UK Winter Conditions - Dangerous Misinformation

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 Brucemacrosson 07 Feb 2016
UK Winter Conditions - Dangerous Misinformation

Quite often a route will be entered on the UK Winter Conditions page and without actually going into the post one would not realise it had been logged but not climbed.

I appreciate this may now be an outdated concept but surely abseiling off after the first pitch means that that particular route has NOT been climbed that day.

A more trusting UKC winter user might take the fact that somebody has logged a route means that person has honestly climbed it and not think to check its veracity. Then take it it was in nik that day before heading on up on the morrow - not appreciating that the poster had entered it from his hospital bed having been avalanched off the first pitch etc.

Would it not make sense to have the UKC Logbook Page and Winter Conditions Page separate. Use the UKC Logbook Page as a personal record and a Winter Conditions Page entry as focused conditions & other beta entries to help out fellow winter climbers ?
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 Elsier 07 Feb 2016
In reply to Brucemacrosson:

I think dangerous misinformation might be overstating it a bit, if you head out winter climbing you should be experienced enough to make your own decisions and judgements about whether a route looks in condition. Although of course it can be frustrating when you go somewhere hoping that a route will be in condition based on some incorrect beta.

I also think it is quite useful on occasion to log an unsuccessful attempt. For example I think I may have been the first person to attempt West Chimney after the chimney was blocked on the second pitch, I logged it as a alt leads dnf and made a note in the logbook, so that people could see if was blocked, if they checked the logbooks. So hopefully that was helpful to people subsequently.
I updated the winter conditions page a few weeks ago so the comments are easily accessible, the routes were grouped slightly differently and a few other bits and bobs. One of the things I meant to add was to highlight routes marked as DNF in red text so you guys could maybe get a good idea of routes people have backed off.

I ended up turning it off basically because it was marking routes that had seen multiple ascents in red text even if only one party logged it as DNF. To keep things simple I'll mark routes in red if everyone that day has logged it as DNF and orange if one party DNF.

The winter conditions page should not be taken as gospel though. People have very different views of what is and isn't in condition, I'll leave people to argue that in another thread.

> Would it not make sense to have the UKC Logbook Page and Winter Conditions Page separate. Use the UKC Logbook Page as a personal record and a Winter Conditions Page entry as focused conditions & other beta entries to help out fellow winter climbers ?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but if you are talking about some sort of winter conditions reporting that has nothing to do with the logbooks that's pretty much what happens here on the forums.
 jezb1 07 Feb 2016
In reply to Brucemacrosson:

Surely you'd read their notes if they've made any and if they haven't count them as not particularly useful on their own.
Calski 07 Feb 2016
In reply to Elsier:
I totally agree Elsie. Anyone who bases their whole decision making over a day on UKC logbooks, shouldn't really be in the mountains in winter without a competent leader. Not only can conditions change completely over a few hours (never mind a day), but there is a whole range of people and organisations providing relevant information.

So, I disagree that this could constitute dangerous misinformation.
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Routes that people have logged as DNF will now show in red text. Routes that some people have marked as DNF but others did that day will appear as an orange-ish colour.
 planetmarshall 08 Feb 2016
In reply to Elsier:

> I think dangerous misinformation might be overstating it a bit...

Putting it mildly. Has it really come to this - are we not all adults and able to take responsibility for our own actions?
 summo 08 Feb 2016
In reply to Brucemacrosson:
if can't make assessment of the routes conditions, from either an up close visual inspection and by looking at previous days weather reports, then I'd suggest only going out winter climbing with people much more experienced and learning the ropes. Even 24hrs is a long time in Scotland when weather systems are blowing through quickly.
Post edited at 11:51
In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

What a polarising thread!

I think your change (highlighting the colours) is a very good idea as it will, at a glance, give you a slightly better idea of what's been done and not done (which is all the UKC winter Conditions is intended to do).

Those saying it's dangerous misinformation are being a bit overly reactionary.

Those decrying others for "Anyone who bases their whole decision making over a day on UKC logbooks" are clearly missing the point - the winter conditions page is just one source which currently could be (and is being) improved.


Martin - good work on the improvements.
In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Martin,

many thanks for your help and improvements to the site.

I concede my heading may have been a tad melodramatic but was interested for others views.

I would however point out that I have lived in Scotland all my life and have been winter climbing for the past 25 years, before us climbers had an internet or UKC to play with so I'm more than aware of fickleness of Scottish conditions.

I do believe that Martin's improvements do make things a lot clearer now at first glance.
 Mike-W-99 08 Feb 2016
In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Martin is there a bug in how its selecting the routes? Central gully on Ben Lui appears as being climbed on sunday the 7th but when you look at the climb its not there.
In reply to Mike-W-99:

Nice spot! Central Gully was the route I was using for testing the changes yesterday and I removed the logbook entries when I was finished.

The database query that fetched the winter routes was written a while back and since then we changed the way logbook entries were marked as removed. I've now updated the winter conditions query so it filters removed logs.

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