Pennine Lines w/c 3 March 2025
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Pennine Lines w/c 3 March 2025

When bouldering mats became commonplace in the late 1990s and early 2000s, one of the oft-cited benefits offered up as an excuse for lugging a huge square of foam around (largely to placate the “you’re all going soft, we used to do these problems with just a bar towel stolen from the pub” crowd) was that by using bouldering pads we were protecting the ground from further wear, stopping the grass being battered by repeated falls etc etc. Win win - what selfless legends were were! However, far from being a ‘win’ for erosion, pads clearly just served to enable the whole activity, making it an enjoyable mainstream prospect for all climbers year-round, not just the preserve of fringe nutcases with cast-iron ankles, lowball traverse fans, and cutting edge players needing a training option in the summer - the only time the landings were dry enough to stand on. Hence the massive boom in bouldering participation over the last two decades, with a commensurate strain on the land. Bigger numbers now means at certain places we’re seeing massively accelerated erosion, and it won’t just sort itself out, it’s going to need some legwork from all of us.

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Pennine Lines w/c 19 February 2024
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Pennine Lines w/c 19 February 2024

So, if everyone’s been climbing here all the time anyway, then it’s just business as usual - why does gaining official access recognition matter, you may well ask? I suppose it matters precisely BECAUSE it’s business as usual; i.e. it demonstrates that it should be an easy sell. For land management bodies it’s then not really a leap into the unknown. It’s been said time and time again by access campaigners that you’re usually better off pushing for official access from a position of sustained and trouble free usage already (railway issue notwithstanding). As the saying goes it's easier to ask for forgiveness then for permission.

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Pennine Lines w/c 22 May 2023
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Pennine Lines w/c 22 May 2023

This week I’ve returned from the Isle of Skye to find that climbers’ access to one of the Churnet’s finest crags, Wright’s Rock in Staffordshire, has been completely removed. Anyone following this development can’t have failed to notice the accompanying handwringing and gnashing of teeth online on the state of climbers’ disrespectful behaviour; the fact the Churnet apparently gets busy with climbers up from London, or that everyone climbs stuff when it’s damp, or that the rock and crags here simply can’t cope with this level of traffic.

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