Terence Bay Woods CLOSED!

[Guest]

Yes it is true. This is no joke. Read the details at http://ns.bouldering.ca/news.html

Ghislain
ns.bouldering.ca

[Fred]

what trees have been chopped that they speak of? Since the area was discovered or recently?

[Guest]

the only ones I can think of are 2 trees that actually died through Juan and one winter. those were cut afterwards. I can't recall anything that was cut which was alive. This is beside the point. Cutting 1-2 trees did not close the area. Liability is no.1
Ghislain

[dcentral]

Wow, that sucks.

[upliftmofo]

give me a waiver, i'll sign it

[Fred]

good call.

I was actually loging in to say something to that effect. I hope if they are playing the liability card they will look into the waiver idea. If it's people they don't want on their land then I hope they will play that card.

[Guest]

Waivers don't mean much... You don't have the right to sign your life away..

[dcentral]

Yeah, they really only force people to reconsider the risks they are taking and even then it doesn't really help some people.

[Sean K]

http://www.gov.ns.ca/legi/legc/statutes/occupier.htm This site discusses liability for Land owners. We had issues in CNS before where we used this act and in one case a lawyers interpretation of it to keep an area open. I believe it was Columbus.

Under section 4 para 3 subsection D it states
" (d) the ability of the person entering the premises to appreciate the danger;" where we as climbers know the risk.

and E
" (e) the effort made by the occupier to give warning of the danger concerned or to discourage persons from incurring the risk" We pay for a sign saying danger high rocks.

Even if none of the above is done; all of section 5 would release them of liability anyway, because we go there and because we climb we are stating that we assume the risk weather we have a voice or not. Maybe CNS could offer them a second legal opinion.

Any thoughts CNS?
Where is CNS on this (not bitching just asking)?

I swear to god fred if you turn on spell checker I will say good things about this site, cause I am functionally iliterrate (I had to spell that wrong).


Sean K (AKA Mitt)

[Guest]

Sean K.
Is doesn't matter if they are not liable, they plan on building there soon. Hence we wouldn't be able to climb there anyway once they "move in". Their house is actually going to be where the boulders are situated. I think we should make an effort to keep a good relationship going with them since they have expressed to me that they would be willing to open their property to climbers for a bouldering event (pending liability through CNS, etc.).
Ghislain

[Fred]

Sean K,

I can barely spell myself let alone figure out how to work a spell check feature if there is one? LOL Is there one? I duno

[Sean K]

Its called Spelling cow. Weird name. Its on the phpbb.com site under mods. If you need help installing it let me know.

Mitt

[Climb Nova Scotia]

Sean K: Thanks for the link. I knew of the act but had not read it. Now that we have another access issue I need to familiarize myself with the details of the act.

CNS will contact the land owners sometime in the coming year. We will discuss liability and try to maintain positive relations. If the boulders will be near their house we will probably not gain unrestricted access, however if they are open to prescheduled events, then we will not loose access completely. In the meantime, the Grover sounds like the bouldering destination of choice for Terrence Bay. It sort of makes up for the loss of the woods.

If anyone has contact information for the landowners at Woods area, please email it to me at tethc@yahoo.com.


Teth Cleveland, President of Climb Nova Scotia

[Sean K]

So what exactly has CNS done with respect to Access in the past year? Are we ready for a crisis like losing access to main face or LOC? Do we have money to possibly buy land or hire lawyers? We seam to be giving alot of money out to people, why not set up an access fund for issues like the woods.

I personally care far more about CNS doing something for Access than setting up a movement instructor course. Where is CNS's direction? Lets concentrate less on setting up peoples professional aspirations and money making opertunities and more on things like safety and access.

Just my 2 cents

MITT

[Climb Nova Scotia]

So what have we done for access in the last year? Well I will go back a little farther than that since this year has been relatively free of issues. I do not have my notes with me so this may be a little short on names, but I believe there is a bit in here about both Main Face and LOC.

Prospect:
Last year a news paper article about bouldering in Prospect caused a stir when a woman contacted CNS claiming to represent The Friends Of The High Head and another prominent environmental group. She claimed that climbers were trespassing on private land at Prospect and that it was illegal to climb at Peggys Cove. I researched the land ownership and found that the road right-of-way for the Indian Point Road goes all the way down to the stream and that the land we climb on was owned by an environmental organization with the land between owned by HRM. I contacted the treasurer of The Friends Of The High Head to find out what was going on and listened to their concerns. They helped me get in touch with a representative of the organization which owned the land. He agreed that since there is no soil where we climb that climbing was not impacting the environment at Prospect. Our only impact is on the hike in, where we are the same as any other hiker or dog walker. It was made clear to me that climbers should park on the side of the Indian Point road and not block driveways. I passed this information along to our membership on the discussion board.

LOC:
When it was stated that it was illegal to climb in the Peggys Cove area, I did some research to find out if this was true. From my reading of the Peggys Cove act it does not seem to be illegal to climb there, although the building of structures without permission from the Peggys Cove commission is prohibited, which means we can not build board walks in some areas as we would like. It turned out that the woman who contacted CNS with these concerns did not represent the organizations she claimed to represent. CNS later received an apology from one of the organizations for the trouble she caused.

Sorrows End:
The owner of the gravel pit built a house which blocked our access to the trails leading to Sorrows End. The alterative route from Nice View Drive was long, particularly since locals had asked that we park at the end of Nice View and walk in. Some people were driving in, and some people were taking the shorter route and cutting across peoples yards. This situation was both inconvenient for climbers and quickly leading to major conflict with the locals. So I did some research into land ownership in the area and then went out on foot and bush-waked until I was able to mark out a route for a trail which was entirely on Crown Land from the road to the cliff. This avoids further access problems and is about the same distance as the original route through the gravel pit. I read the Crown Land Act carefully and the Trails Act to make sure there was no problem with climbers using this route.

Main Face:
When the owner of half of Main Face (CNS has an agreement with the person who owns the other half) was upset about climbers lighting a camp fire, I contacted him to discuss the issue. I made it clear that such behaviour was not condoned by CNS and was frowned on by most experienced climbers. I agreed to post on the CNS bulletin board and in our news letter that lighting of fires on private land could threaten access to cliffs and would not be tolerated by the climbing community. The land owner was satisfied with this. He mainly wanted to make sure that climbers respect his land and having me contact him when he had a concern gave him an avenue to complain about the actions of individuals rather than taking actions which would effect the entire climbing community. He commented that climbers have been good about packing out their garbage at Main Face, and we ended the conversation on a positive note. It turns out he owns Columbus Wall too, so maintaining good relations helped to maintain access to two prominent climbing walls (or possibly three, as the Bow Wall has the same access point).

Cape Breton Highlands National Park:
Climbing was banned in the park in 2003 because the park officials did not have the time and interest to come up with a way of managing it. CNS contacted park officials and it was agreed that CNS would work with the park to reopen some areas for climbing. Things started to drag out a little so this Spring I decided to take a more aggressive approach. I wrote a climbing management plan for the park, designed around the management zones in their Park Management Plan. I applied a bit of pressure on them to do implement it. They responded by assigning a park official with some climbing experience to work with us to do cliff assessments. We were a matter of days away from having Climb Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton representative and the park official assess Black Brook in preparation for reopening it to the public, when the Federal park employees went on strike. Suddenly our park management contact was busy trying to keep the park running with no staff, which sort of derailed the process. I will try to get things going again this winter with hopes of at least getting Black Brook open for the spring climbing season.

Other than CBHNP we have not had very many issues this year, which has allowed us to tackle some of the lower priority stuff that we have been putting off for a while. The access fund is an interesting idea. I will have to find out if saving large amounts of money will effect our not for profit status or our funding. (Then I might have to think about where to get large amounts of money.) I would not call the money we have been giving out to people “a lot”. It would not buy a parking space, much less a cliff. I also believe that supporting the production of high quality guide books is beneficial to the climbing community, and as far as supporting profit making ventures, making money off of climbing in Nova Scotia is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. These people are doing what they do to provide a service and struggle just to break even. No one is getting rich off of climbing in this province.

Teth Cleveland, President of Climb Nova Scotia

[Stevo]

Teth,
Thankyou for this information, could this be posted on the CNS website and updated from time to time? I still have concerns about Ship Rock (see for sale notice at http://www.privateislandsonline.com/shiprockcans.htm) perhaps someone could clarify the situation regarding access to this island.
Also, perhaps CNS should not dismiss the idea of raising cash to buy First Face as this is perhaps the best crag near Halifax. Perhaps I could investigate the price asked by the owner and conditions of sale. I did hear that she does not want the area developed, and wished to sell on this condition, so the price should reflect this. Is there any funding available for such a purchase from national climbing institutions?

Thanks

Stevo P

[Fred]

1) First off. Nice work CNS and Teth for all the hardwork you guys are doing. Coming from NB, I can say we appreciate the time and effort you guys put in to keep places like LOC and Prospect open. We do visit often and we love every minut of it.

2) I belive MEC has large grants funds for land acquisitions of this type (First Face). It is definetly worth looking into. I think they spend large amounts of money to help purchase bird sanctuaries and other things like that.

3) I think it would be worthwhile once and for all to discuss liability and waiver issues with a legal expert. Having the real facts is always an advantage.

4) This is low priority but I would like to know what the access and development issues are for the Sandy Cove cliff. Sometime I'd like to climb that there rock. I also encourage other NS climbers to get out there and check it out. The cliff, from what I remember, has tons of sport climbing potential on quality basalt.


Keep up the great work and climb safe all.

[Webslinger]

Steve,

As for the access concerns, your thoughts about buying First Face were not overlooked by the board as an alterative. In fact when the property went up for sale (when I was Chair) I did some research into possible funding (local and national) resources to spearhead a campaign if it were possible. Unfortunately, it didn't look promising, then I built a house and had a baby, and well it's two years later and the property is still for sale. Maybe now is the time?

You had also mentioned on the other discussion board your concern about the route development cataloging. The issue has been on the books ever since Cassidy's book. As a matter of fact, a month ago I was contacted by (Tracstarr) a climbing community member who has some web savy and some time. About 3 weeks ago he started developing an on-line route development logging system, that we hope to have active soon.

I would be interested in getting more information about Ship Rock because as Teth mentioned it was our understanding that the property was owned by the NS Nature Trust. (An organization we have been supporting with their annual climb-a-thon.)

For the record CNS is well aware of the efforts you have made in developing routes, a fact which was actually mentioned at a board meeting two months ago. Between the Bow Wall, the Skapper, and new routes at almost every site including First Face which hasn't seen development in propbably 10 years, we do appreciate your efforts, in a time where crag development has not been a priority.

Chris Hayes
The Webslinger

[Stevo]

OK, I'll stop complaining!

Cheers

[Webslinger]

Steve,

When we get this route thing rolling, would you be interested in giving some feedback (complaining or otherwise) to make it easy to use? ie format, layout and such. Afterall you will probably use it more than most.

[The Mitt]

Thanks Teth for answering my question. What I am trying to get at here which aperently I not doing a very good job of is that we need to be proactive with our Access vice reactive. We can't wait for the issues to come before we start to deal with them. Waiting until First face is sold is too late, every year someone complains about the number of people on Dover. I am sure an access issue is brewing there. Maybe setting a voluntary limit on the island is a good start? I don't know but these are the things I think WE should be looking at.

There are several not for profit organizations that save money like the access fund. We should be one of them. Which would we get more benefit from paying for land or insurance? I don't know. Maybe its something to look at. The quite times are when we should be most active.

That's all I was trying to say really.

Mitt

[Climb Nova Scotia]

Stevo:
- Raising money to buy First Face would be a major project all on its own. If someone was motivated enough to step forward and volunteer to commit major time and energy to this project, then CNS could provide support and legitimacy to the process. For instance, a not for profit organization such as CNS would not have to pay land taxes on land used for recreation. There would be liability concerns with land ownership however, so we might want to turn it over to a conservation group or something (with access for climbing written into the deal). No one on the board of directors has the time to commit to such a large project however, so we would need someone to step forward and lead this project, otherwise it is just not viable.

- I will investigate the status of Ship Rock.

- I have cut and pasted every post about a new route development made on the bulletin board, since Cassidy published his book, into a word perfect file. If anyone wants to do an updated list, I can email the file to them.

Sean K.
- I should give you some credit for posting links to useful information in times of crisis.

- Regarding your comment about saving for land rather than paying for insurance, see your previous question about hiring a lawyer. We can’t afford a lawyer, which is why we pay for insurance.

- We have been doing our best to establish relations with the community in West Dover. If the locals begin to worry about the number of people on Dove Island I hope to hear from them before things boil over and becomes serious. We do set participant limits on our events on the island. We do not have the authority to set restrictions on the number of people who can go to the island at any one time, and even to set a voluntary limit would ignite a firestorm of controversy which would not actually accomplish much.

Fred:
- I do not know of any access issues at Sandy Cove, but it is a bit far away from Halifax so we may just not have heard about them. If you hear anything let us know. The land owner at Trout Cove is a friend of my neighbour’s so I have a contact if there are any issues there.


Teth Cleveland, President of Climb Nova Scotia

[Stevo]

Chris,
I'm a little sceptical of automated web databases, the ones I have seen often lack flexibility to deal with lengthy descriptions where necessary. However, I will be offering details of a new crag soon, so we will see how it works.

Teth,
It would be interesting as a first step to at least know what price the owner is looking for before we start speculating about fund raising. About a year ago I had a phone call out of the blue from the cottage owner on the adjacent property. He said he was a friend of the lady in question, and was pushing for climbers to buy the crag, partly because he thought her no. 1 priority was to ensure that the property was not given over to development and remained pristine. Maybe I could get back to him in order to arrange a low key chat with the owner and find out more details.

Cheers
Steve

[The Teth]

Stevo, that couldn’t hurt. Maybe a coalition of climbers could get together on it. Post the info when you get it. It might inspire someone else to get involved.

By the way, I have the Access Database (in MS Access ironically) which Sean Cassidy created. It is about a year out of date at this point (me bad) but I have all the resent access and route information, so one of these days I will get it back up to date. It keeps a record of all access issues for each crag, records routes, and records the location and installation date of all bolts and hardware. A useful tool.

The Teth

[Climb Nova Scotia]

Response to a query to the Nova Scotia Nature Trust:

“The Nature Trust has a conservation easement on Ship Rock Island that protects the conservation values of Ship Rock and the adjacent 3 islands in perpetuity under the Conservation Easements Act. It is still privately owned (i.e. we don't own the island). The easement restricts development (i.e. no one can build on the top of the cliff, put in a resort etc.) and certain inappropriate uses of the island. We were not aware that the owner had put the islands up for sale since we last me with him this fall, but will follow-up with him. “