I keep seeing on here people mentioning walna scar road was sanitised at some point?
When was it? I don’t want to go back up and find the descent is ruined (W–>E)
This is what it looked like when I rode it last:

and for balance:

Are these before after walna scar road sanitisation?

It was sanitised in late 2002, when the whole thing was covered in shattered slate, making it very tame 🙁 After a couple a years, the weather and passing vehicles had washed most of the crap away, and now I think it’s every bit was good as it was before they started – on the Coniston side. The Dunnerdale side has had more work, and is just dull and relentless, but it’s best done as a climb/push and quickly forgotten.

As sfb says, your first 2 pics show the W side which is best used as the climb. The E side (Coniston) remains much as your other photos show – a full-on rock-fest with some quite technical sections. I did it over New Year where the odd section of sheet ice added extra interest. Awesome ride!!

your pics show the W side which is best used as the climb.

the pics show both sides…

SFB, why are you mis-quoting him?

Looks a bit daft misquoting when what Heihei actually said is right above your post! What’s the point?

SFB, why are you mis-quoting him?

I quoted verbatim – he must have corrected his copy afterwards 🙂 OK ?

I posted 2 minutes after he did, so he still had 13 minutes in which to edit his post…

Anyone ever cleaned the climb on the West side, all in 1 go, no dabs? Apart from the gate.

I rode all of the climb on the west side last time I was there

There may have been a very high number of dabs though ..

i rode it at easter and it looked just like that on the coniston side. T’other side was grim (to come up anyway). Going down was fun.

We did it last weekend, the decent down into coniston was superb. Technical in places, fast in others. The climb was a slog, in places unrideable by me.

We went down the coniston side. Never done it before but I would say it is still very worth it, all our lot loved it!

sfb is correct – I edited. My pc was very slow to load pics so only saw the first 2 when I hit the reply button!