BMC guidance on walking and climbing

[Geoff Nichols]

The latest BMC guidance on hillwalking and climbing is via the links below.
This means no outdoor club activity is practical.

You need to interpret yourself what this means.

Walking.
My interpretation is that walking or cycling with one other person from another household is OK if you keep 2 meters apart, don’t pass things between you, and avoid popular areas. There are a lot of people out in these areas. For example, on Monday there were as many people on the Mam Tor Ridge as on a normal weekend. Early morning or the evening are good.
If anybody would like to meet up for a social distance, one-to-one local walk, get in touch. I’m doing a lot from home; Limb Valley, Rud Hill, Round Walk, etc.

Climbing with someone from the same household.
With people from the same household, you’d need to be careful to avoid popular areas, and move on if other people turned up. [I’m trying to persuade my wife to take up climbing again after 30 years, but not successful yet. If anybody has any spare size 5 or 6 rock boots it may be a step in the right direction ] Self-belaying would work. Soloing might be deemed irresponsible if others thought it would increase the possibility of injury and rescue.

Climbing with someone from another household.
The BMC suggests you can climb with a person from another household, while keeping 2 mts. apart. It suggests bottom roping could be done keeping 2 meters apart. And belaying from above, by belaying well back from the top out point. You’d need to minimize touching the same rope or equipment, and sterilize your hands before and after. I think all this is difficult to achieve.

There are other factors in this judgement; some of which we don’t know: does the other person live alone, so less risk of passing infection; are they in a high risk group; have they had the virus so are more likely to be immune [but we don’t know details of immunity]; how much will getting out help everybody’s mental health ….. and so on.

Personally – I’m getting out a lot of walking and running by myself, and the allotment has never looked better. Read some good mountaineering books.

Hope the ZOOMs are going well. I’ve not been attending these, as I spend enough time on the screen during the day. However, there is a BMC area meeting by zoom this evening. You need to register in advance, via the BMC web site.

Best wishes
Geoff

BMC advice on waking and climbing

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/do-you-need-to-change-the-way-that-you-climb-and-walk-with-covid19?utm_source=BMC+Email+Subscribers&utm_campaign=1ef5bedd3d-lockdown_lowdown7&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_06481fa93e-1ef5bedd3d-965925&goal=0_06481fa93e-1ef5bedd3d-965925

Covid and the outdoors: Professor Ian Hall answers your questions
https://www.thebmc.co.uk/covid-and-the-outdoors?utm_source=BMC+Email+Subscribers&utm_campaign=1ef5bedd3d-lockdown_lowdown7&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_06481fa93e-1ef5bedd3d-965925&goal=0_06481fa93e-1ef5bedd3d-965925

[Author]

Posts