The magazine is in the same to do pile as the new website, not likely to happen anytime soon. Toc has his hands full most of the time but I don’t know about the rest of ’em.

I am not a member and will not become one unless the bolting policy is cleaned up, ie follows Safer Cliffs Australia recommendations or similar.

I know the association needs our support but there are quite a few people that I know of that feel the same as I do, also CAWA seems to have quite a few members but not many willing to help the association.

CAWA needs a revamp similar to the revival in the nineties or it will fade out again.

well spoken. I have observed the steady decline of CAWA over the years and I fear it is also heading into recession once again. I have noticed that there are individuals who have actually offered their services online and still there is a perceived reluctance or territorial issue that seems to rear it’s head.

There has been in the last 6 months indivduals who have offered to help with a new web site, a new forum and others initatives. When will CAWA just say yes and stop waiting and waiting.

If we contiune to wait, then the probability of an asteroid entering Earth’s atmosphere will far outway the liklyhood of changes with this site.

Ang, I would gladly help with the magazine and all access issues, but it seems Me and CAWA do not see eye to eye on the issue of acceptable fixed protection (bolting policy vs bolting “ethics”).

I would join in a second and throw my efforts in any direction needed, IF the policy was written up and followed but I have met a lot of opposition on the matter so I simply stay as an individual who enjoys climbing.

I know as an association we are stronger united when combating access issues but I think average bolting practices is eventually going to have a massive negative impact on our access to crags and could see all of CAWA’s efforts in the last decade be in vain.

I do not know enough to help with the website but there has been plenty of offers over the years from others and still nothing done. That bloke Shane had a forum that was usable and simple and I am pretty sure I read that he offered it to CAWA and nothing happened. Ross Weiter said he would do something about it months ago and nothing happened. I have been told that WA stands for wait awhile, and CAWA seems to have adopted that attitude within itself.

Just a few more words in addition to Tocs:

Western Climber – the last few editions of the WC have been totally written by Conrad (the editor) and one or two other people. The ‘editors’ job is not to write the magazine – it is to edit, format and proof-read the submissions that CAWA members write. Unfortunately almost no members can be bothered writing about their last climbing trip, new crag, latest bit of gear or their view on bolting or whatever. As a result, the committee has told Conrad not to write the whole thing himself – and so no WC.

Climbing Guide – same as above. Despite notices in the previous WCs, at the gyms and on the webpage, NO ONE has come forwards to help with the updating of the guide.

And as Toc points out, what has been keeping he CAWA committee busy the last year has been dozens of meetings with DEC, DSR and Outdoors WA, all of which have brought in or proposed new regulations that would severely limit climbing in WA – things such as the requirement for formal written permission each time you want to climb on DEC managed land – which includes Churchman’s, Statham’s, Mountain Q, the Stirlings, Porongorups, Willyabrup, Bob’s, West Cape Howe, Peak Charles, Peak Head, Kalbarri… the list goes on.

As Toc also mentions, there were proposed regulations that would have meant that ALL outdoor climbers in WA would need to have a certified and registered NOLRS instructors with them. The CAWA committee, after attending about 20 meetings in the last year with DSR, DEC and ODW, managed to limit this to only include commercial and not-for-profit groups such as Scouts and schools etc and to exclude recreational climbers and groups such as CAWA. Without the CAWA committee, you would all be either climbing illegally or paying to take a pimply 18 yo instructor along climbing.

As for bolting – according to DEC regulations and State Law, bolting is only permitted on DEC managed land with the specific permission of the district manager AND when done according to the CAWA guidelines. In the Pilbarra, the law actually DOES state that a geotechnical report and maintenance schedule has to be done on the bolts. In the past CALM/DEC have generally ignored bolting as most bolting has been done in a responsible and appropriate manner. However with the increased number of insensitive and inappropriately placed bolts, this IS changing. At the last meeting with DEC, the committee was questioned about some P-bolts that were placed in the entrance to a cave. Fortunately we could prove that the bolts were placed prior to the anti-bolting regulations and thus they have been allowed to stay.

Same with chipping – chipping is ILLEGAL on DEC land – even in the quarries. While DEC does not appear to mind climbers doing a bit of ‘cleaning’ of routes, a few climbers have been going way too far and have caused serious concerns in DEC and elsewhere.

Note that I don’t necessarily approve of all the silly laws – but at the moment, people bolting and chipping inappropriately are making it hard for all the other climbers and even harder for the CAWA committee that has to meet with the bureaucrats.

So, to sum up, you want the WC? Then write something and send it in.

You want a new climbing guide? Then get the old one, go to your favourite crag and write up some notes and send them in.

You want to do some bolting? Then do it properly or DEC will crap all over climbers.

You want to climb? Then stop bitching and support CAWA when it represents recreational climbers in meetings and discussions with well meaning but ill-informed government departments.

another month passes and still no appreance of teh new web site or the western climber magazine. I wonder will we see it by next year

Hi concerned climber,

Why do you want a new website? I’m just curious. What actually is the problem you are having with this one.

By the way, would you like to edit a newsletter. You don’t have to tell us you are “concerned climber”.

Also by the way, are you doing any climbing? I hope so.

Got to go. Got an exam tomorrow.

Cheers,

Toc.

well that IS a pretty poor attitude martin.. i back Toc and George if you or anyone is ‘concerned’ then suck it up and get involved, do something positive

clubs and associations are only as good as the input from their members

Thank you Mark, I really appreciate your comments.

Sir,

The submission of a free climbers to the executive authority of CAWA is no more than a compliance with laws, which climbers themselves have maintained , and while justice is impartially administered, the obedience of the climber will be voluntary, cheerful, and almost unlimited. A generous community is grateful even for the preservation of its rights, and willingly extends the respect due to the office of a good committee into an affection for their persons. Loyalty, in the heart and understanding of a climber, is an attachment to the guardians of the law. Prejudices and passion have sometimes carried it to a criminal length; that climbers have erred as much in a mistaken zeal for particular persons, as they ever did in defence of what they though most dear and interesting to themselves.

It natually fills us with resentment, to see such a temper insulted and abused. In reading the history of free climbers, whose rights have been invaded, we are interested in their cause. Our own feelings tell us how long they ought to have submitted, and at what moment it would have been treachery to themselves not to have resisted. How much warmer will be our resentment, if experience should bring the fatal example home to ourselves!

The situation of CAWA is alarming enough to rouze the attention of every person, who pretends to a concern for climbing. Appearances justify suspicion, and, when the survival of a community is at stake, suspicion is a just ground of enquiry. Let us enter into it with candour and decency. Respect is due to the station of committee members; and, if a resolution must at last be taken, there is none so likely to be supported with firmness, as that which has been adopted with moderation.

The ruin or prosperity of climbing depends so much upon the administration of its government, that to be acquainted with the merit of a committee, we need only observe the condition of the climbers. If we see them obedient to the laws, prosperous in their industry, united at home, and respected abroad, we may reasonably assume that their affairs are conducted by persons of experience, ability and virtue. If, on the contrary, we see an universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfaction, a rapid decay of access, dissentions in all parts of the community, and a total loss of respect in the eyes of foreign powers, we may pronounce, without hesitation, that the committee is weak, distracted, and corrupt. The climbers, in all countries, are patient to a certain point. Ill-usage may rouze their indignation, and hurry them into excesses, but the original fault is in the committee. Perhaps there never was an instance of a change, in the circumstances and temper of a whole community, so sudden and extraordinary as these very few years, produced in CAWA. When our gracious committee was elected, we were a flourishing and a contented people. If the personal virtues of a president could have insured the happiness of his subjects, the scene could not have altered so entirely as it has done. The idea of uniting all parties, of trying all characters, was gracious and benevolent to an extreme, though it has not yet produced the many salutary effects which were intended by it. To say nothing of the wisdom of such plan, it undoubtedly arose from an unbounded goodness of heart, in which folly had no share. It was not a capricious partiality to new faces; it was not a natural turn for low intrigue; nor was it the treacherous amusement of double and triple negotiations. No, Sir, it arose from a continued anxiety in the purest of all possible hearts, for the general welfare. Unfortunately for us, the event has not been answerable to the design. After a rapid succession of changes, we are reduced to that state, which hardly any change can mend. Yet there is no extremity of distress, which of itself ought to reduce a great climbing tradition to dispair. It is not the disorder but the Physician; — it is not a casual concurrence of calamitous circumstances, it is the pernicious hand of the committee, which alone can make a whole people desperate.

Without much political sagacity, or any extraordinary depth of observation, we need only mark the weak inaction and division of the committee, and look no farther for the true cause of every mischief that befalls us.

SIR,

An academical education has given you and the correspondants gathered within this website an unlimited command over the most beautiful figures of speech. Masks, hatchets, racks, and vipers, dance through their posts in all the mazes of metaphorical confusion. These are the gloomy companions of disturbed minds; the melancholy madness of poetry without inspiration. I will not contend with you in point of composition. You are a scholar, Sir, I am a plain, unlettered man, suffer me then, to continue that style of interrogation, which suits my capacity.

I thank you, sir, for the hint of the decalogue, and shall take an opportunity of applying it to some of your most virtuous friends on the committee,

Do you then really think that, if we were to ask a most virtuous committee member whether he ever committed theft, or murder, it would disturb his peace of mind? Such a question might perhaps discompose the gravity of his muscles, but I believe it would little affect the tranquility of his conscience. Reproaches and enquiries have no power to afflict either the man of unblemished integrity or the abandoned profligate. It is the middle compound character which alone is vulnerable: the man, who, without firmness or wit enough for diligent application, has feeling enough to be ashamed of his inaction.

And now, Sir , I shall take my leave. In truth, the committee have some reason to hold themselves indebted to me. From the lessons I have given, they may collect a profitable instruction for future life. They will either learn dilligence in their conduct, as to be able to set the most malicious inquiries at defiance; or,if that be a lost hope, they will learn prudence enough not to attract the public attention upon a character, which will only pass without censure, when it passes without observation.