UKH

I was at a crag yesterday where I saw a party on a climb clearly restricted on RAD, with another party heading for the same place until I politely pointed out that it was currently restricted.

Now I'm not in a position to criticise people unduly, because they said to me exactly what I said a year ago when I inadvertently went climbing on Raven Crag, Walthwaite - the guidebook (Rockfax in my case, other guides are available) - clearly identified SOME crags that were restricted, so by implication if a guide didn't say that then it was not unreasonable to assume that climbing was allowed.

I now know that that isn't the case, and religiously consult RAD before I go anywhere, but patently the message isn't getting across to everyone and there's no point in ranting on about it until everyone is aware of the situation. I'm not in favour of extra signage for lots of reasons - it can be subject to vandalism, involves a lot of work, needs clearing up afterwards, may become out of date and is, after all, just one more form of litter. 

So, here's two  possible solutions: 1) Stop putting bird restriction information in new guidebooks, but instead have f* off big messages (in the frontispiece, and before EVERY crag description) saying something along the lines 'To assure continued access to these crags you MUST consult the BMC RAD database before climbing on them.' 2) 'Encourage' all guidebook retailers to insert an errata slip in every UK guidebook they sell with a similar message, e.g. 'Please note some of the Access information in this guide is out of date. To assure continued access to these crags you MUST consult the BMC RAD database before climbing on them.' A retailer could have a pile of slips just on the desk, and it surely wouldn't be an onerous burden for most online retailers?

It might be a fair bit of work for BMC local reps but we recently went to a crag in Slovenia and there were a number of routes that had notices attached to the first quickdraw that stated no climbing due to birds nesting. It was clear and concise and we thought an easy way to stop people climbing. It would be great to see something like that more in the UK as I'm more than aware not everyone is aware of BMC RAD let alone uses it.

think you have identified why already... the BMC has a limited number of paid staff and local volunteers access reps who also have jobs and hobbies (usually climbing) so it is understandable it hasn't got the resources to go round fixing signs to every crag and take them down as soon as restriction change particularly at high crags in the mountains

This is a really good idea. Rockfax should also add messaging like this to their app - presumably a key attraction of an app is allowing easier and more frequent updates than a printed guide and putting in a RAd awareness update is of great importance.