List of areas that have been closed in the US?

Senior Hernandez wrote:

I would say the people who actually use the rock do have more rights to it, at the very least we should try to claim them. I mean obviously the people playing soccer on the field have more rights to that field, and the fisherman has more rights to the river, and the hunter more rights to the deer, so wtf?  It does not hurt the climbing community to take the stance that we have a right to rock. 

More rights to the river and deer than who? We're not competing against anyone for rights to the rock most of the time. Most access issues come down to either liability concerns or property damage concerns (e.g. leaving trash everywhere). Claiming we have more right to the rock than other groups does not address those concerns. We could claim we have a right to rock climb and use the rocks for that purpose, but in the end telling a land manager "I have a right to" wont mean jack to them. They probably hear that stuff all the time.

20 kN wrote:

We're not competing against anyone for rights to the rock most of the time. 

You can say that all you want but that doesn't change the minds of others. You would think once a mountain bike has been on a trail the risk to a horse being injured goes up 10,000% by how much equestrians want to monopolize their use of the trails. The fact that equestrians aren't mtbikers is enough for there to be a fight. It's tribal, not rational. Ultimately, policy-makers don't know who to believe and the squeakier wheel gets the grease. Being all "oh, we should just love one another and puff puff pass" is just political suicide. 

Claiming we have more right to the rock than other groups does not address those concerns. We could claim we have a right to rock climb and use the rocks for that purpose, but in the end telling a land manager "I have a right to" wont mean jack to them. They probably hear that stuff all the time.

Nobody is suggesting be an ass.

Fascinating how this thread has gone from 

"hey, let's put together some information and see what we might learn about what works where" 

to 

"who needs information, I'll just tell you what works, based on no personal experience."

T. Maino wrote:

The closure of Ralston Buttes is complete BS and driven a massively overfunded and over staffed government bureaucracy.  The supposed environmental sensitivities include the presence of mountain lions and bears, wow, that surely makes this spot unique and sensitive.  Oops, I guess they didn't check to see that there really isn't anywhere in the western 2/3 of Colorado that there aren't mountain lions and bears.  A simple comparison with the USFS illustrates the point, the South Platte Ranger District of the USFS manages 550,000 acres of land with 28 employees, but Jefferson County Open Space needs 100 people to "manage" a mere 40,000 acres.  It takes 40 JCOS employees to do the job of one fed.  When you have a bunch of employees with no real work to do they make things up like creating unneeded rules.  There is good climbing at Ralston Buttes which was purchased with millions of your tax dollars and is now closed to those of you who paid for it.

MD3 (first poster) - are you going to compile the info or not? Why not start changing your first post to a clearly read bullet point list as things come in? 

Tzilla Rapdrilla wrote:

The closure of Ralston Buttes is complete BS and driven a massively overfunded and over staffed government bureaucracy.  The supposed environmental sensitivities include the presence of mountain lions and bears, wow, that surely makes this spot unique and sensitive.  Oops, I guess they didn't check to see that there really isn't anywhere in the western 2/3 of Colorado that there aren't mountain lions and bears.  A simple comparison with the USFS illustrates the point, the South Platte Ranger District of the USFS manages 550,000 acres of land with 28 employees, but Jefferson County Open Space needs 100 people to "manage" a mere 40,000 acres.  It takes 40 JCOS employees to do the job of one fed.  When you have a bunch of employees with no real work to do they make things up like creating unneeded rules.  There is good climbing at Ralston Buttes which was purchased with millions of your tax dollars and is now closed to those of you who paid for it.

What is the comparison of population and usage of those two areas?

Marc801 C wrote:

What is the comparison of population and usage of those two areas?

They're both adjacent to metro Denver and heavily used, except the large portions of Jefferson County Open Space that are closed to all access by the public taxpayers, whereas none of the USFS land is closed to the public.

I agree that Ralston Buttes closure is crap.   I personally think it has something to do with the defunct uranium mine right next to it.   

Most closures are due to proximity of animals which are classified as "Least Concern" or LC by the Endangered Species Act. In other words they have been evaluated and to be as common as rats. 

Climbed this week near a squawking prairie falcon (well, he shut up when I actually started climbing). They're quite territorial and will actually let you know if you're near a nest with their talons. Sometimes they will fuck with you for the fun of it. Once at City of Rocks there was a fledgeling dive-bombing everyone on the trail which required a well-timed duck to avoid. Someone's dog wasn't aware and there was a cloud of dog hair in the air as a result of the talon-raking. At any rate, I'm pretty sure the dejected falcon didn't fly to her roost and push her babies out of the nest after I failed to acknowledge her legal status. 

There's a good read in this Access Fund newsletter from last year. 25 areas that various people/organizations have saved from closure.

https://www.accessfund.org/uploads/Summer-16_Vertical-Times_Final_LR.pdf