Discussion: National Park`

Flora and Fauna National Park`

This is a National Park. Destruction of native flora (e.g. lichen) is illegal. This area is alpine and as such it is a threatened area (by climate change) as well as being an area very sensitive to human impact.

1. Any refence to cleaning of rocks needs to be removed from this page.

2. A warning should be given to tell climbers that cleaning of boulders in National Parks is illegal.

3. Preferably this area should be taken down by The Crag and bouldering on the Victoria High Plains discouraged.

This bouldering area is NOT worth leaving on this site and giving Parks Victoria another excuse to put blanket bans on climbing in Victorian National Parks.

Hi Sam, I've added a note in the Ethics part. Im not sure removing it acheives much, but yes agree on yours comments in regards mentioning cleaning. I'm not sure who added this but yeah its not likely to attract the hordes, being so small, by themselves and not even that great.

Thanks Matt. I sort of agree re removing from archive, but think it worth the climbing community having to think about what goes up and what is not worth it - particularly in Victoria at the moment.

I've just been to Ben Nevis on Mt Cole to see if we could improve access and I can't help thinking it will never get much traffic as the descent gully is so horrible.

So the question in my mind is - why do we promote climbing on routes that will/should never get a second ascent? Which I know is a bit harsh on "Big Ben" at Ben Nevis, as it is worth every one of its three stars.

Would it not be better to leave some of these areas for future generations to also "discover"?

The other reason to be careful about what is posted or put up on The Crag is that it is a written record that Parks Vic and other land management agencies can use as evidence of the impact of climbing and/or of climbers disregard for the law regarding activities in National Parks.

Food for thought perhaps.

One could argue that much of this stuff has been written in a guide for years and yet areas like Cole, the Ben and many Grampians areas still get fk all visits, and it will likely always stay that way just purely due to style and location. There are 1000s of logged climbs and 100s of crags in the Grampians that will likely never get a repeat or visit, bans or no bans for the same reason! And any visit in the future will still involve significant adventure - we went to 2 this weekend that were relatively easy to access yet showed Zero signs of repeat visits!

Yep. I couldn't agree more Matt.

However, I do think it worth our while "laying low" until this access issue in Victoria is sorted.

I work with the cotton and rice industries. They call it "social licence" and are very mindful of how they are perceived by society in general with regards to their use of water etc.

With regard to those "un-trafficked" areas. There is a case for leaving areas "un-discovered".

Hey guys - just caught up with this discussion.

I agree that this area is not worth keeping if it endangers the future of climbing accessibility in Australia, especially since this most likely will not get much traffic ever and has no history behind it. Honestly I was just using it to test adding routs to the crag.

I have been trying to remove the area, but as always with the crag... it's not that simple and I yet haven't been able to do so.

In my defense I did make it very clear to not clean the beautiful lichen off the boulders. anyways

I think we as climbers need to gain some perspective and focus out attention on more pressing 'climate change' or environmental issues in general.

What about the millions of hectares of native land that has and continues to be cleared for agriculture and buildings? Whats worse clearing that? or clearing a couple of inches of lichen of a stone?

what about the highly destructive fertilizers that are being used in our farms to feed us and our food, slowly degrading soil quality until their is no fertile soil left?

what about the thousands of non native flora and fauna that is killing our 'sensitive' native ecosystem.

We need to be redirecting governing bodies like Parks Victoria towards these issues instead of fueling the flame of this climbing debate.

I don't like the saying 'but they are both bad'. Brushing a couple of inches of lichen may be bad - but how bad? I recon a very very very very very little bit bad in comparison. Climbing isn't everything - i'm no saint but we need to focus on the big bad issues before focusing on stuff like this.