This is my third trip to Vegas, once was about 10 years ago and two in the past two years. Last year my trip corresponded with the start of the economic downturn, and this one in the middle of a resession. To my untrained eyes Vegas looks to have had the middle torn out of it, something that was underway last year but has been augmented with economic meloncholy.

I took a simple walk down the vegas strip last night, starting at the Sahara where I got a room for $30 a night and working my way to the high end casinos at the south end of the strip.

Ten Years ago the strip extended all the way from the Manalay Bay to the Stratosphere, by this time last year many new casino had been built, as the big corperations started to redevelop older casinos from the south end down the strip. Unfortunately for the downtown end there is about 1 mile of real estate effectively abandoned. With only partially built or vacant lots where casinos used to stand. Probably one of the reasons that a hotel room is so cheap at this end of the strip.

I imagine that it might be years before the hole torn out of the middle of the city of Las Vegas is returned to what it once was.

Last night I walk into a Denny’s, to be honest it is little more than a MacDonalds with table service. However Denny’s means a lot more to me than McDonalds. I spent many a pleasant night in the Denny’s of Florida with my family growing up on holiday, and therefore thought I’d try and relive some of my childhood again by visiting this chain.

What I found was really upsetting, before I had seen Denny’s as McDonalds with a touch of class. The burgers always seemed tastier, the fries nicer the service better. Despite being hungry I could not finish my Burger, how you can cock up a burger I don’t know but the steak sauce it was garnished with simply wasn’t up to much, or certainly didn’t agree with my palate. As for the service, I had to ask several times to have my coke refilled. The same happened with my breakfast this morning, a bottomless cup of coffee indeed, I had physically aged by the time I had my cup refilled just once.

I did carrying on up the Strip, that goes on and on for what seems like forever, and the signs are so big outside the casinos that you might think you are moments away from them but you are probably a mile out. I carried on through hundreds of thousands of tourist set at giving as much of there money to these casinos as possible to get to the Belagio, and settle down to watch the fountains in all their glory. I have put together another video that captures what happens when the sunset and Vegas along with several massive electricity generators spring to life to make the strip what it is a Disneyland for adults. I hope you enjoy it.

The Video can be found at http://www.vimeo.com/15535494. I may be an hour before it can be view its called vegas nights, and is another stop animation.

It is this case that I want to dwell on. Firstly try to ignore the morality of the issue, instead see it as a bit of conjecture. The book takes a case of Roe Vs Wade 1973. In this case it was a battle for a mother to be allow to abort her child. It lead to a legal right for a woman to have an abortion in the United States.

Levitt and Dubner argue in their book that this case lead to the a reduction in births specifically in a group of the community whose children would be of greater risk of leading to criminality. Some of reasons given are that young low income families who don’t really want a child and that unwantedness and low socio-economic factors lead to an increase in the likelihood of developing criminality.

Now take this view and look at it from a UK perspective and look at the Vicky Pollards of our generation. Mothers who seem to have developed a dependency on social handouts from government, based on child support. As such if abortion managed to reduce US crime figures will an increase in the low socio-economic birth rate, and arguably a babies for government cash eventually lead to an increase in UK crime rates?

I have sent this short piece to the Freakonomics Blog, it is pure conjecture, but an interesting question nonetheless.

Interestingly the teachers though I was right, but a reader from within the industry thought I was wrong. I have just read a great piece on UKC, that originated from rock and ice. It is a great and pertinent story, a case study if you like of one one kid, Lamount’s story of choices you make.

I find it interesting as a an Field Studies Council review of outdoor Outdoor Learning says that.

The evidence base for cognitive and physical/behavioural benefits is less strong than for affective and interpersonal/social outcomes.

Another study entitled, The Effectiveness of Wilderness Adventure Therapy Programs for Young People Involved in the Juvenile Justice System, that compared an outdoor education program to group home programmes, found no significant difference in recividism or in laymens terms they habitally relapse to crime.

I did find a good study that supports the notion that one program in the US had a significant effect on the reoffending of Juvenile Sex Offenders, interestingly though only for ‘serious sex offences’, when compared to other specailised programs and youth prisons. Regardless of this effect on treatment between 5 and 8 participants were rearrested for violent sex offences within three years.

Anyway I only made a quick search though take my findings with a pinch of salt. I have yet to find a good british study that looks at reoffending rates based on outdoor education programs versus standard youth offending prisons, that also takes into account the cost-benefit of such programs.

The crag is one of the first in the new ogwen guide that had a new topo, so has literally been pushed kicking and screaming into this new decade. It is a lovely place, and before teh guide was published I don’t think I ever saw anyone climb there. Today there were 10 people at the crag!

However I did find it interesting that both here and on its neighbouring crag there were several errors in the topos and grades. HOALT for instance is never HVS 5a, the moves low down would warrant 5b or even 5c, and it would still be a tough E1. The topo line is way off on the top section. Direct Route HS is also undergraded, I climbed the crux on another route and it was a good VS move, interestingly the topo line for Zig-Zag the VDiff that goes up and across the crag is shown going up this step!

There are similar problems with the neighbouring crag with the VDiff being drawn on the topo going up the VS! It seems that whilst the CC guidebooks might be moving towards the 21st Century with colour topo’s, it is a shame that the lines seem to have been drawn in at random., and perhaps the route checkers were far better climber than they think they are. Despite this the crag is worth visiting, although it is the first time I have had to use the new ogwen guide, and I found it a complete disappointment to have to be adding my own correction.

Topo lines drawn at random isn’t just a CC problem to be honest. Jack’s guidebook has a couple of corkers in it. In particular you have got to check out where he drew the original top pitch of Christmas Curry going, I had to stop reading it there. Although the main reason was I did have to give my copy back to the friend I robbed it from, as I have yet to receive my free copy for supplying images for the book. To be honest I haven’t checked whether I have been paid yet either (maybe I should shut up!).

Back to slagging the CC, there latest plan, after being told by the BMC national Council that using the BMC £1 million cash surplus to loan climbing clubs money to repair their huts wasn’t a good use of money came back with a proposal that would see us lend the CC money to buy a new hut (well one they have been leasing) with BMC money. Will BMC individual member be able to stay there? Apparently not. It was one guy that has come up with this idea, he happens to be the treasurer of both the CC and the BMC, if any of you are into conspiracy theories! Someone needs to tell him its BMC not HSBC. Hopefully the national council will vote this idea down. However due to the amount of wasted volunteer time spent discussing these proposal, I am proposing that there is a fee leveed to anyone proposing to use the BMC’s money as a bank, of 50p per individual member, as I don’t want to hear it anymore!

Happy climbing any errors in guidebooks i would love to hear them. My personal favourite was the last Slate guide which saw Poetry Pink downgraded from E5 to E4, but the intro text still saying ‘Low in the Grade’.

Its not just the Brenin, I have heard on the grapevine that at the Association of Head of Outdoor Education Centre last meeting that it is a mini crisis that is hitting the industry. With LEA centres appearing to be hit as schools try and find savings, it would appear that Outdoor Education will be one of the big losers. Even before this happened Llanrug OEC was already on thin ice, and if we are not careful there may well be a moritorium on any number of the OEC that North Wales houses. There are 10 I can think of, off the top of my head and probably more. All these places employ not only instructors but cleaning and cooking staff.

A brief chat with a owner of a ‘adventure’ attraction drove home the fact that times are getting hard. As they are having to work twice as hard to get the same amount of work they got last year!

Outdoor Education did a lot for me, and speak to any number of young adults and many of them remember the residential and outdoor ed trips with a fondness and see it as a having tangible benefits to the real world, be it personal and social skills, or learning that nerves and fear are part and parcels of life, or simply the skills of looking after themselves when mum or dad isn’t there. There are so many reasons that outdoor education should keep its funding.

On the flip side there seems to be more and more work/money being thrown at ‘Youth at Risk’ and naughty kids. I often run into or chat to friends where two adults to one child ratio is the norm. Hundreds of thousands is ploughed into this end of the market. It seems counter intuitive to me as if you reward any behaviour that behaviour will become reinforced and strengthened. So how taking a kid thats been naughty and treating them to a two month all in holiday in the hands of two instructors just seems criminal. Bang them up and spend the money on the good kids who should be rewarded and not punished by taking funding away from Outdoor education.

Anyway rant out for now!

It seems to me that the grading system is only in turmoil at the end of the spectrum where grades mean money, sponsorship and glory. Looking at the UKC log books me and 99% of climber would be unaffected by anything they choose to debate. I say we lock all the panel in a room and see how long it takes them to realise that no one is interested in whether the personal experience changes the grade (based on this notion, I have seen VS climbers ascend E13), even if the moon being in the vicinity of Uranus was to make a significant difference all I’d want to here is the astral prediction of when its next passing so I can get out the way.

What is total blowing me away, and has the potential to make my blood boil is the BMC is supporting this event, so just how much of our subscription have they put into this event? So we can witness some ‘celebrity’ climbers create a load of hot air. I say bring on “Celebrity Climber Death Match”, we can all debate a scoring system!