Red Rock Rendezvous - Overcrowding?

John H, not to worry. We can go to ...... during that week. Climb us some multi-pitch limestone with no crowds!
Blanked out destination NSA style.

I've talked a little bit with Mountain Gear about the stuff that has been posted on this thread. As I've stated, there are some good points and I brought some of them up with them.

Why isn't there a portable toilet at the First Pullout during RRR? And why are they using a crag without a portable toilet?

Unfortunately, the BLM does not allow portable toilets inside the Scenic Drive. Mountain Gear brings in a number of portable toilets to Spring Mountain Ranch.

The First Pullout is heavily used for the event because there are a lot of beginner level routes in the area. Please note however, that neither the Panty Wall in the First Pullout, nor the Gallery in the Second Pullout is being used for the event. Indeed, neither of these ubber popular crags have ever been used.

They crowd all the crags and nobody can climb anywhere.

The clinic numbers can include up to eight climbers and two instructors. However, they are commonly much lower. And even when there are a lot of people, teams seldom employ more than two ropes at a given crag. Occasionally a team will have three ropes up, but I'm not even aware of an instructor asking for four ropes, much less managing that many.

We do ask all of the instructors to be courteous and accommodating to climbers around them. If you encounter a situation where they are not courteous and accommodating, please get the name of the instructor and then let me know.

Every year the BLM assesses the permit for this event and determines whether or not Mountain Gear is working appropriately during the event. Every year they have come back with positive reviews. Aside from a few crag trades, the permit has had very few changes over those years.

Mountain Gear has worked with the BLM and the State of Nevada to build an event with as low impact as possible, including buses, portable restrooms, recycling at the event, etc.

Everybody makes a big mess.

This is a weak argument. People who are in classes are far less likely to make messes out there. We all know that climbers are not the ones throwing water bottles down into cracks or spray painting the rocks.

Mountain Gear was given the option of having a bottled water company sponsor the event a couple of years ago. They refused on the ethical grounds that such a thing creates more garbage.

The cups that are used on site for beer and the like are biodegradable and they have provided drinking bottles and mugs to cut down on garbage at all of their events in the past.

Mountain Gear is a very green company and they push hard to be recognized as such.

They don't give any money to the Access Fund.

Okay, so Paul Fish is not only the President of Mountain Gear, but also the President of the Access Fund. Through event efforts, the company donates over 40k a year to the Access Fund. Additionally, they donate to trails associations, bolting projects and river clean-ups.

They only give us two hours for the service projects, which means that only forty minutes of work will get done.

Due to the way their website works, it looks like the service project is only two hours. But it is actually 3.5 hours.

When teams have had "real" projects in the past, they have often stayed beyond the allotted time in order to get the jobs done...

No, not everyone wants to fly across the country and be involved in a service project, but we (at AAI) are donating an Alpinism 1 course worth $1190 to the LVCLC to award to someone who attends the service project.

Over the last number of years, neither the BLM nor Spring Mountain Ranch have provided many options for service projects. The standard is that they ask what can they do and then the response is that the bigger projects need EAs and NEPA assessments. As such, they have either done very small BLM projects or had it fall onto the shoulders of the LVCLC to create "real" projects.

This year Spring Mountain Ranch asked to have their stage painted after the event. They wanted the Community Theatre people to do the actual painting, but Mountain Gear is buying them the paint.

They don't put any money into the local community.

Well, a lot of money is spent in Las Vegas to put on the event. Off the top of my head: Bonnie Springs is often sold out a year ahead of time and has to add extra staff for the weekend. Staff need plane tickets and rental cars. Buses are employed. Food is provided by local caterers. Security is local. Bartenders and cleaning people are local. Obviously the BLM takes a cut and the wages of state and federal employees who work the event are covered by the event...and this is just the quick and very dirty version of the monies spent in Vegas.

While the event itself is a break-even deal for us, we do see a large bump in the guiding that we do in Vegas around the event. No, not all of our guides live in Vegas, but many of them spend literally months every year climbing and guiding in Red Rock.

It is ironic that many of the locals who either directly or indirectly make their living off tourism are so opposed to this. Las Vegas is a tourist town and this is a climbing event in the epicenter of world tourism. Every person who comes to the event is putting money into the pockets of locals in one way or another...

Why can't this be in another place?

This comes right back to the Las Vegas is a tourist town thing. The entire area is set-up to be accommodating to tourism and conventions. Fights to and from Vegas are easy and cheap. And event support is easy to come by.

The Big Picture

So Phil Bridgers at Mountain Gear (the event planner) is completely willing to talk to anyone about their concerns. Please feel free to PM me or email me (jason@aai.cc) for his phone number or email. You can also meet him at the event to discuss concerns.

The other thing that I thought of while considering this stuff is that many of you who are upset have never done anything for RR. Some of you have. Certainly people like Mark and the Johns have always been great advocates and have done a lot to support RR and I respect them a great deal. But there are some of you who have never written a letter or, for example, attended meeting about the potential development on Blue Diamond Hill.

When all is said and done this event has limited impact on our resource. It is really only three days. There are big picture things in Vegas and in Red Rock that we all have to worry about... In the current environment, exposing more climbers who might be willing to write letters and sign petitions for Red Rock and having a nice corporate ally like Mountain Gear on our side can only be a positive thing...

Jason

fedman wrote:I was just about to book my plane tickets to LasVegas for a weekend of climbing at Red Rock when I learned that the Red Rock Rendezvous is the same weekend (March 19-22). Question: How overrun is RR with people that weekend? Will we have trouble finding some 5.9 to 5.11 sport routes to climb? Does anyone know what areas the Rendezvous climb? Thanks.

For 5.9 to 5.11 without the RRR Crowds...go to Civilization Crag at the First Pullout. Great little crag with a full day's worth of new routes to send.

Jason pretty much said crowds are good, they don't fuck the place up, also, you shouldn't be able to climb anywhere because of the crowds, which is good.

Like it or not, Vegas is a tourist destination with attractions for a wide range of interests and perspectives. I have limited experience with the RRR and it's not something that attracts me very much. But, it seems to me the sponsors do make an effort to be responsible while still achieving their business goals. I'm not inclined to whine about a once a year event that is pretty easy to avoid and ignore if you do find it objectionable. I say let those who attend enjoy it without our petty recriminations.

Thanks for all the info everyone. Although it sounds like a fun/social time, I did switched my vacation weekend to avoid the RRR event.

Happy and safe climbing!

John Wilder wrote: Mountain Gear has alotted precisely 2 hours for the two service projects scheduled this year. 2 hours from the time of pick up at the festival to return to the festival. Ask yourself what could possibly get done in the what will amount to 40 minutes of actual work time on these projects. It's a joke and Mountain Gear should be ashamed of itself. Disclaimer- I am representing the American Safe Climbing Association at this event, as well as the LVCLC.

Untrue. Me and my wife skipped the clinics last year to do trail service projects. The clean-up was close to the festival so it was just a short walk there. In total the group spent over 2 hours cleaning up trash and clearing tree debris that could fuel a fire. One of the park rangers even helped out.

Though 2 hours isn't a great deal of time, alot of junk got cleaned up. It would be great if they extended it by another hour or two.

Soooooo, I'd like to hear thoughts about last weekend's event. There was such a discussion about the impact of the RRR I'd like to hear about how it went down and people's experiences and whether or not they participated. What gets said may help in discussing next year's event, if there is one.

As for my experience, I did not participate in the RRR but I climbed Thursday through Sunday. Thursday I was at Juniper on the Ginger Crack Buttress, Friday in Oak Creek on the Eagle Wall, Saturday at Sunnyside Crag in Icebox, and Sunday at Hunter S. Thompson at the Second pull out. I can tell you that the RRR did not impact me. Black Corridor did look crowded but not much more so than on any other given weekend during this time.

Maybe the weather made things a little calmer, maybe not. Also, the areas I went to were not RRR class areas. Maybe my experience was unique, I don't know. To help see what locals thought the impact was, I think it would be important to hear from you all.

Gracias.

Xavier-
As of course everyone knows, and Mark was so gracious as to point out for the non-locals, I worked the event. I thought it went quite smoothly. There was a contingency plan for rain, so as to not damage the rock, and they were checking in quite often Sunday to determine if it was actually raining in different areas of the NCA (it's not a Park, people!). the CLC was in charge of the service proj, and I feel like we got a good bit accomplished on the Kraft trail. Nick, the new climbing rec planner helped us all day Sunday. I was amazed, though not too much, at the amount of people that walked by on their way to go bouldering, thanked us for the work(if that), and didn't even really look twice, nevertheless offer to help. Yeah, pebble wrestlers, we do this for you too...

I'm glad to hear that your experience was not impacted by the RRR. I didn't surmise that it would be compromised any more than any weekend during spring break, but it is nice to hear. Unless you had your heart set on climbing the Fox (Peter Croft's clinic) or at Cut your Teeth, many of the crags utilized by the RRR are not considered "destination crags" by the local set.

I would be curious to hear the (unbiased) opinions of folks that were around this past weekend. I saw less trash in Calico Basin by the end of the weekend(at least at clinic sites), but of course I am incredibly biased in favor of this event, as everyone knows, seeing as how I made $375 (gross) in three days of work. Cheers.

PS. There were 8 other parties on Geronimo today. Is this heinous overcrowding attributable to the RRR? Hardly. It's Vegas. Spring Break. Only a few folks I talked to had even heard of the RRR.