Some Tosser / s have spray painted large, hideous white arrows on the once pristine rock at Choss Pile. It is not only grossly ugly but completely inconsiderate of the aesthetics of the crag. The person or persons responsible for this have obviously no concern for maintaining the crag in its natural state, no knowledge of what it means to be able to go into the mountains to get away from the daily overload of signage we have to put up with in the cities and no respect for the area itself.

To you Tossers, you should be ashamed of yourself and if you have any self respect, should remove the graffiti immediately and return the rock to its original condition.... oh ! and another thing, stay the hell out of Choss Pile if you cant behave yourself.

Kindly Miffed,

Colin

Colin if it s big white arrows NOT pointing to the crag its probably the ZCC, they've done the same at Melville etc

Who are the ZCC ?

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Climb ZA - Administrator

Zulu Cricket Club

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Super Mario

Andrew and I tried to clean it with a wire brush but no joy... Incompetent fools! If you can't figure out where the trail is you don't deserve to be outdoors! Go get F*&^*D!!!

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I hate this real world place... I'd be more than happy to live out there rather...

Justin, it's Zion Christian Church. It's those oaks with the black hats and silver stars on little black pieces of cloth that they wear on their hats or shirts. I don't think you'll see too many of them in Montagu, but up here it's almost every second bloke you see on the street. They often gather for sermons outside and I've seen them dressed in blue coats (men) and white dresses (women). The men also seem to have some sort of uniform (khaki suits, with their black hats). Over Easter they make it impossible to travel North, because so many of them go to Moria to listen to Lekganyane reading from the Lord of the Rings ( ) It's apparently the biggest yearly gathering of people in the world, apparently beating the Muslims when they go walk around that black box in Mecca. I can't remember where I heard it, so I can't be sure if it is true. It had something to do about them all gathering over the weekend while the Muslims are more in total, but they are not all there at the same time.

Due to them wearing all white on Sundays, they are sometimes called the Zulu Cricket Club

Thanks for the explanation Shorti.

Incredibly yes, there are a couple of sources on the web that indicate it to be 'the world's largest gathering of people in one place for any purpose'.

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Climb ZA - Administrator

Colin, the arrows are to help blind people to the crag, we will also be installing fire extinguishers at the base of the sectors in case of fires.

Thinners, several sponges, elbow grease, time, cursing the F#@$ers' names in vain and sometimes steel wool.

We need to do the same thing in Badkloof as it seems the "Joburg Crew" have defaced about 9m square right of Jurassic- Daze of thunder etc. There are somethings what cities don't like competing in, the largest graffiti clean off is one. sorry to hear it guys.

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Sandbagging is a dirty game

I'm in on this one... I will buy some turps and scrub the rocks clean! Thursday...

I still want to know who was the idiot who did this: and don't say ZCC because that seems far fetched!

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I hate this real world place... I'd be more than happy to live out there rather...

I love reading about how the rock at Chosspile has become PRISTINE! When did this happen? Maybe you guys with the scrubbing brushes can achieve this!

Don't get me wrong if it was climbers they deserve to be hunted down.

But on the off chance that it is some other bunch of people who do not view a pile of rocks as the Holy Grail maybe we should try & educate rather than lynch them> Its just an option - one bunch of fanatics to another

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Really, its not that bad...I think it's my shoes...

Graffiti is super cool. SANCF endorse & promote it.

http://www.climbing.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6778&p=34923&hilit=graffiti#p34923

Why does this seem far fetched?

I've personally seen their big white painted arrows at Melville Koppies and the Glade, the bouldering spot on the way to Ezemvelo, Strubens upper tier and the Keg in Little Falls; to name a few off the top of my head. I think it seems more far fetched to think a bunch of selfish lazy-ass sport climbers will care enough about the navigations/misnavigations of other selfish lazy ass sport climbers to actually spend R50 on a can of spray paint and then waste climbing time to mark a path.

Glad you okes are taking ownership though. Good on ya. If you want something better than turps check out www.graffitiremovalservices.co.za

Marshall that is unfair, but please tolerate my opinion while I spell out the difference between what SANCF sanctioned Tag Mats at the Rory verses the Choss Pile graffiti:

1. Tag Mats are on fabric, not rock
2. The Tag Mats were a highly organised, open activity that was adult supervised. As we don't know who did the Choss Pile Defile it means it was not an open, publicized climbing event.
3. The SANCF constitutions explicitly speaks against graffiti.
4. The Tag Mats left no damage to rock, or any other natural/permanent feature of Swinburne.
5. The climbing community benefited from the Tag Mats: they are hung proudly in many climbing gyms and schools around the country. The Choss Pile graffiti is- and I stand to correction on this- opposed to everyone who has heard about it, and i am sure that if anyone isn't opposed to it they will be shunned by the greater community.

I think the flaw in the SANCF Tag Mats was in the name, and to a lessor extent using stray paint. I am sure if they used finger paints exclusively there would have been only support for it by the greater community. On a tangent to this one of the flaws with being a community based on one activity is we tent to think one dimensionally. As a result we are highly creative in using our sport, gear and crags in climbing ways, but are often reluctant to think or do out of that paradigm

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Sandbagging is a dirty game

Ja... Warren I can see the diffrence; one is graffiti with spray cans & the other is graffiti with spray cans

SANCF helped me see the light...how cool & fun graffiti is.

How can it be graffiti if it is on Canvas/fabric?

I suspect we are getting caught in definitions here- I am also aware that you are baiting me on this- but i thought the following definitions would help us:
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafitti) Graffiti (singular: graffito; the plural is used as a mass noun) is writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place.[1] Stickers and other adhesives are not considered graffiti, apparently because they are less common. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.[2]

Oxford Dictionary:
Definition of graffiti
plural noun (singular graffito /-təʊ/)
[treated as singular or plural]
writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place:
the station was covered in graffiti

The point I am trying to make here is that graffiti is illicitly applied to a public surface. Nowhere in either definition is spray paint stated as the exclusive domain of grafitti, and therefore what SANCF organized at the Rory does not conform to this definition.

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Sandbagging is a dirty game

True this! I've seen the white arrows in several places in the past too. If you actually follow them they usually come out at a large clearing, obviously used for gatherings. Curiosity got the better of me and I had to find out - luckily I was walking a large dog at the time, no cat with me.