South Bluff - North Face Gullies

This post was originally a comment in South Bluff - North Face Gullies

Doug,

Nick is quoting me verbatim (from here), and trolling as usual.

In his "presented without comment" style he fails to draw several clear distinctions:

1. Skillet Creek is in a far more geologically sensitive area of the park (older, more-deeply exposed rocks).

2. Skillet is very near private land (with indistinct boundaries and the easiest access being over that private land).

3. Skillet Creek is also much further from "improved" areas of the park, considering these gullies are a 15 minute hike down the railroad tracks and those same tracks can be seen from nearly anywhere in the two gullies. You can't even take a footpath to Skillet (unless you start on private land) and you can't hear or see nary a road from Skillet, let alone a locomotive powering a few thousand tons down the track.

4. Skillet Creek is also lower profile in terms of its visibility from the rest of the park - considering these gullies can be seen from just about anywhere on the East Rampart or from Rozno's Meadows (really from anywhere with a view of the north side of the South Bluff) - whereas Skillet is neatly tucked away in a far corner of the park across a road from the main part of the park in a tiny little draw that barely appears on a topo map.

5. The poster(s) of Skillet Creek was shown that area by me and told it was a sensitive area - so I felt like some trust had been betrayed. I was shown these gullies by a map and checked them out on my own, I doubt the map feels like its trust was betrayed.

Nick,

You're a strong and bold climber (stronger and bolder than me by orders of magnitude) -- so I hope that you can get to a point in life where you don't need the victory of trolling on the internet with bad arguments and half-truths to bring yourself a sense of purpose. There is more to life than climbing and the internet.

You might disagree with the distinctions I've drawn, and truth be told I don't care if you do, the facts are the facts and I won't argue them with you.

Anyway, I hope all is well with you and best of luck.

Cheers,
James