Discussion: Chopped anchors

Fixed Gear Chopped anchors

Someone chopped the (pitch 2) anchors. Can still Belay off a tree fine but would be great to get these reinstalled before the season kicks off and the obvious tree gets hammered.

God damn it. How clean did they chop the anchors this time?

The patch job is pretty sloppy IMO. Kyle was scraping it off with his fingernail...

It’s really important that we do what we can to minimise the effects on vegetation at Frog - it’s a unique ecosystem and many plants are endemic to this area. Environment preservation should be the predominant ethic in high traffic areas. Anchor installations should be coordinated with the QPWS Ranger-in-charge. ACAQ will assist with that coordination.

Legend! Thanks Peter! Might also pay to inform the likely suspect (if acaq has dialogue with him) that QPWS acknowledges that the presence of anchors here is beneficial to the wellbeing of the park and so chopping them is contravening their wishes.

Sam, We’ll probably never know with certainty, and denial is the first defence.

Very true. Denial and a non-existent rationale is not a good combination for encouraging people to be sympathetic to an anchorless ethos. But then again, if critical thinking had more of a presence in the mind of the chopper we probably wouldn't be here to begin with.

Any updates on this? Climbed it on the weekend without checking here and so got a bit of a surprise at the top. The tree is already showing some signs of wear unfortunately. Nothing serious yet, but I'm sure it won't be long particularly if there are lots of people like me usually who climb at frog without consulting The Crag.

It's in the descent gully! For heaven's sake, walk back down 5mins. Save a tree. 🤬

We did walk down, but we had to use the tree for belaying. I didn't have the right gear left to make a belay since I hadn't planned for it.

Mark, I'm pretty sure the wear on the tree is from people belaying their second by rapping a dynema sling around it, not rapping off it. Sure, you 'could' create a gear belay for the second, but the tree presents the option of least effort, and like Issy explained, most people would have burnt through their rack by the time they get there.

Seems like the empirical question of 4 months ago has been answered: the route needs anchors otherwise the tree will continue to suffer.

Hey Sam,

So how about you & I meet up at KP, or Frog, you can pick a random tree up above, on River Terrace, or around the carpark area at Frog, and you can show me how to ringbark a tree by belaying off it.

Can I come too?

🤣 Watch your strawman there Mark, a tree doesn't need to be ringbarked to qualify as suffering.

And sure, I'm happy to condense several more long term phenomena to ecologically valid demonstrations in a single afternoon. This is your plan for our nobel prize right?

Which I'm counting on sharing! I definitely want to stand on that stage in Stockholm.

😇

Hey, I've got no skin in this game. I am however curious as to the details of what you guys are asserting with respect to causing harm to trees by abseiling from them or belaying off them.

Ringbarking isn't an outcome that looks possible.

Repeated abseil and rope pull, or sloppy top belay configurations (though all do to some degree), causes friction which wears into the bark to the point it impacts the trees health. It won't be as bad as a farmer taking to a tree with an axe or chainsaw but it can still be pretty impactful and cause the tree to die a lot earlier than it otherwise would. You may not have seen it before as it's less of an issue on mature smooth barked trees, and more of an issue on soft and/or rough barked trees.

Colin, be careful and considerate of what you introduce here as fact.

Can you be more specific please Mark? Crag usage? Potential for passing contagion via gear? Something else?

Thanks Colin and Mark. My intuition is to push back on these general statements. I absolutely accept that smooth-bark trees will suffer cambium damage on the high side of the trunk. The tree will work to repair this quite rapidly. Whether the tree suffers a permanent cambium interruption is a matter of usage frequency.

Note that this would be a partial ringbarking - "ringbarking" requires removal of the cambium around the entire circumference of the trunk, which will rapidly result in death of the tree.

Rough-barks have a much higher tolerance for this abuse, to the point that I would say it's not a problem at all for thickly-barked specimens. Bark is dead; it's function is to act as a protective layer against the abuses of the world.

I'd like to add that I'm not advocating for mindless abuse of trees. Judgements on a tree's suitability for use as an anchor might be better made on a case-by-case basis. There are multiple factors that can contribute to the decline in health of a tree, and soil compaction is chief among them. Trees on trafficked ledges with limited soil volume are likely to experience a decline in their condition irrespective of being used as rap points.

Yes, very well put Mike. Kudos 👍

I was (and obviously still am), incensed by a certain climber chopping the plastic covered chain around an Iron Bark tree above Materialistic, so that he could then introduce bolted anchors on the wall.

His argument was that the tree was suffering.

No.

The bark was a bit lighter, where the chain hung, but the tree was fine.

Water under the bolts now. 😔😕🤬

Ha, "ironbarks" have that name for a reason