Gorges du Tarn (partially) closed?

A friend of mine told me they chopped the first 3 (?) bolts of each routes that were equipped with old bolts. The more recent routes should be OK.

Thanks to both of you! We are probably going anyway. The ~500 open routes and the Gorge de la Jonta should keep us busy for two weeks ;-)

Hi, I live in Millau and follow the situation very close. 150 routes have been closed, and we plan to rebolt more than 200 this winter (if we get the money for it). In the topo, there are 400 routes, and 200 more are bolted. So 550 routes are climbable in Gorges du Tarn. You can also climb in la Jonte, le Boffi or Cantobre. We also work on normalise the access situation, by signin conventions with owners. We also work on toilets projects, better parkings... We are working on new topo, projected for summer 2012. The situation is getting better and better, but it's also fragile, so keep respectful of this place, particulary by not sleeping close to these sectors (the gorges are protected, and wild camping is forbidden) Tkanks, Olivier

@ Oliver: If you want 8a can make some news in regards of making the access situation etc better Gorges du Tarn.

Thanks for answering, Olivier...I don´t know how things function down there but I´d be willing to make a contribution to the bolting if for instance money was collected at Bar au Debarcadere...(don´t know if I remember the name correctly...) Just a couple of questions, since I´m kinda being the guy guiding on the trip Daniel mentioned in the original post, I´ve been to the area a couple of times so I know my way around quite some... Is there a possility to download topos of the newly bolted lines that haven´t made it into the topo published sometime around 2005, that´s when I got my copy...I´ve found some foetus pdfs and that´s pretty much it... Is what Frank wrote correct as far as sectors open to climbing are concerned? Any answer appreciated! @ Jens: to make things better, some climbers just need to stop being so damn thrifty! Instead of sleeping everywhere and not giving a damn about it (it´s cheap and that´s all that matters, to hell with the consequences) people should just get a gite, stay at an auberge or a camp site and things would be less dirty and problematic...and yes, I´m a student and definately not rich! It´s just a question of what you want to spend your money on...instead of grade inflation this page should be fighting the more and more consumerist attitude when it comes to climbing and access issues...I´m not criticizing you here, I´m just urging you to make more out of the topic than a couple of banners...how´s about a debate there?

The problem is the same everywere : Margalef, Rodellar, St Léger, Ceuse... A minority of climbers do wat they want, not considering that people live there, landscape and nature can also be protected... In the Gorge, one owner is particulary angry becaus people sleep in his field (under sectors shadocks and gymnase), the conséquence is direct : he don't want climbers anymore on is land !! Actually, sector Gymnase is mark "access prohibited" !

I´ve heard (read) that the ban was caused by an accident with poor bolt. Does anyone know more about this? If I remeber right (or believe the rumors) the bolt failure was traced to a fix (Schwerlastanker, Bolzendübel - ) used on soft stone. Except from very soft stone the experience is that there exists a higher fault risk on glued bolts (more possibilities to have a important fault in the assembly process, more cases reported with failing of glued bolts, last widespread problem see oltrefinale) while the Schwerlastanker are easy to use and highly relieable. Tarn has a soft limestone with sandy comonents ? (similar to Finale where the locals have high reservations about use of fix Schwerlastanker). As we can take out of this discussion above the ban is not only caused by a safety problem - maybe the real or parallel reason is the heavy and silly use of the sectors?. 

@ Jens Funny you are up for informing your audience now (@ Oliver: If you want 8a can make some news in regards of making the access situation etc better Gorges du Tarn.). A few weeks ago I wrote to you and asked you to notify the audience that theft, litter and illegal camping in Ceuse is starting to become a problem but no such information showed up.  How ever an other website wrote about it.

@zapfenwolfi http://www.kairn.com/news__72957.pierre-soule-victime-accident-gorges-tarn.html free translation/summary : the first bolt of this route (a project of 8c or more) was really high from the ground (8m) because the lower part was tought to be too easy to bother bolting it (5+?) This bolt also had the only purpose of being aided to pre-clip the second. Unfortunately the bolt (spit fixe) did not expand well (or not at all) in the first place. So when the guy pulled it to aid, it came out. Why it did not expand well and why the bolter and the first few who tried the line did not notice the problem, i don't know and i don't have the experience to guess. Tarn, Jonte and Durbie is apparently dolomite, and judging from the one site i've climbed (Boffi crag, 20km from tarn) i'd say "soft" is the best word to describe it. Not crumbly or chossy or sandy, simply "less hard" than usual. I've read that one of the concerns with those bolts is also that the rock in the area is very humid (it actually rains quite a lot) so bolts can be rusty on the inside and look ok outside. Don't see how it relates to the accident, but i can imagine why glued-ins are thought to be safer in this case. (nb actually the link must be that landowners are scared of other accidents, as in france they can be legally responsible if it's clear that it was not the climber's fault... The consequence is that an association takes the legal responsibility for the equipement and any future failure instead of them, unless it is blatantly clear that the site is a trad/mountaineering affair where climbers should take full responsibility.  For a sport crag, this means that all the anchors should meet certain standards, basically either glued ins or beefy stainless bolts)

Does anybody know if sectors Planete Causse, Shadocks, Dromaddaire and Moulin a huile are open? Any sugestions for other great (and open) sectors (routes up to 7b-7c)?

Look through my score card and you see what's open but Planete Causse is closed. Parts of Tenesee is closed but LOTS to do still I spent 10 days not getting bored and I'm going back in few weeks. You can PM me if ou have questions