Features & Regulars    Cragrat - Retreat, sanity and a cement skip    Clean Ascents - An upsurge of the 1970's concern for clean ascents, resurfaces in the American Desert Canyonlands    Bolt First - Larry King's update on the Cave Climbing situation in Oregon   Expedition Update Previous Issues   Number 1 - 6 : 1996 Departments   Post a Notice   Resources The "genuine" Environmentally Friendly Mountaineering Magazine! Contributions are eagerly sought from mountaineers and climbers. Send your contributions to:   The Editor Mountain Online is published and maintained by Ikhaya Web Services -- All material, including artwork and photographs, published in Mountain Online is copyright, and may not be reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without prior approval from the publishers. Every effort will be made to validitate authors' claims to originality of material. Views of authors are not necessarily the views of the publishers.

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     There are many reasons why you may have had to abandon a particular climb. Some are serious and some are just downright silly. Bad weather is a nasty one, so is dropping your rack while on a stance. Some days you just arrive at the crag, look up at the face looming above you and come over all cold in the pit of your stomach: hell, I simply cannot do it today. I have retreated for all of those reasons (except dropping the rack - at least I would never admit it) and many more besides. Other experiences spring to mind. Injury such as a sprained ankle are particularly frustrating, especially after a long walk-in. Not as frustrating as discovering that your partner has forgotten her climbing shoes, again after a long walk-in. Revenge was sweet for that one... "I know you're doing the crux honey, but I can't take in the slack 'cos the belay anchor just came out" (fiendish grin).

     It was a new experience then, to have to retreat from a climb because of a helicopter. I have a love-hate relationship with helicopters. One the one hand they are the most advanced search and rescue aid ever developed; many climbers lives have been saved because of them. On the other, they are a major contributor to noise pollution, especially when climbing near a large city as I do. I will never grow accustomed to being ogled by rich tourists who sit, fat and lazy in a chopper and fly over the mountain rather than walk on it. This usually elicits my standard response which no doubt prompts the pilot to report to his passengers: "No ma'am, that young chap on the end of the rope is not waving to us, I believe he is telling us to sod off."

     One of my favourite climbing areas is also overflown by cablecars, ferrying tourists to the top of the mountain. Over the years climbers have become used to its presence, and often welcome it as a way of getting down the mountain safely after dark. Recently, plans were approved to upgrade the cableway. This was met with some cautious opposition from environmentally conscious people, including many climbers and walkers who questioned the wisdom of an "upgrade" that would end up putting even more people on the top of a mountain that was severly overpopulated during the tourist season. As usual, environmental considerations made way for avarice, and the "developers" moved in. Not merely disregarding the commissioned environmental impact report (which they agreed to consider), but actually proceeding with building operations on the mountain before the report was even finished. This whole sordid saga, still evolving, will not be discussed here. It does bring us back to the helicopter, though.

     About to start our climb, a classic route called Jacob's Ladder, we saw it. In it came, a huge two-engined beast, carrying a cement skip suspended from a long-line. Straight at us. There we stood, still uncoiling our ropes, watching as several tonnes of wet cement approached us horizontally at about thirty knots. Just before the ledge it veered upwards, slowed down only a few feet from the rock directly above us and deposited its load on the building site on the top of the mountain, out of sight from us. The noise cut communication and the downdraft from the rotors was a fierce and monstrous thing.

     There was no question of climbing our chosen line which lay directly beneath the approach path of the helicopter, on its first run of the day. Wet cement dribbled on the route, rubbish from the top of the mountain was blown down from the site above to where we stood. We went home, once again appalled at the lack of environmental consideration shown to a resource as precious the mountain.

     In time, the operation will no doubt cease. The largest thing to fly over the rock face will be the eagles again. Relative peace, other than more people in bigger cablecars to watch as they drift overhead and wonder at what sanity motivates those lunatics that clamber up the sheer rock walls. Indeed, what sanity it is.

     The CragRat Disclaimer: "I said WHAT?!"

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