Waipapa
17 April 2011 - 7:04pm
Hey guys
Just wondering is all of Waipapa Crag closed or is there some walls still open?
Thanks
23 April 2011 - 8:00pm
#2
Cheers for that. What wall was that at?
23 April 2011 - 10:45pm
#3
There is an 18 20m left of the Millenium Wall, and a handful of tricky low angle mid-20s between Grit Pike Thin and Star Gazer at the Galaxy Wall. You'll have trouble missing them, there's a lot of shiny new stainless.
26 April 2011 - 8:01pm
#4
Hey thanks for telling me about the new climbs =) i climb around 20- 21 outdoors so i'm looking forward to giving it ago.
cheers.
26 April 2011 - 11:17am
#5
What's the general feeling on this crag? Is it going to be closed by MRP? Are the closed walls going to be re-opened?
Also I heard a rumour of how the crag was closed and I'm wondering if this was true?
Apparently some climbers who had parked in the carpark were asked if they could move their cars so the MRP workmen could get their trucks\cars in so they could work. The climbers told the workmen to “Get F***ed” and thus the crag was closed down.
26 April 2011 - 8:00pm
#6
Um thats how the carpark wall closed but im not sure if they told the workers to get F**ked but i know some climbers park in the car parked wall.
I knew the other walls got shut down temporarily but i wasn't sure if the opened again.
thats all i know though.
26 April 2011 - 11:36am
#7
BTW well done on the new climbs! Sorry to change the topic to a bit of a negative one.
26 April 2011 - 7:58pm
#8
Hey thanks for telling me about the new climbs =) i climb around 20- 21 outdoors so i'm looking forward to giving it ago.
cheers.
27 April 2011 - 9:35am
#9
I thought the crag was closed during the week, and open on the weekend, when the workers aren't working on the cycleway....
27 April 2011 - 7:30pm
#10
O real? i didn't know that. i will prob ask bryce when i'm there next... ive decided to go to kinloch instead.
but if anyone knows ? would be nice to know.
cheers
27 April 2011 - 12:16pm
#11
So the entire crag is open on the weekend?
28 April 2011 - 10:35am
#12
I just took a job with the geothermal department at MRP and rang up the guy responsible for Waipapa access. Crack, Carpark and Lakeside Wall are on MRP property and climbing on them is currently prohibited. Main Cliff, Pipeline and Galaxy Wall etc are not on MRP land and climbing there is fine (although these are Hancock's forest land so access is not guaranteed). The reason for the closure is health and safety - the story I got told from MRP is that not to long ago the site manager was there when some climbers fell on Carpark Wall and an ambulance was called which obviously made him very nervous as they're liable for any accidents on their land. They're supportive of others using their land (they allow walking access to the other crags and the nearby hunting spots), but they're very worried about liability issues if anyone is injured. If things start going wrong then the whole thing could be fenced off, so I think we should proceed carefully to try and open up access to the other areas. If we can come up with solution that ensures they're not liable then MRP will be supportive (the chap I spoke to was quite reasonable), however there are sopme legal obstacles to overcome. I'm going to follow this up with the NZAC and the legal team at MRP to see if there is some way around it. Any legal advice or example of successsful access negotiations appreciated!
3 May 2011 - 5:29pm
#13
Sounds like they aren't liable unless we were paying for access from what I read. Might pay to write to the Department of Labour directly if you were serious about taking it up with MRP.
"2. To clarify this point, the relevant section, HSE Act 1992 Section 16 was amended in March 1998. The Department of Labour released issue 10 of the Health and Safety Farming Bulletin to publicise the amendment. The Act now states that a landowner has a duty to warn recreational (i.e. non-paying) visitors only of work-related, out-of-the-ordinary hazards which would not be reasonably expected to be in a place of work of that type. There is no duty to warn of natural hazards such as bluffs, tomos, landslides, rivers, swamps, wasp nests, and so on.
3. NZRCA asked the Department of Labour for some history of how the Act has been interpreted. We obtained a statement from Rex Moir, Senior Policy Advisor at Department of Labour that makes clear that the Act has been interpreted as described in the above-mentioned issue of the Farming bulletin. This is evidenced by the fact that in the 13 years of the HSE Act's existence, the Department of Labour has never prosecuted, let alone convicted, a landowner in respect of a recreational visitor."
The following is from Rex Moir, Senior Policy Advisor, Department of Labour:
"Overall, the Department of Labour initiates between 100 and 150 prosecutions per year. The great majority of these are prosecutions of employers in relation to the safety and health of their employees. Section 16(2) of the HSE Act is the one that places duties on a landowner in relation to the safety and health of people who pay the landowner for recreational use of their property. There have been only 14 convictions under that section since it was inserted into the HSE Act in March 1998. In all of the cases, the convicted defendant was in the business of providing services directly to the injured person. There have never been any prosecutions by Department of Labour (successful or otherwise) taken against a landowner in respect of a non-paying visitor." "
28 April 2011 - 3:07pm
#14
Thanks good answer.
28 April 2011 - 6:20pm
#15
They're concerned about liability, yet they're building a mountain bike track...
4 May 2011 - 1:51pm
#16
I got pretty much the same idea from the department of Labour when I enquired before opening up Pakeho to recreational climbers. Below is the reply I got from my e-mail enquiry. It is not an official document but may help - the farm-visitors one is though, and is worth a look.
"Dear Paul,
Thanks for your enquiry regarding recreational use of facilities.
Under the requirements of the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992, under Section 16, persons who control the place of work have a simple duty to warn visitors who have permission to be on their properties of any work-related, out-of-the-ordinary hazards that they know about that may cause serious harm. This is further enforced in the bulletin http://www.osh.dol.govt.nz/publications/factsheets/farm-visitors.html
Although this talks about farm situations, it can be applied to any place of work.
Should however the person be a client of yours that has paid to use your facilities, then that changes the nature of the relationship and you would need to take all practicable steps in regards to that persons health and safety while in the workplace.
I trust this information is of assistance, however should you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact 0800 20 90 20."
However MRP is a pretty big organization/landowner with, it seems, lawyers on-tap. They should know all this already. What do they know that we dont?
I think this is really serious for all NZ climbers. Here we have a major landowner with lawyers on-tap that has closed it's land to climbers due to liability issues. If there is a real risk of a landowner being liable for an injury to a recreational climber on their land, I doubt that many crags on private land will remain open, mine included.
Perhaps someone offical from NZAC could get involved?
11 May 2011 - 8:20pm
#17
Hey Paul
NZAC are "officially" involved in the access issues at Waipapa as well as the quarry and other crags and have had many discussions with the respective landowners. Unfortunately positive outcomes have been fairly slow in coming through, but I think it's fair to say that the access issues are being given increasing priority by NZAC and hopefully we will start seeing some results in the near future.
11 May 2011 - 10:07pm
#18
Thanks for that Magnus. Any chance you could get whoever is dealing with it to get in touch with me?
11 May 2011 - 10:22pm
#19
Sure, I'll pass it on.
12 May 2011 - 11:55am
#20
Thanks Promitheus and Paul for the comments. I've spoked with Ollie at NZAC about this. From the comments and links above it sounds like the legal situation may be OK, but we'll have to have to find out from MRP lawyers as to exactly what they're concerned about. Will contact them after forming a plan with NZAC and learning what we can from the quarry situation.
Open. I was there today, there are even 5 or 6 (great) new climbs.