Britten Crag Update

Posted on climbnz but added here also.

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Updated as at 22 May. Over the past few weeks a few climbers including some of the crag developers have had a look over and climbed at Britten Crag. Overall the crag has survived remarkably well, considering it's close proximity to the 22/2 epicentre. Over 90% of the climbs appear to be unaffected with some areas of major rockfall confined to limited areas and the crag can still be accessed from either end.

The damaged areas include The Roofs, Winter Wall (centred around 12XU) and of course Shit Buttress which collapsed in the Sept 4th quake.

The rock falls at both The Roofs and Shit Buttress have left a large deposit of fallen rocks covering the track so please take particular care when crossing. If coming in from the lower end, it's best to drop down a couple of metres at this first rockfall to cross rather than clambering over the rocks, which may dislodge some down the hill.

Take more care than usual when on routes, if you do happen to find a loose rock, find a safe direction to drop it and take all the normal precautions that you would when climbing at a newly developed crag. When this crag went through it's major development phase in the early 2000's, many rocks were safely dropped down when routes were cleaned, without them rolling down the hill to the fence.

If you find any damaged climbs that haven't been identified already, list them here. If you find a climb that has a particularly large & unstable loose rock that you feel creates an imminent threat to climbers (or houses) below then post it here & we'll take a look at it.