Everything Awesome

A great evening had by all.
With a group of 6 folk all on the verge if RCI assessment we had a peer evening of ropework.

Everyone paired up and built anchors for belay’s, built releasable abseils, and got to see how other people build the same.

It was a fantastic learning opportunity, 6 people, all enthusiastic, all bursting with interest and new found knowledge.

so a couple of acronyms we talked about 

IDEAS  – Independent – each leg

Direction (see ABC below), 

Equalised., sharing the load,

Angle, keep angle between legs < 90

Secure – rock quality.

ABC is Anchor Belayer Climber – for top roping (i guess for bottom roping as well)  Keep all three in a straight line  as thats what will happen under load.

Americans like ERNESTA

Equalised, Redundant, Non-Extending, Secure, Timely, Angles

there are some others (eg REST – redundant, equal, shockload, tight!) but notice no D in the americans, some ERNEST no A but IDEAS missses NE, but that can be ‘combined’ in I+E or swap secure (take that as given) for shockload.

We run these sessions every few months, and i am already looking forward to the next

If your new to climbing outdoors, but competent indoors, we run a great Gym to crag session.

The Peak District has over the past decade become a huge success, if you gauge success by enabling more access to the countryside, or by the increased income levels tourism brings to the area.

Unfortunately this has created some issues that could have been avoided. Much more traffic use and roadside parking.
Rather than create additional car parks, give farmers planning permission to allow parking on their land, or developing a working park and ride system, the answer has been to restrict parking.

The latest being the Fox House pub in Hathersage. Now this is a location i use frequently, i start and stop MTB courses here, and my clients often park in the large carpark.
I encourage this, insisting that at the end of the course, or the end of the day we put around £50 over the bar for food and drinks, We often excede this.
Now there are to be ANPR cameras on that carpark, i fear my clients will park elsewhere, the pub will ultimately lose out and we all lose a facility.

I don’t have answers but prohibition rarely succeeds long term.