UKH

previous thread:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/are_old_men_ruining_british_cli...

In reply to Martin Hore:

On old routes I tend to think of pegs as artefacts and part of the history of the route.  However, there isn’t a necessity to replace them when they have rusted or snapped. It only changes the nature of the route from a protection point of view. The key aspects of the the line, moves, features and position remain unchanged. I think in some instances on classic trad routes it’s worth preserving the original challenge as it was first done but it would have to require extraordinary circumstances if that preservation requires swapping an old peg for a bolt!  Without a crucial peg or two a route will of course become more challenging but what of it? Is there an eleventh commandment that says that “thou shalt never alloweth a route to change”? 

What amazes me is how the old guys found the only possible place that a peg would fit (good job they had the right size) and now the only option is to drill out that placement. 
Chris

Exactly.

I've climbed plenty of routes (especially down in the SW) where there were old rotting pegs (occasionally one that I could snap just by waggling them a bit) but, either because I could get more modern gear in (which, given the age of the pegs, often just meant RPs or smallish cams) or maybe just because I wasn't doing a first ascent and knew what the grade was going to be, it wasn't that big a deal.

However, where alternative gear really doesn't seem to provide equivalent protection, I don't have a problem with a new peg, either in the same place if the old one really has completely rusted away, or close by.  That said, maybe the culm coast has always had slightly different rules.   

No, but...

At the risk of sounding too philosophical, there is a difference between losing something and not having had it in the first place.

What stands to be 'lost', in this instance, is admittedly limited - a small proportion of trad routes that have relied on a 'crucial' fixed gear placement or two that make them relatively safe challenges at a given standard.

But those few cases may be locally significant. Certain routes develop a mythos in the collective imagination as a particular kind of challenge, in much the same way as the broader concept of 'ethics' does in climbing culture. There's a bit of irony if the two things clash, because the value in both is engaging with tradition, playing the game in a way that connects with history and with other gamers.

I'm not trying to present this as the bottom line on fixed gear on trad routes - it's just one consideration, but I don't think it should be ignored. There is value in having ethical consistency, but there is also value in preserving quality in the form of a select small number of routes that can be attempted in good style by more than a tiny number of people.

I think Avon Gorge has, historically, presented a unique challenge with regard to this issue. It always depended significantly on fixed gear and much of this was of questionable quality even back in the 70's and I'm not totally convinced that modern protection has made significant inroads in reducing the risk.

I totally agree with your general point. If the climbing community decides that in most instances pegs shouldn't be replaced then that's fine by be. Routes can evolve with time as you say. 

However, this bit doesn't make sense to me.

If the community does decide a particular climb does need one point of fixed protection I don't see any sensible alternative to a bolt (and I don't mean peg bolts!). What's the alternative, new pegs hammered in every few years? Old ones removed or left to rust? Compared to that one re-usable bolt hole is more sustainable and less impactful. I understand it undermines the climbing 'ethics', a misnomer for the rules of our 'handicap' system, as the original OP put it, but I do feel at some point that should be a secondary point to general common sense management of the crags. We don't own the crags we play on.

To explain thing in an engineering sense, I'd be pretty miffed if a tradesman started banging a fixing to my masonry using thick nails!

Edit: I also think this approach would concentrate minds.

Agree totally. 

Some years ago I got dragged to a BMC area meeting (I think) about regeneration at Avon. Martin Crocker made an extremely professional presentation. He asked people to guess the amount of in situ pieces of protection in the gorge. He reckoned the correct answer was something like 870 points, if I remember correctly. Obviously there were lots of those pieces in a dire state.

Much the same issues came up as we're debating here. Few people wanted the place sanitised. Similarly few wanted bold routes becoming death routes. Most people wanted some kind of in between state, i.e. bold but not death. It was accepted that this could be tricky where a peg had disintegrated and there was really only that no longer usable placement nearby. What to do?

I went off climbing and heard no more. (Am not Bristol based.) But I wonder what happened and whether it might serve as a useful case study to inform us?

Just a thought...

Mick 

In reply

 Avon worked pretty well under various motivated and organised fixed gear replacement projects by Martin and co. Ethically it was weird and still is but it’s unique in history and setting and so could really only illustrate an example for another Avon. 

 I couldn’t really understand, in the shadow of Scot Titt’s (I think it was him or Jim) paper on pegs that summarily proposed that the condition of the peg can only possibly be good for the climber who placed it, why pegs would be replaced with pegs. Chris’ post is about the size of it I think. 
Anyway, Avon seems a bit less popular these days, not because of its approach to fixed gear though, I’m sure. 

Thanks for your reply. If the Avon example can't help us, then fair enough. I just thought it was worth a try. Thanks again. 

Mick