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Climbing on Standing Stones
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The Eternal
924 posts

Re: Climbing on Standing Stones
Feb 19, 2012, 01:24
postman wrote:
At the risk of sounding like a clueless bufoon, can I ask why exactly it is frowned upon to climb on stones, is it a respect thing, or are we seriously saying that a barely 11 stone bloke will break or wear down a several tonne capstone or standing stone, when I first saw a dolmen I couldnt help climbing on to it, I dont anymore, but not because i'm scared of knocking it off but just because ive been there done that.
Ive tried a bit of restoration on an upland cairn and nearly crushed a finger in the process, are we presuming that there is an army of cairn abusers there single mindedly destroying them, in the time it takes to rearrange a cairn you could simply walk off the hill/mountain, I for one dont understand the process of cairn rearranging.


Climbing on rocks by many people results in the rock becoming polished. I know from first hand experience as someone who has climbed in the Lakes. The popular rock climbs become polished, which shows as discolouration on the foot and hand holds. Also, with more fragile rock, and where it has cracks, there is a possibility of rock breaking off.

As for cairns, they don't become shelters overnight. Someone my rearrange a few rocks to provide a brief, scant bit of shelter whilst they put something warmer on. This is then seen by the next person, who adds to the wall structure, and so on, until a considerable shelter results over time. Luckily, these are built out of scattered rocks lying nearby, but, where there is an ancient cairn in an exposed position there will be an inevitable shelter excavated. There is no way someone who has no archaeological interest would know it was an ancient cairn.

Cheers,
TE.
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