, to say nothing of “cleaning scars.” A mess in other words.’
There is nothing new in the attitude of the Edwards towards other climbers then. After the intial revelation that they had in fact bolted Lands End, West Penwith (placing in exess of 150 bolts), Mark Jarvis, of Plymouth wrote to Climber: ‘Jim Perrin in his article Burning the Witches (Climber magazine) does a disservice to – witches, as in days-gone-by, 100% of so-called witches were invariably innocent. The Edwards arrived in Cornwall and deliberately, systematically started to bolt everything in sight. It mattered not that other climbers were (already) attempting certain routes – without resorting to bolts. What could not be climbed traditionally was naively left to a future climber, a future generation, or, to await an increase in performance, equipment and experience.’ Not to be desicrated with bolts.
‘The Edwards in their desire for infamy, launched out onto the back wall of Longships Zawn, onto a much-eyed line (Ocean Atlantic Wall, so called) and hammered it into submission – bolts and all. Climbing it by using bolt protection – it could have been climbed much earlier. For me, Atlantic Ocean Wall will stand as damming evidence against those who chose to bolt it (this was done at a time when the BMC were sending whoddles of clients down to Cornwall no doubt, to swell the Edwards coffers (Lands End Bolt Fund).’
‘The same name, Edwards, reviewing the Climbing in Cornwall – The Green Guide and stating: ‘if you have any concern for the future of British climbing or wish to preserve some of the beauty which surrounds our sport…’, in the same magazine – excuse me while I vomit.’
The Edwards caused more deliberate damage to Cornish rock in one decade than the army and Royal Marine Commando’s did in fifty years.
In 1999, the climbing magazine OTE, printed a letter about the activities of Dave Cuthberton (BMG) placing bolts in the Highlands of Scotland, the letterwriter was not impressed with his activities (along with many more climbers). In its May edition, OTE printed a ‘two page’ responce from Mr Cuthbertson, who was trying to vindicate his actions. In its April edition in 1999 OTE printed a letter: ‘Dear OTE, Boy, when OTE gives a ‘write to reply’ they give a right-to-reply, two whole pages! Like Roland Edwards, another member of the BMG / BMC, David Cuthbertson, has apparently ‘come-out’ as one of those climbers responsible for the insidious, creeping desease of ‘bolting’ (OTE 82).’ Isn’t it time that BMB, ‘Britians Mad Bolters’, were once and for all eradicated? Surely?
Like AIDS or BSE, the vast majority of climbers are searching for a cure to BMB. At a time when the BMC is lobbying the government for a legal right to roam it is imperative that BMB, the speading of which, is being sponsored by the BMC, is stamped out - OTE 47: ‘Bolting in the Peak district is to be funded out of BMC guidebook profits’.? This is an environ-mental issue that will eventually infect all those who love the countryside, rockclimbers, hill walkers and mountaineers alike.’
It is now true to say, that from Lands End to the Highlands of Scotland, members of the BMC / BMG have wreaked havoc, deliberately, damaging crags and cliffs, by bolting (against the wishes of the vast majority of British climbers).
As with BSE, BMB’s suffer from unstable thinking, then apparently, they start to dribble. They then loose all respect, in caring for the environment (and localised orders banning bolts from certain crags) and the climbing community in general. Once they have savoured the inherent publicity, their lifeblood, they will look for other pristine areas of virgin rock in which to sink their bolts. And soon, very soon, the whole climbing fraternity will be walking around in a trance, the final symptom – mouthing tauous platitudes. As during the Cornish ‘Witch Hunt’ against the Edwards, the government have once again been asked to restart their proposed program of burning climbers with BMB, as the only safe way of eradicating this desease once and for all.’
These comments and similare comments from other climbers were being voiced exactly ten years after Ken Wilson, prophetically wrote in Letters, Climber & Hillwalker in its March, 1989 edition: ‘In giving this explanation I wouldn’t wish to appear to have a totally negative attitude to competitions (competition climbing). They may yet prove to be an amusing sideshow that can be absorbed happily into the sport. I have grave doubts about this however, as I believe vested interests will ensure they are given ludicrous prominence and bring in their wake strident demands to convert our cliffs (and crags) into bolt-protected safety arenas for every grade of climbing.’ Ken Wilson had just explained in his long letter to C&H, the circumstances surrounding his resignation from, and his subsequent reinstatement to, the BMC Management Committee – actions criticised by Alister MacDonald in the Dec 1988, issue of C&H.
Unlike John Horscroft (an obvious envirnmental expert and member of the BMC who in 1996 had been climbing for a mear 12 years): “The climbing community is about as environmentally sound as open-cast mining (yes, the BMC’s record on protecting the environment is pretty poor allowing as it does, its members to bolt unquarried rock the length and breadth of the United Kingdom). We (members of the BMC) trash everything we come across, just look at the top of the Cromlech (just look at the unsightly fence that has been errected across the foot of the rock face that is the Dewerstone in Devon- sponsored by the BMC – amongst others) look at the paths we turn into motorways, look at the crap we leave behind on Everest. We have no right to be hollier than thou mate!”
Mr Horscroft was writing in the July, 1996, issue of Climber just three months after Roland Edwards article in the same magazine in its March issue: ‘New Bolts for Old Trees’. No, Mr Horscroft is not writing about the millions of trees that are destroyed annually by excessive felling and disease from industrial pollution, but climbers passing a rope around them and sliding of (too difficult to walk down).
If the BMC in its infinate wisdom had not advertised; done its level best to attract thousands of young people to ‘try rock climbing’ over the years a mandate that the BMC does not have, then the present situation would not exist. Of course there is an excessive use of trees at the top of certain climbs, of course the foot paths are being over used – thank you very much BMC. But deliberately drilling and then drilling again in five years time, unquarried rock to place ‘convenient abseil bolts’ and that is what Mr Horscroft and Roland Edwards ‘pro bolt stance’ is all about, just for the convenience of BMC members is not the answer. We are concerned about the trees. We are concerned that climbers might step on blue-bells just will not do. Yes, members of the BMC are apparently, eco-vandals to a greater or lesser extent and beginning to look pretty stupid from any kind of independent point of view.
‘Is it so radical, so beyond the pale, to install an abseil point to reduce the damage (mirroring exactly Roland Edwards argument in his article in the March, 1996 issue of Climber) inevitably cause. Is a double bolt really so much worse than the pile of tat atop Left Wall (John Hroscroft). Yes it is. The deliberate act of drilling the rock above the Cromlech would just be a further widing by the thin-end-of-the-wedge for wholesale bolting and Mr Horscroft know’s it. That is why, even Joe Brown came out retirement to oppose bolting in North Wales.
Contributions for the British Environment Defence Fund (BEDF) for the removal, of bolts, are always greatfully received… http://83.231.159.41/bmcnews/NewsItem.aspx?id=1052 Drilling rock and placing bolts to ‘protect’ cliffs – dribble on…
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