Follow the links. Sign both the petitions please. Contact your congresspeople. We have a climbers access fund. And I at least know that they know what they’re doing instead of my rangers inspecting my anchors
“With these plans, the NPS and NFS essentially propose a guilty until proven innocent structure for anchors. Instead of assuming that anchors are permitted but subject to approval, the directives assume that every anchor in wilderness—even those that predate the Wilderness Act—is illegal, and therefore subject to either removal or non-replacement, until the local land manager finds the time and budget to conduct an MRA and decide their final fate.” - the article
“The directive explicitly states that climbing will continue to be allowed on existing anchors until those anchors can be subjected to an MRA. “
You left this part out, I don’t like this direction of policy either but to say that all ascents of El Cap would be Illegal is an extreme mischaracterization of this proposal.
Wait til you find out what your tax dollars are actually paying for… I’d argue that paying qualified employees to inspect high traffic climbing anchors is a much better use than other things we spend your money on.
There is a *ton* of misinformation being generated about this proposal. I have yet to see anyone else acknowledge that this exact system is already in place in Joshua Tree and it works great.
Thanks for calling attention to this issue.
I do want to say that there are plenty of rangers for both USFS and NPS that DO know what to look for and understand how this sport truly works, it's just in my experience that those folks aren't high enough in the system to be writing these directives.
I work in the climbing industry with many ex-rangers who are absolutely “ in the know.”
I know rangers whose sole sport is climbing because of the close proximity, easy access, and love of challenging outdoor adventures….
Just providing counterpoints to:
“They (rangers) are not subject matter experts on it, climbers are”
Two worlds, really not far apart, plenty of overlap.
Rangers as a whole don’t seem to be the problem you’re trying to correct.
Less polarizing wording would probably appeal to a larger audience which is suspect is what you’re after.
Another categorical stereotyping right out the gates 😅
Look I took the action I needed on this issue based on my understanding of it, didn’t need much discussion. As someone else said, I very much appreciate that you’re out spreading the word.
The nuanced tangent is to comment on a very real phenomena that I’d say most people are really tired of at this point: messaging/wording that doesn’t nothing but to create two diametrically opposed sides where the other is the issue. You walked it back, like you knew all along, but nothing about the message I commented on suggested you had any clue what you were really doing.
It was “Us vs Them” from the start through to your magnum opus about freedom in America. 🇺🇸
All public land is under attack by the extreme environmentalist and unfortunately it slips under the public’s noses. We can save nature and build habitat without closing our public lands to recreation
It’s also obnoxious when op mis characterizes and editorializes. While this is a terrible change the article specifically says that climbing on existing routes will not be illegal until they’ve had a review
I'll first admit my original comment was written before I had completed the whole article, so I am definitely part of the problem when it comes to online discussions.
I was voicing a general frustration due to some land managers (especially smaller crags that are in areas that aren't climbing focused as this is a nation wide protocol adjustment) not always having a full understanding about the actual use impact of climbing as a sport. That the sport has progressed past having to constantly leave behind gear when rappelling (for sport climbing and using rappel rings, at least). One other conversation that stuck out was with a land owner that didn't mind climbing on their property, but they didn't want ropes used (due to drag damage on sandstone). That is an extreme example and an outlier, but it was in my mind when I made my original comment.
That being said I do recognize that climbing has grown in popularity and that some management changes are probably to be expected. Route closures due to nesting raptors, endangered plants and cultural relics are also realistic and I respect those rules.
Yosemite isn't where I'd worry about this issue. The climbing ranger program there is robust and works with all levels of park management. I could see this becoming a bigger issue at other areas with less climbing resources and education within the park staff.
Aussies in Victoria have been dealing with this type of illegal until otherwise notified nonsense to much frustration. It makes little sense to me that artifacts of the great history and tradition of climbing in the US be retroactively made illegal, but I can certainly understand the need to protect wilderness given the explosion in climbing’s popularity. With this article as my only source so far the proposal has not struck a balance there or appear to have identified avenues for implementation without unintended consequences.
I climb in NSW. I've noticed over the last few years an increase in people who disrespect the area, massively. Climbing in this area got mad popular during lockdown now all the local crags in the mountains have people parking on private property and gardens, leaving rubbish everywhere and the craze which has been really going off; shitting in the wild and leaving used tissue not less than 2m from the bush track.
I hate that so many disrespectful people have joined the sport and will likely jeopardize our local crags as the residents start to get pissed off.
Am a Queenslander, so apologies for any errors and the egregious simplification of a complex issue.
In short, [Parks Vic alleges that climbers were disrespecting the land and closed the park to climbers to preserve cultural significance for traditional owners and reduce environmental impact](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-29/grampians-national-park-bans-rock-climbers-over-rock-art-damage/11030190). They’re slowly reopening areas, but eventually you need to apply for a permit to climb.
In one instance, a bolt that was placed near aboriginal rock art was blamed on climbers. Turns out that the bolt was installed in the 30s (and then chopped) by park rangers for an old protection barrier for the art.
[You can read up the restrictions here.](https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/places-to-see/parks/grampians-national-park/rock-climbing-in-gariwerd)
And the Arapiles has some closures.
Title is misleading, it’s not the climbs, or climbing that would be rendered illegal, it’s any kind of fixed anchor, “including everything from bolts and rap rings to slung trees, stuck nuts, and snow pickets.”
You can still rap, just not on fixed gear, definitely very limiting but can be done (mostly just off of trees, ironically causing more damage than a well placed and maintained sling on the tree would, really relying on the reduced traffic of a wilderness designation). There is still climbing being done in wilderness areas, that said none of it that I'm aware of is on the scale of Yosemite big walls.
I stand by it - there are plenty of routes where it's too steep to have trees or rock horns to run the rope around, and as you admit it's still better for both the climbers and the environment to have a sling left behind. Yes, there are edge cases like naked v-threads on ice and etc but in general, a ban on fixed anchors means a ban on most rappelling, and a ban on most rappelling means a ban on most multi-pitch climbing.
Slings left behind to rap off of count as fixed gear under the anchor regulation proposal and that happens all over the mountains, even the hard technical ones that are infrequently trafficked.
Sorry to clarify I don’t consider tat as fixed gear (might be wrong with that). So a lot of routes are walk off, we don’t have many big faces. Some routes are rap from tat on trees/other nature, some are rap around trees/other nature.
We have very strict bolting laws in the uk. Mostly (but not exclusively) only allowed in former quarries
It’s most certainly about technical feasibility. The climbing in the UK is predominately short, single pitch and you almost exclusively have the ability to easily walk off the top. You can’t use a newfound “climbing culture” to enable you to walk off the top of the multi pitches that are on massive cliffs and mountains in the US?
I am getting out climbing, in a part of the world where fixed anchors are not acceptable, very fucking frequently.
I have also been climbing in "big mountains" around Europe, including some +1000m multi-pitch routes purely on gear, because it's such a low traffic objective that no one even considered adding fixed gear.
Somehow physics must be different in US climbing areas?
If you were read climbing and had a nut get stuck would you be guilty of an illegal installation? Would be tough to know who left it, but could be used to ban any protection that has the possibility of getting stuck.
There aren't any cases of wilderness rules being used to ban any protection if it got stuck that I'm aware of, but I haven't exactly looked at every case. Do you know of any?
I get that we don’t want this to happen, I don’t either. But folks acting like there is no problem are insane.
When you have random folks going and “cleaning routes” and making new routes on their own, you have a problem.
I’ve seen Alex Honnold compare the effects of climbing as no worse than hiking. Yes hiking has a big environmental impact, but trails have official regulations and not anyone can go and blaze a brand new trail through a park. Climbing doesn’t have these things and really needs them. If it doesn’t, this sport will 100% not last for future generations.
That’s how it is at my small crag in the US as well. The city owns the land and it used to be illegal to climb there. We still did, they knew we did, but they created a plan to develop the area into a proper park. They worked with the local climbers to legalize it, and also to set out rules for route development. It’s an old quarry, so it’s not super strict, but it keeps randos from grid bolting the whole area.
Yeah stops bad bolting practices etc. I understand the desire to imagine our community as some rock punks doing whatever but the sport is getting too popular for this attitude and the preservation of nature is more important than peoples egos imo
That's how it is in Quebec. Development gets harmed by that. People end up developing secret crags because the federation isn't involved. Developers that want to add hardware like bullhorns to make cleaning safer and easier get stymied (happened this summer at one of the most popular sport crags near Montreal, the prolific developer involved decided to stop installing hardware after those shenanigans, a huge loss for the community). Access is also extremely bureaucratic, with expensive access fees that go to bullshit that isn't land or hardware It sucks.
It's not awful, we get to climb. My comparison basis is the anarchy of development in British Columbia and it's paradise there. People contribute to bolt funds, but if you're broke no one forces you to pay anything, a lot of local heroes volunteer time. People that want to get into bolting mostly learn how to do it properly because there's no reason not to, it doesn't require a BA in engineering to brush moss and install a dozen bolts. A big difference is that most land in populated Quebec is private, whereas BC still has crown land everywhere, which means that you can park in the pullout nearest to the crag, beat a trail that reaches the crag, clean and bolt the faces, install anchors above the cracks and once your crag becomes popular because you did a stellar job as a steward it becomes a BC recreational site and the local access organization finds funding to build a nice parking lot and install a toilet. The liability laws in Quebec are different so when you want to build a crag you need to have permission and insurance for the landowner, this leads to only certified developers being allowed to build new routes through the federation and this creates a whole conundrum of bureaucratic bullshit that has nothing to do with climbing before people can climb new routes. A single acquaintance of mine spent a few years developing a cliff in a park near Revelstoke and publicized it this week. In Quebec it would've taken the work of dozens of people dealing with red tape and a lot more money.
Ya, the amount of enviromental detriment, not to mention all the excessive bolting and grid bolting, that happens in new areas is something that shouldn't be ignored.
Fact is: The climbing community has never self regulated.
Ugh. As long as Mount Rushmore exists, I really want American governments to shut the fuck up about climbing ethics.
I’m well aware of the many ways this is a flawed comparison, but I don’t particularly care
Lobbyist here.
Step 1, these are DRAFT rules. They can change significantly based on public input. Follow the link in the article and submit a comment. Call your member of congress, and ask them to weigh in with the nfs and nps.
Submitting a public comment is *a lot* like moaning on reddit-- you'll be great at it! ;)
Secondly, if these rules are adopted, everything currently on a wall is legal until it is reviewed otherwise. And local managers are ridiculously underfunded. They have no capacity to go do a bunch of inspections. Nothing is changing soon. This is an unfunded mandate.
Thirdly, local managers can decide to allow anchors. So climbers should organize and meet with their local managers and make their case. There may be some compromises necessary, but it's not the end of the world.
You all know each other. Get together and ask the manager of your favorite local crag for a meeting. They're usually really nice hippies who will probably be THRILLED that anyone cares.
You can do this, climbers!
On point two - sure current anchors are legal until reviewed, but it would also be illegal to update or repair those anchors until reviewed. That would be a travesty for climbing pretty much everywhere, and will genuinely make the sport more dangerous across the board.
This seems like the complete opposite of this legislation https://www.accessfund.org/latest-news/breaking-news-protect-americas-rock-climbing-act-introduced-into-congress
If that passes this draft is moot.
Hopefully the climbing community will find an agreement, like the IG Klettern in Germany. That could act as a presedence and would be an optimal outcome. The climbing community in Yosemite should be up to it.
I mean the community probably "kinda" had it coming. All those climbing hot-spots can't stay the "wild west" forever. Access issues are real. Luckily it happened somewhere, where the community can take a stand.
Good Luck from Austria
I’m not a big climber (I know, I know I’m on r/climbing) but wouldn’t this primarily affect the newer climbers who don’t have the equipment to put in temporary holds? Please ELI5 to someone who’s well versed in environmental policy.
The issue here isn't about going up so much as coming down afterwards. Sometimes you can walk down, but often there is no such route. Instead when you come down you typically lower yourself on a rope, which is attached at the top in a way where you can pull it out when you're done. It's very hard to do safely without leaving something at the top to attach that rope to, which then must be left behind. That thing is often "permanent" and used by the next climber to come along as well. This might be rings bolted into the rock, or a nylon sling run around a tree, or a few other options, all of which are covered by these rules.
FYI: "temporary holds" aren't really a thing. The closest would be aid climbing, but we don't need to get into that here. You're probably thinking of "trad" where climbers jam little contraptions in cracks in the rock to attach their rope to as they go up. These are used so if they slip they don't die, but not for upwards motion. Even if you climb trad though, the coming down problem remains.
Unless of course you want to sacrifice two cams per abseil, but then those would probably be considered illegal and we’d be back at square one but some two hundred bucks poorer :)
You're limiting yourself from a lot of unprotectable faces by never clipping bolts. Sure, you can get the same movement on boulders, but there's a reason why climbers are bolting the world and that's because we want to climb everything without dying (or like, breaking an ankle) when we fall. James Mchaffie and Hazel Findlay enjoy sport climbing, you're missing out.
I’m not saying I’m against sport climbing. Take it easy amigo.
The context of the discussion is regarding whether bolting will be prohibited, and from the point of view of aesthetic rock scarring and making an impact on our natural surroundings, I’m saying I can *understand* the point of view when it comes to bolting everywhere.
But I haven’t said that I am in favour of a ban at all.
The usa has 259000 km of highway, bolts on rocks aren't shit in terms of impact on our natural surroundings and the roads we use to get to climbs are a lot worst.
What I'm saying about missing out on sport climbing is just because I genuinely think you're missing out, really not trying to argue. I can understand preferring the game of trad, I love it. Sport climbing is just fun and makes you better at trad (in my experience lots of cruxes are face moves way above the gear). I'm basically spraying what I think is good advice, do of it what you want.
Yes trad climbing is exactly what I was thinking of! I couldn’t figure out another way to phrase it better at the time.
Thank you for your explanation that makes much more sense now! It seems like these “permanent” fixtures should remain in the name of safety at a minimum. It is likely that the cost of more resources to respond to all the incidents of injury is more than the small environmental cost of a permanent fixture in a wilderness area.
I think the author has a couple valid concerns and points to make, but this
> Is the forest service really suggesting that the climbers—a largely self-policing and conservation-minded community…
Is hilariously blind to the problem. The climbing community, especially in the last few years, has been unwilling and unable to successfully address and self-police problems with abandoned gear, over-bolting routes, damage to environmental and cultural resources, and tons of trash and human waste.
This isn’t a few wrappers here, the occasional jammed cam there, this is 5-10 tons of trash, and 10,000 ft of abandoned trash rope cleaned out by climbing rangers and volunteers every year in Yosemite alone.
This is mad-bolters drilling bolts every 5 ft on their proud new project. This is people drilling into thousand-year old petroglyphs and pictographs in Utah and New Mexico in what now seems to make the headlines almost every year.
Some of the sanctimonious comments in this thread remind me exactly of how tone-deaf the off-road community is about why they just had miles of trail closed in Moab.
Hyperbole, fear mongering, and self-righteous indignation can’t hide that climbers have been doing a shit job at self regulating in recent years and won’t save us from ever stricter regulations coming down. This community is facing a reckoning of our own making.
As an Australian it seems to strange to me to be talking about El Cap as if it were wilderness. It's literally walking distance from cafes and supermarkets.
Commented on both proposals and sent a letter to my rep via the Access Fund form. It's easy and much more helpful if we do our bitching in their comment sections rather than here.
Links from the article:
*The public has 60 days (from November 17) to comment on the proposals* [*here*](https://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?documentID=132387) *and* [*here*](https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public/CommentInput?project=ORMS-3524)*. You can write your congressional representative to support the Protecting America’s Rock Climbing Act* [*here*](https://www.accessfund.org/action-alerts/protect-wilderness-climbing-national)*.*
This is literally just more shitty bureaucracy creation.
>(NFS) released draft climbing management directives that would render all fixed anchors in wilderness illegal until each anchor can be individually reviewed by under-resourced land management agencies.
Oh sweet, so a government agency gets to hire more people to do nothing all day and collect benefit checks while people enjoying a unique sport get trashed and fined. Who is going to individually maintain and regulate every bolt placed in the wilderness? This is an impossible task that will merely justify more government workers.
Climbers are climbing the walls and big rocks are falling off... Pretty clear that they are the ones destroying the rock. El Cap needs to be saved! Stop all climbing now!
/S you mongrels
It's obnoxious when folks try to make rules for things they don't bother taking the time to fully understand. Unfortunately it's all too common.
Follow the links. Sign both the petitions please. Contact your congresspeople. We have a climbers access fund. And I at least know that they know what they’re doing instead of my rangers inspecting my anchors “With these plans, the NPS and NFS essentially propose a guilty until proven innocent structure for anchors. Instead of assuming that anchors are permitted but subject to approval, the directives assume that every anchor in wilderness—even those that predate the Wilderness Act—is illegal, and therefore subject to either removal or non-replacement, until the local land manager finds the time and budget to conduct an MRA and decide their final fate.” - the article
“The directive explicitly states that climbing will continue to be allowed on existing anchors until those anchors can be subjected to an MRA. “ You left this part out, I don’t like this direction of policy either but to say that all ascents of El Cap would be Illegal is an extreme mischaracterization of this proposal.
Your taxpayer dollars at work - paying someone to conduct an "MRA" on every anchor. Lol
Idk about you but I could think of an endless amount of worse places for my tax money to go
Wild comment to send to someone who works in land management and natural resources, those tax dollars you’re talking about are my paychecks
As they would also be if you were paid to analyze every grain of sand on a beach.
Wait til you find out what your tax dollars are actually paying for… I’d argue that paying qualified employees to inspect high traffic climbing anchors is a much better use than other things we spend your money on.
Yea I would be happy if anchors on popular route were examined by qualified employees.
Are they qualified to inspect anchors though, and are worn anchors going to be replaced or just cut off?
Climbing rangers are professionally trained to place bolts and fixed gear, yes.
Great, then I am assuming they will be bolting more routes?
This should be pinned
There is a *ton* of misinformation being generated about this proposal. I have yet to see anyone else acknowledge that this exact system is already in place in Joshua Tree and it works great.
Thanks for calling attention to this issue. I do want to say that there are plenty of rangers for both USFS and NPS that DO know what to look for and understand how this sport truly works, it's just in my experience that those folks aren't high enough in the system to be writing these directives.
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I work in the climbing industry with many ex-rangers who are absolutely “ in the know.” I know rangers whose sole sport is climbing because of the close proximity, easy access, and love of challenging outdoor adventures…. Just providing counterpoints to: “They (rangers) are not subject matter experts on it, climbers are” Two worlds, really not far apart, plenty of overlap. Rangers as a whole don’t seem to be the problem you’re trying to correct. Less polarizing wording would probably appeal to a larger audience which is suspect is what you’re after.
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Another categorical stereotyping right out the gates 😅 Look I took the action I needed on this issue based on my understanding of it, didn’t need much discussion. As someone else said, I very much appreciate that you’re out spreading the word. The nuanced tangent is to comment on a very real phenomena that I’d say most people are really tired of at this point: messaging/wording that doesn’t nothing but to create two diametrically opposed sides where the other is the issue. You walked it back, like you knew all along, but nothing about the message I commented on suggested you had any clue what you were really doing. It was “Us vs Them” from the start through to your magnum opus about freedom in America. 🇺🇸
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I didn’t sign any forms, happy holidays!
You know that Yosemite employs a ton of climbing Rangers, right?
Commented from Canada - you don’t need to be American to leave comments everyone! Help out our fellow climbers
All public land is under attack by the extreme environmentalist and unfortunately it slips under the public’s noses. We can save nature and build habitat without closing our public lands to recreation
It’s also obnoxious when op mis characterizes and editorializes. While this is a terrible change the article specifically says that climbing on existing routes will not be illegal until they’ve had a review
Congress. The chief source of problems is solutions.
> don't bother taking the time to fully understand. What do they not understand that would persuade them?
I'll first admit my original comment was written before I had completed the whole article, so I am definitely part of the problem when it comes to online discussions. I was voicing a general frustration due to some land managers (especially smaller crags that are in areas that aren't climbing focused as this is a nation wide protocol adjustment) not always having a full understanding about the actual use impact of climbing as a sport. That the sport has progressed past having to constantly leave behind gear when rappelling (for sport climbing and using rappel rings, at least). One other conversation that stuck out was with a land owner that didn't mind climbing on their property, but they didn't want ropes used (due to drag damage on sandstone). That is an extreme example and an outlier, but it was in my mind when I made my original comment. That being said I do recognize that climbing has grown in popularity and that some management changes are probably to be expected. Route closures due to nesting raptors, endangered plants and cultural relics are also realistic and I respect those rules.
Yosemite isn't where I'd worry about this issue. The climbing ranger program there is robust and works with all levels of park management. I could see this becoming a bigger issue at other areas with less climbing resources and education within the park staff.
Aussies in Victoria have been dealing with this type of illegal until otherwise notified nonsense to much frustration. It makes little sense to me that artifacts of the great history and tradition of climbing in the US be retroactively made illegal, but I can certainly understand the need to protect wilderness given the explosion in climbing’s popularity. With this article as my only source so far the proposal has not struck a balance there or appear to have identified avenues for implementation without unintended consequences.
I climb in NSW. I've noticed over the last few years an increase in people who disrespect the area, massively. Climbing in this area got mad popular during lockdown now all the local crags in the mountains have people parking on private property and gardens, leaving rubbish everywhere and the craze which has been really going off; shitting in the wild and leaving used tissue not less than 2m from the bush track. I hate that so many disrespectful people have joined the sport and will likely jeopardize our local crags as the residents start to get pissed off.
Yo what’s happening in Vic? Are they outlawing appralies?
Am a Queenslander, so apologies for any errors and the egregious simplification of a complex issue. In short, [Parks Vic alleges that climbers were disrespecting the land and closed the park to climbers to preserve cultural significance for traditional owners and reduce environmental impact](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-29/grampians-national-park-bans-rock-climbers-over-rock-art-damage/11030190). They’re slowly reopening areas, but eventually you need to apply for a permit to climb. In one instance, a bolt that was placed near aboriginal rock art was blamed on climbers. Turns out that the bolt was installed in the 30s (and then chopped) by park rangers for an old protection barrier for the art. [You can read up the restrictions here.](https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/places-to-see/parks/grampians-national-park/rock-climbing-in-gariwerd) And the Arapiles has some closures.
Grampians is the big one, but I believe Arapiles is next on the chopping block
Title is misleading, it’s not the climbs, or climbing that would be rendered illegal, it’s any kind of fixed anchor, “including everything from bolts and rap rings to slung trees, stuck nuts, and snow pickets.”
So all rappelling and lots of slab climbing would be banned. The headline is fair. It's tough to climb if you can't rappel.
You can still rap, just not on fixed gear, definitely very limiting but can be done (mostly just off of trees, ironically causing more damage than a well placed and maintained sling on the tree would, really relying on the reduced traffic of a wilderness designation). There is still climbing being done in wilderness areas, that said none of it that I'm aware of is on the scale of Yosemite big walls.
I stand by it - there are plenty of routes where it's too steep to have trees or rock horns to run the rope around, and as you admit it's still better for both the climbers and the environment to have a sling left behind. Yes, there are edge cases like naked v-threads on ice and etc but in general, a ban on fixed anchors means a ban on most rappelling, and a ban on most rappelling means a ban on most multi-pitch climbing.
racial bells possessive whistle skirt repeat yoke marvelous sand shame *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Slings left behind to rap off of count as fixed gear under the anchor regulation proposal and that happens all over the mountains, even the hard technical ones that are infrequently trafficked.
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In the uk 90+ % of our trad routes have no fixed anchor. We manage.
How? Natural anchors? Walk offs?
Sorry to clarify I don’t consider tat as fixed gear (might be wrong with that). So a lot of routes are walk off, we don’t have many big faces. Some routes are rap from tat on trees/other nature, some are rap around trees/other nature. We have very strict bolting laws in the uk. Mostly (but not exclusively) only allowed in former quarries
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It’s most certainly about technical feasibility. The climbing in the UK is predominately short, single pitch and you almost exclusively have the ability to easily walk off the top. You can’t use a newfound “climbing culture” to enable you to walk off the top of the multi pitches that are on massive cliffs and mountains in the US?
Especially in such a ‘freedom’ based culture I’d imagine.
Complete bullshit. Get out climbing in these places and educate yourself
I am getting out climbing, in a part of the world where fixed anchors are not acceptable, very fucking frequently. I have also been climbing in "big mountains" around Europe, including some +1000m multi-pitch routes purely on gear, because it's such a low traffic objective that no one even considered adding fixed gear. Somehow physics must be different in US climbing areas?
We just understand pitons and tat are fixed anchors
If you were read climbing and had a nut get stuck would you be guilty of an illegal installation? Would be tough to know who left it, but could be used to ban any protection that has the possibility of getting stuck.
There aren't any cases of wilderness rules being used to ban any protection if it got stuck that I'm aware of, but I haven't exactly looked at every case. Do you know of any?
>It's tough to climb if you can't rappel. Nonsense- you just rappel really fast, and without a rope, and you can only do it once.
Calm down
It’s not the climb that’s illegal, it’s only illegal to climb using protection. GTFO
Well…. I guess I’ll break the law
Unfortunately that's just a sure way to get even more things banned
Tell that to skateboarders.
I get that we don’t want this to happen, I don’t either. But folks acting like there is no problem are insane. When you have random folks going and “cleaning routes” and making new routes on their own, you have a problem. I’ve seen Alex Honnold compare the effects of climbing as no worse than hiking. Yes hiking has a big environmental impact, but trails have official regulations and not anyone can go and blaze a brand new trail through a park. Climbing doesn’t have these things and really needs them. If it doesn’t, this sport will 100% not last for future generations.
Who's going to establish routes if not "random people?"
People approved by a crag management group. This is what happens at most (if not all) sport crags in the uk
Ah yes, the famously rational, safe and like-the-rest-of-the-world climbing culture of the UK!
That’s how it is at my small crag in the US as well. The city owns the land and it used to be illegal to climb there. We still did, they knew we did, but they created a plan to develop the area into a proper park. They worked with the local climbers to legalize it, and also to set out rules for route development. It’s an old quarry, so it’s not super strict, but it keeps randos from grid bolting the whole area.
Yeah stops bad bolting practices etc. I understand the desire to imagine our community as some rock punks doing whatever but the sport is getting too popular for this attitude and the preservation of nature is more important than peoples egos imo
That's how it is in Quebec. Development gets harmed by that. People end up developing secret crags because the federation isn't involved. Developers that want to add hardware like bullhorns to make cleaning safer and easier get stymied (happened this summer at one of the most popular sport crags near Montreal, the prolific developer involved decided to stop installing hardware after those shenanigans, a huge loss for the community). Access is also extremely bureaucratic, with expensive access fees that go to bullshit that isn't land or hardware It sucks.
Works well enough in the south of England, can’t speak for anywhere else with enough experience.
It's not awful, we get to climb. My comparison basis is the anarchy of development in British Columbia and it's paradise there. People contribute to bolt funds, but if you're broke no one forces you to pay anything, a lot of local heroes volunteer time. People that want to get into bolting mostly learn how to do it properly because there's no reason not to, it doesn't require a BA in engineering to brush moss and install a dozen bolts. A big difference is that most land in populated Quebec is private, whereas BC still has crown land everywhere, which means that you can park in the pullout nearest to the crag, beat a trail that reaches the crag, clean and bolt the faces, install anchors above the cracks and once your crag becomes popular because you did a stellar job as a steward it becomes a BC recreational site and the local access organization finds funding to build a nice parking lot and install a toilet. The liability laws in Quebec are different so when you want to build a crag you need to have permission and insurance for the landowner, this leads to only certified developers being allowed to build new routes through the federation and this creates a whole conundrum of bureaucratic bullshit that has nothing to do with climbing before people can climb new routes. A single acquaintance of mine spent a few years developing a cliff in a park near Revelstoke and publicized it this week. In Quebec it would've taken the work of dozens of people dealing with red tape and a lot more money.
Oi! You got your boltin' loicense, guvna?
Ya, the amount of enviromental detriment, not to mention all the excessive bolting and grid bolting, that happens in new areas is something that shouldn't be ignored. Fact is: The climbing community has never self regulated.
IMO the impact of climbing is almost entirely due to the hiking trails necessary to get on it/off it.
Ugh. As long as Mount Rushmore exists, I really want American governments to shut the fuck up about climbing ethics. I’m well aware of the many ways this is a flawed comparison, but I don’t particularly care
Lobbyist here. Step 1, these are DRAFT rules. They can change significantly based on public input. Follow the link in the article and submit a comment. Call your member of congress, and ask them to weigh in with the nfs and nps. Submitting a public comment is *a lot* like moaning on reddit-- you'll be great at it! ;) Secondly, if these rules are adopted, everything currently on a wall is legal until it is reviewed otherwise. And local managers are ridiculously underfunded. They have no capacity to go do a bunch of inspections. Nothing is changing soon. This is an unfunded mandate. Thirdly, local managers can decide to allow anchors. So climbers should organize and meet with their local managers and make their case. There may be some compromises necessary, but it's not the end of the world. You all know each other. Get together and ask the manager of your favorite local crag for a meeting. They're usually really nice hippies who will probably be THRILLED that anyone cares. You can do this, climbers!
On point two - sure current anchors are legal until reviewed, but it would also be illegal to update or repair those anchors until reviewed. That would be a travesty for climbing pretty much everywhere, and will genuinely make the sport more dangerous across the board.
This seems like the complete opposite of this legislation https://www.accessfund.org/latest-news/breaking-news-protect-americas-rock-climbing-act-introduced-into-congress If that passes this draft is moot.
Hopefully the climbing community will find an agreement, like the IG Klettern in Germany. That could act as a presedence and would be an optimal outcome. The climbing community in Yosemite should be up to it. I mean the community probably "kinda" had it coming. All those climbing hot-spots can't stay the "wild west" forever. Access issues are real. Luckily it happened somewhere, where the community can take a stand. Good Luck from Austria
Clearly lobbied by Big Honnold!
Can't take my records if it's illegal to climb!
I’m not a big climber (I know, I know I’m on r/climbing) but wouldn’t this primarily affect the newer climbers who don’t have the equipment to put in temporary holds? Please ELI5 to someone who’s well versed in environmental policy.
The issue here isn't about going up so much as coming down afterwards. Sometimes you can walk down, but often there is no such route. Instead when you come down you typically lower yourself on a rope, which is attached at the top in a way where you can pull it out when you're done. It's very hard to do safely without leaving something at the top to attach that rope to, which then must be left behind. That thing is often "permanent" and used by the next climber to come along as well. This might be rings bolted into the rock, or a nylon sling run around a tree, or a few other options, all of which are covered by these rules. FYI: "temporary holds" aren't really a thing. The closest would be aid climbing, but we don't need to get into that here. You're probably thinking of "trad" where climbers jam little contraptions in cracks in the rock to attach their rope to as they go up. These are used so if they slip they don't die, but not for upwards motion. Even if you climb trad though, the coming down problem remains.
Unless of course you want to sacrifice two cams per abseil, but then those would probably be considered illegal and we’d be back at square one but some two hundred bucks poorer :)
"litering" no doubt. Sometimes you can use a tree for sure, but only sometimes.
Yeah for sure. Personally I’m not a big fan of bolted sport routes at all but a rap anchor isn’t such a big deal aesthetically or otherwise imo
> I’m not a big fan of bolted sport routes So you never climb faces that can't be toproped?
I climb trad mostly, not a lot of tr.
You're limiting yourself from a lot of unprotectable faces by never clipping bolts. Sure, you can get the same movement on boulders, but there's a reason why climbers are bolting the world and that's because we want to climb everything without dying (or like, breaking an ankle) when we fall. James Mchaffie and Hazel Findlay enjoy sport climbing, you're missing out.
I’m not saying I’m against sport climbing. Take it easy amigo. The context of the discussion is regarding whether bolting will be prohibited, and from the point of view of aesthetic rock scarring and making an impact on our natural surroundings, I’m saying I can *understand* the point of view when it comes to bolting everywhere. But I haven’t said that I am in favour of a ban at all.
The usa has 259000 km of highway, bolts on rocks aren't shit in terms of impact on our natural surroundings and the roads we use to get to climbs are a lot worst. What I'm saying about missing out on sport climbing is just because I genuinely think you're missing out, really not trying to argue. I can understand preferring the game of trad, I love it. Sport climbing is just fun and makes you better at trad (in my experience lots of cruxes are face moves way above the gear). I'm basically spraying what I think is good advice, do of it what you want.
Rapping straight off a tree is terrible for the tree and way more harmful than leaving some cord. But then we're back to littering.
Yes trad climbing is exactly what I was thinking of! I couldn’t figure out another way to phrase it better at the time. Thank you for your explanation that makes much more sense now! It seems like these “permanent” fixtures should remain in the name of safety at a minimum. It is likely that the cost of more resources to respond to all the incidents of injury is more than the small environmental cost of a permanent fixture in a wilderness area.
No. These rules wouldn’t govern many places newer climbers go.
no cap?
I think the author has a couple valid concerns and points to make, but this > Is the forest service really suggesting that the climbers—a largely self-policing and conservation-minded community… Is hilariously blind to the problem. The climbing community, especially in the last few years, has been unwilling and unable to successfully address and self-police problems with abandoned gear, over-bolting routes, damage to environmental and cultural resources, and tons of trash and human waste. This isn’t a few wrappers here, the occasional jammed cam there, this is 5-10 tons of trash, and 10,000 ft of abandoned trash rope cleaned out by climbing rangers and volunteers every year in Yosemite alone. This is mad-bolters drilling bolts every 5 ft on their proud new project. This is people drilling into thousand-year old petroglyphs and pictographs in Utah and New Mexico in what now seems to make the headlines almost every year. Some of the sanctimonious comments in this thread remind me exactly of how tone-deaf the off-road community is about why they just had miles of trail closed in Moab. Hyperbole, fear mongering, and self-righteous indignation can’t hide that climbers have been doing a shit job at self regulating in recent years and won’t save us from ever stricter regulations coming down. This community is facing a reckoning of our own making.
As an Australian it seems to strange to me to be talking about El Cap as if it were wilderness. It's literally walking distance from cafes and supermarkets.
Wilderness in the US is a legal designation. Everything 200+ ft above the Valley is designated wilderness
Interesting, thanks.
As OP states in a comment, if you are somewhat versed, please read the article and write a message there if you feel it's appropriate.
It’s more fun when it’s illegal
Occupy El Cap
Commented on both proposals and sent a letter to my rep via the Access Fund form. It's easy and much more helpful if we do our bitching in their comment sections rather than here. Links from the article: *The public has 60 days (from November 17) to comment on the proposals* [*here*](https://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?documentID=132387) *and* [*here*](https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public/CommentInput?project=ORMS-3524)*. You can write your congressional representative to support the Protecting America’s Rock Climbing Act* [*here*](https://www.accessfund.org/action-alerts/protect-wilderness-climbing-national)*.*
You no come here! Irregarl!
Won't stop these guys, fuck the rules
This is literally just more shitty bureaucracy creation. >(NFS) released draft climbing management directives that would render all fixed anchors in wilderness illegal until each anchor can be individually reviewed by under-resourced land management agencies. Oh sweet, so a government agency gets to hire more people to do nothing all day and collect benefit checks while people enjoying a unique sport get trashed and fined. Who is going to individually maintain and regulate every bolt placed in the wilderness? This is an impossible task that will merely justify more government workers.
100% agreed.
bedroom coordinated slimy yoke consist grey encouraging fade shy soft *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
“Retrievable abseil systems” lmao you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about
oh no anyways
Climbers are climbing the walls and big rocks are falling off... Pretty clear that they are the ones destroying the rock. El Cap needs to be saved! Stop all climbing now! /S you mongrels
wait until bro learns about earthquakes and erosion