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.