hey,

don't forget the trail day this coming Saturday, there is a link above for more details. All people are welcome regardless of experience.

if anyone wants to get a couple pitches done before or after let me know... (if we're in pine creek i'm thinking small purchase, if we're in kraft i'm thinking gnatman area. open to suggestions though)


word,

jon

i love that Red Rock is the only climbing area in Nevada, according to MP'ers

p.s. there is no link above

Not sure what you mean, S Denny. For the purpose of the forum it may seem that way, but just click on Nevada and see that it is not.

I'll be there to finally volunteer some hard labor in Red Rock. Hope to catch some of you folks out there. : )

www.mountainproject.com/v/107510567

Hope lots of folks come out.

Wow! Super lame. 9 people at a trail day for red rocks!!?? That is just sad, especially when such a HUGE population lives 20 minutes away. Hell trail days in the RRG of kentucky attract hundreds of people and the nearest big city is an hour away.

There sure were a lot of folks in Red Rock climbing that day, though, so it couldn't have been the heat that scared them away.
: (

Thats really too bad... seems like there is a pretty solid group of local climbers its a shame they cant come together better. They must have all been busy that day!

I wouldnt expect someone on vacation from Canada or the East coast to come help at the trail days, it would be nice but the local population needs to be a lot more active. There are HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of local climbers who live in Vegas, and only 9 showed up for a trail day? Something is wrong there....

I'm not talking about the once in a blue moon vacationer pitching in, I'm speaking of visiting climbers who are here all the damn time, and use Red Rock a whole heck of a lot, some more than us locals do. We got tons of those types who might as well be local, and help out.

Bottom line- we can all do more. Red Rock is deteriorating. Locals living in this transient 24/7 city do seem to have a hard time getting people together for an event like yesterdays, but YES, we can do more, and so can other lovers of RRCNCA... Sigh.

Right, well maybe when the LOCALS start showing up and supporting THEIR climbing area people on vacation will join in.

9 people at a trail day, on a saturday, at one of the most popular climbing destinations in the US is pretty sad. There should have been two or three times that many people JUST from the Vegas area. I think it really says a lot about the local climbing community.

Like you said more people show up for your beer nights.

To be honest, I don't really know how many climbers reside in Vegas at any given time, but I bet our outdoor climbing community is extremely small compared to other places with world renowned climbing areas in their backyard, I do know that many climbers (with their climber, and/or anti-Vegas like personalities) generally dont care to live in Sin City for very long, and come, and go faster than one can say off belay in our neck of the woods- That could be part of the problem we have in the the difficulty of getting local people connected, and on the same page, as a "sense of community" can almost be non-existent at times in our fair city. : (

That being said, I didn't expect 100 local climbers to show up for trail day, but at least 25 would have been nice, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation. ; )

Edit to add: I seriously doubt that there's "hundreds, and hundreds" of outdoor climbers who live in Vegas, as Dexter imagines, but there sure are thousands upon thousands of visiting climbers from everywhere else.

I'm sorry I missed trail day, but I was back at my parents in illinois pulling on plastic at the local college.(don't be jealous)

I think GiGi summed it up pretty well. For a decent sized city, the climbing community is pretty small and somewhat fractured. I think people also get a bit discouraged completing projects at Red Rock then seeing climbers(mostly from out of town and non-climbers) completely ignore the work done ie, cutting swithbacks at the second pullout after trailwork was done, crapping right next to popular crags after wag bag dispensers were installed. I'm not saying out of towners are that much worse that locals, just that there is A LOT more of them. That being said, there is a small core group that has done a lot of good things for Red Rock.

I think one thing we could do to get better participation from locals on projects is to advertise it more. Not everyone spends that much time on MP.

Cheers,

Doug

GiGi well put except for that edited part at the end....

You really don't think there are a couple hundred climbers who live in vegas and the surrounding area? Are you kidding? I stopped by two of your gyms last trip and they were PACKED with people both nights. I am sure some of them venture outside. Hell there are at least 20-30 vegas climbers on mountainproject alone. Vegas is a big city its to bad you can't get more involvement out of your climbing community.

Hey Doug, hope you had a nice trip!

I believe that this event was advertised on a few sites, and word was spread around the places where climbers hang out in town, so I'm not sure how much more could have been done to get more "climbers" involved, or interested. There was even a nice barbecue planned for after the event, and group sites reserved at the campground.

Dexter, it would be interesting to find out on average, the number of climbers at the Vegas gyms who actually climb outdoors, and are local, and a rough number of how many local , outdoor climbers we have in Vegas at any given time. I've always been curious about it. I bet the small numbers of local outdoor climbers would shock most , being that we're so close to Red Rock, and all .

Agreed that it is good PR for climbers. However, I take exception to Dexter lambasting the local climbers. I think that as a general rule, climbers are the ones using the trails correctly etc. So to hold us to a higher standardard, especially those of us who attempt to improve RR by picking up trash, replacing anchors and the like on our own time, are not the villains. I don't need an organized trail day to give a little back to the community, especially when the work will be trampled in half the time the improvements took to complete.

Can't we all just get along? ; )

I know, not possible, and now I'm
starting to understand more of why the local climbers are somewhat disconnected with each other. We're from different tribes, I guess. : (

i think everyone gets along here... there's just an agreement to disagree on the potency of trail work in regards to taking a day off from work and recreation in order to make an effective impact in terms of conserving the park.



here's a suggestion for a service day of a different flavor:

anchor replacement! (can be run on the same day as trail days to give more options)

1. someone could make a list of all anchors eligible for replacement in red rock (i'm sure that list exists already;) i'm sure the list spans single pitch 5.4's to multipitch 5.hards.

2. disseminate the list and assign a "trail day" with an RSVP feature.

3. take all of your rsvp'ers and then form teams (for instance, i know that Darren and I might both have an interest in replacing the final anchors on the enterprise route on challenger wall)

4. fill out the anchor replacement paperwork through nick.

5. make a day of it, all teams can meet in the a.m. to grab the hardware and then go climb.(have a few climbs pre-selected for anyone that shows up suddenly)

6. cue the big party at the campground: everyone shares stories about the climbs they did that day. we all get to climb, we all get to impact ONLY our fellow climbers, and we all have a lot to talk about at a big climber party following.

I, personally, would like to see more events that are open to everyone like the campground party idea. it was a GREAT idea! but i also totally forgot about it! LOL... we've got to disseminate a little better in the future and the weather was just too awful to use this attempt as a true litmus test.




other ideas i have:

1. many of us have crags we work on in private. instead of just posting up the crag when it is finished, i'm suggesting that we start having parties. anytime anyone wants to "unveil" a crag, they could do so by announcing a party day at the crag and the FA teams could be there to help people digest the new crag.

2. FA slide shows: Danny Rider told me that there used to be common slide show days when folks like harrison, van betten, and rider would get together and share slide shows of all the routes they'd been working on. this was a great way to build community and share resources and info on new climbing areas. these slide shows could be bi-annual and they could thread together the long time-spans in-between people unveiling crags.

3. local halloween event at red rock.
nick has provided all the paperwork for us to host a giant halloween party at red rock. even if it began as only a crag or two, it could still be a blast! the people that utilize red rock for the red rock rendevous have little or no concern for locals and they make a ton of money. i think the MAJORITY of us locals actually leave town for the rendevous. imagine a local climbing festival that was based on fun and not profit?! i think we could honestly have a real blast. plus, we could organize trail days during that time so that our festival had a positive impact. also, the ideas for climbing costumed are endless and we've got some of the best halloween weather in the country.





happy climbing,

jon

Darren you are just making excuses.

Plenty of tourons and gumbies come to the red river gorge and trample the work done on trail days there yet they still often get turn outs of 100+ people for the bigger trail days. And the nearest cities are all well over an hour away! Not 15 minutes like vegas.... Thats great you pick up trash but I think a lot of people do that and its not a reason why you shouldn't participate in organized trail days.

Like GiGi said you guys had a larger turn out to drink beer on a Wed night than a trail day to suppourt your local climbing area. Thats sad! Its your land you guys gotta get involved and take care of it!

Hey, Jon! Where did you go on trail day? We couldn't find you- I assumed your pup was getting overheated as why you left early . Hope Moon's okay. I'll keep an open mind, and still have some faith in us local climbers being able to get on the same page at least some of the time.

BTW, there was no party at the campground, it was called off; the rest of us that worked till the end were exhausted, and starving, so we ended up getting a quick bite at a pizza place by Albertsons. We were too beat to party like a Rock Star.

Edit to add: anyway, it was nice meeting you big Jon.