Cathedral Spires Area

Please note that the Cathedral Spires close for Perigrine Falcons between March, and July....

I've quit the Access Fund, because they won't lobby against this unusually large closure. This closure goes way beyond the immediate area of the nest. The justification for it is sci-fi, dreamed up by creeps who just plain hate climbers.

Bushies just love this crap, because it plays to their anti-conservation and ant-public-land fear mongering. How good is that for peregrines?

Can Cynical Pinnacle be accessed during winter or is there too much snow?

With its south-facing aspect the approach to Cynical Pinnacle can generally be done year round with little snow.

Minus the 6 months that it is closed for raptor nesting....

Let's not get carried away. It's actually 5 months.

Sorry, I can never remember if it closes at the end of January or the end of February. In any case, it's kind of a bummer.

Thanks guys. Hopefully we'll get a nice day in early January to go do the center route. Otherwise, we'll have to hit the slopes.

To Ken Trout:

Please do not climb at ANY area that the Access Fund has helped maintain access to or purchased to preserve climbing. Please let me know what area you have preserved and I will not climb there. I could go on about how dumb your statement is but will refrain.

Chris,
Good job defending your friends at the Access Fund. If you had read Ken's post more closely you would realize his comments were directed at Jeffco Open Space, not the Access Fund.

Could you enlighten us with information on any traditional crags on the Front Range (or Colorado even) that the Access Fund has helped preserve access to? I too am disillusioned by their lack of local involvement. Can you imagine the entire Eldorado Canyon being closed for 5 months for the possibility of a single nesting raptor?

I hope you realize that Ken is one of the leading figures in establishing routes on the Colorado Front Range. He was running it out above 1/4" button heads while you where still in grade school. I am guessing you have probably enjoyed several of his routes if you have spent any time climbing in the Platte, Clear Creek, or on Mt. Evans.

Ditto what Kevin said. In the Front Range area, it seems like the AF only chases after the popular grid bolted sport areas. I don't feel I really get much out of it.

As someone who was involved in access issues for the Access Fund in the past I'd like to add some information that may not be widely known. Back in the mid-'90s JeffCo acquired the spires and the Dome from BLM, basically because BLM didn't want to deal with the isolated parcels and Jeffco was very zealous in getting their hands on anything that was or could be used for peregrine nesting. How that relates to JeffCo Open Space's basic mission is a bit unclear.

JeffCo originally intended to close the area completely. Their premise was that there wasn't legal access to the isolated parcels of land, ostensibly even for them, so they sure couldn't let the public (climbers) in there. According to Jeffco you had to either cross Denver Water Board or private land and that was not allowed. I was able to work with DWB and confirm that they allow the public to cross their lands on foot and defeated that attempt by JeffCo to make Cathedral Spires another private biology park for JeffCo and their friends from Colorado State University.

The raptor closure is clearly excessive, the Dome has to be at least a mile from the nest across the valley and certainly no closer than the road which remains open. The Access Fund has worked to address excessive raptor closures through the best avenue, challenging the baseless science, primarily through the work of Rob Ramey. Some land managers are more reasonable than others, so that's why efforts in this area have lagged and other areas have seen substantial progress.

Despite your preferred style of climbing it is important to realize that baseless or excessive closures of climbing areas of one type (sport or trad) inevitably affect the other. The Access Fund does a great job of working to open climbing areas of all types and is more successful in some cases than others. While it may be frustrating that certain areas aren't as open as they should be, recognize that it may not be for lack of effort. I'm sure that the Access Fund could use any help that anyone was willing to put forth.

Hey Todd,
Thanks for the history lesson, it is good to hear the AC is trying to help out. I guess I just never hear of any of their attempts in the Platte. I appreciate that they do help in more popular areas, but it would seem that an area like the Spires with some very historical routes (Bishops Crack, Ellingwood Chimney, and Wunsch's Dihedral) that we would hear more about their efforts. Can you give us any details of their involvement in attempting to get access back into Sphinx or Squat Rocks? Any attempts to open climbing in Denver Mountain Park land, or Ralston Buttes? Road or trail improvements at Turkey Rocks? Trail improvements in ANY S. Platte crag? Are these areas just too low of a priority to warrant any attention?

I am sure you are aware that JeffCo has been promising trail improvements on the approaches to the Cynical Pinnacle and Sunshine Wall for the last several years. I am guessing they just do not have the funding to make this happen. Maybe I would feel differently if I saw that the Access Fund had at least made an attempt to assist JeffCo in this project vs making another trail improvement at Shelf Road or N. Table. As it is currently, it seems to me that the Access Fund is more of a organization catering to the masses VS attempting to maintain access to historically significant climbing areas. I hope that you can help change that impression.

Thanks,

Kevin Stricker

Kevin,

Although I am no longer an official regional coordinator for the Access Fund, I think I can certainly say that the Access Fund placed a high priority on South Platte issues in the past and probably still does. I'll do some checking and see what is currently going on inside the Access Fund on South Platte activities.

I was personally involved in a number of projects too numerous to list and many I've probably forgotten related to various South Platte areas. Some of the issues were really tough, like unfriendly land owners, etc. Certainly Cyn Pin and other areas aren't just at the top of the priority list due to their historical significance, but because of the sheer quality of the climbing to be had there. The thing that makes the Platte in general a challenge is the widely dispersed nature of many of the climbing areas and the distance to some of them from the road. It is a bit easier to get a volunteer trail crew together for 1/4 mile of Shelf trail than it would be for several miles of trail in the Platte, especially if there were land ownership and environmental regulatory hurdles. I'll do some checking to see what's going on these days and let you know.

I will chime into this discussion as I would consider myself a friend of Ken, Kevin, and Tod and because of my current involvement with the Access Fund via the Denver Climber's Coalition (which the AF was gracious enough to help get us off the ground) as well as the Platte. I will say that the Access Fund tries to focus their attention on more broader based issues than just a single climbing area by helping local climbing coalitions get off the ground and deal with the issues more directly because those locals involved in the coalitions have a more intimate knowledge of the area then say the AF. In this instance, the AF is located in nearby Boulder, but I'm sure you can see the point that this would not always be the case. Also, the Access Fund only employs a handful of people. It would be easy for them to be overwhelmed with individual access problems. Again, why a local climbing coalition is important.

In the case of the Cathedrals, people such as Tod, who has worked on access directly and Kevin, who has replaced bolts on virtually every route worth climbing in The Spires have done a tremendous job in terms of stewardship. Unfortunately, it can never rest on a single person's shoulders nor should it. Conversely, while it's very easy to say the AF should take care of it, it's much more complicated as Tod stated, and it takes countless hours from a whole slew of dedicated locals to make headway in these issues. Solution? Join your local climbing coalition. In this case, the Denver Climber's Coalition (DCC) www.denverclimberscoalition.org and see how you can help. I helped form the coalition and so if you'd like to contact me about, feel free. We are fairly young (formed just over a year ago) so great success stories are a little slim right now. However, I will say that we are extremely entrenched in the South Platte right now in terms of access. Other areas we've dealt with include Adopt-a-highways and access issues in Clear Creek (with colaboration with the AF), Denver Mountain Parks, North Table Mtn Trail Days (with the AF), and the list goes on. Making headway is slow going as anyone who's ever tried their hand at it can tell you. We've been beating our heads against the wall of Denver Mountain Park nepotism for over a year and we've been dealing with private landowners for opening up their land to climbers both in the Platte and surrounding areas. We've had some successes and a whole lot of set backs. That's the name of the game, but there are a TON of people out there working extremely hard behind the scenes for little to no recognition because they love climbing and they think everyone should be able to enjoy it.

Point: government agencies move extremely slow and change does not happen overnight, nor does it happen because of one person. It takes the voice of a whole bunch of pissed off climbers to change unfounded closures. Join the DCC who has had unprecedented support from the Access Fund (including specifically about South Platte access) and reduce the closures. We hold public meetings and I am available via PM for more info. To answer Kevin's question about some of the Pine areas such as Sphinx and Squat Rock, I personally worked with AF on those issues and our requests have been declined to put it nicely. There's not much more the AF or anyone for that matter can deal with the issue of a private landowner saying no to climbing on their land.

I wanted to take a moment to chime in here and express some optimism for the future in regards to the Spires. Although slow I think that we will start to see positive change at the Spires in the coming years. In regards to the approaches to the Sunshine Wall and Cynical Pinnacle I know that the Open Space Trails Crew has been out looking at them in the past month and have been documenting the locations and I'm sure the condition of the trails. The soils at the Spires pose a daunting challenge for them, but they are a creative bunch. I'm not even going to speculate on the closure issue not knowing for sure what that might look like in the future.

Perhaps I'm naive and overly optimistic, but I think the future is bright for climbers that love this crag. For my part I pass along the concerns I hear in the field to the folks in Golden whenever I have the opportunity. If you ever see me at the Spires or any crag for that matter please feel free to bend my ear, I'd love the opportunity to chat.

Mike Morin

Slim said: "in the Front Range area, it seems like the AF only chases after the popular grid bolted sport areas. I don't feel I really get much out of it."

That's just plain uninformed. Join and read the newsletter.
The AF had executive level and legal attention directed into the S. Platte just this past spring when there was a buzz about some property in the Splatte opening up around Squat Rock and Sphynx, which are not 'grid bolted sport areas.' As well, if you look at their last big purchase in CO with a regional, it was Mother's Buttress, right?

I'm just sayin'.

Maybe the popular areas seem to get the most attention and support from the public, and create the most Buzz, but the fact is that the AF was involved from everything from wilderness anchors policy to roadless lands travel, to forming the coallition in the Indian Creek, and printing up those nice FOIC brochures with the info and maps.

Thanks for your reconsideration.
And no, I am NOT on the A.F. board- I'm just a dues paying member who sees the value.

Any chance we're gonna get to beer 30 on this?

No offense, but the AF & DCC aren't proving to be much use for this area. Considering, what, about 6-7 years fighting the somewhat exclusive privatization of public lands through the DMP? Nobody has really gotten anywhere and I bet nothing really will at this point; maybe until someone files a good lawsuit. None of us are ever going to list out inventory for these jokers. I've always felt this issue might be a good precedent setter.

But, I don't feel the Spires are going to go in that direction. Really not much relayed over the past few years in developing the overall guideline plan has been shown to drastically vary in how this area is going to be developed as a park. Nor really any of the other park areas that are listed for that matter; what the guidelines tell you is pretty much what each area is going to offer. Ken has a good point and a lot of people feel the same way; the whole: from the road to the North Pole .. has it ever made any sense?

Tony, you bring up very good, valid points concerning IC and Unaweep. My point was more or less limited to the Front Range, although I admit that I was being pretty pessimistic.