New Climbing Center in Yosemite Valley

Erik Sloan wrote:

 The Goggle campus in Mountain View has some cool, arcade like consoles where you stand in front of a wall of lcd screens and can 'streetview' around the world. Wouldn't it be cool if you could climb the Nose like that so family and friends could see what it is really all about? 

seriously?

You're serious? This does not belong in a national park. If people want to do that they can stay home and use google earth all they want. 

A climbing museum could be cool.. The rest of your ideas are just flat out inappropriate. 

I stayed out of the arguments when you added a bunch of bolts to established climbs in the valley because it's not my community. Now it seems like you're trying to dumb down big wall climbing, and climbing in the valley in general, in an effort to make more money. If you want street view at the google campus, go to the google campus. Street view of the nose will not convey half of what climbing is all about. In this thread you keep asking the same questions hoping to get the responses that you want to hear. 

Cool, sounds like some folks here are interested in there being a Climbing museum in the Valley. A nonprofit Climber's group, the YCA, has been working toward this goal for fifteen years now (and a prominent climber, Mike Corbett, worked for several years before handing off the baton to Ken Yager who founded the YCA).

What do we have to show for all our donations and money collected? Right now we are paying to store tens of thousands of artifacts in Ken Yager's garage. This is climbing's Mecca - why is there no dedicated climbing museum here in Yosemite? New routes and significant ascents (adaptive cilmber's, etc.) are happening all the time here - why is there no place in Yosemite for the recording and sharing of information about these significant moments in Yosemite Climbing history?

Remember, I'm the psyched local who has climbed El Cap over 100 times, and who has volunteered for over twenty years straight replacing bolts, helping maintain trails, and helping to create more modern guides to the climbs of Yosemite. I"m just throwing out suggestions of what it might take to get folks motivated to see something cool about / for climbers in Yosemite, arguably the place most revered for our sport. If it's hangboards, daycare and coffee, whatever it takes, it's still a lot better than having chemicals spread to maintain lawns so folks can play golf, and wilderness paved over so that folks can swim in a chlorinated pools.  

PS to everyone on there:  Climbers are tourists 

Erik Sloan wrote:

Guess I should have kept ready before I hit reply kendallt beat me to it. 

Erik Sloan wrote:

Remember, I'm the clueless local who has ignored the local consensus on bolting but continues acting like everyone loves me

fixed that for you

Grant Kiessling wrote:

+1 for a hiker trash center

With ellipticals to simulate hiking in Yosemite's backcountry 

This sounds like the people in the Wasatch who are like "let's link all the ski resorts so we can have a super sick mega-resort that draws even more people to clog up the mountains!!!"

Yosemite, like the Wasatch, is special and rad because of its history and its mere existence. There's literally nothing that we can do to places like that to make them "better". We can only add attractions and shit that draws even more tourists. Have you ever been in Yosemite and thought "damn. I really wish there were more people here!" If not, why the hell would you want to do anything that could draw more people? 

Like Teddy Roosevelt said: 

"In the Grand Canyon, Arizona (Yosemite) has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it."

One valley climber's 2 cents, fwiw: 

No to all of these ideas in the OP, and a general + definitive no to OP's repeated (and repeated, and repeated) attempts to establish himself as a person representing Yosemite climbers, their values, or their vision for climbing in Yosemite. 

Why does Valley climbing need promotion and exhibition? It just doesn't. People in the pursuit of some self-interest of their own may need that, but climbers don't. Yosemite itself sure doesn't - it needs less people, less building, less commercialization, less less less not more more more.

Remember, I'm the psyched local who has climbed El Cap over 100 times, and who has volunteered for over twenty years straight replacing bolts, helping maintain trails, and helping to create more modern guides to the climbs of Yosemite.

Even if I didn't know OP's history of retrobolting, the unabashed and frequent self-promotion combined with the inability to hear what others are saying would tip me off that this is not a person I want investing his energies on projects or a vision in my name.

Sirius wrote:

One valley climber's 2 cents, fwiw: 

No to all of these ideas in the OP, and a general + definitive no to OP's repeated (and repeated, and repeated) attempts to establish himself as a person representing Yosemite climbers, their values, or their vision for climbing in Yosemite. 

Why does Valley climbing need promotion and exhibition? It just doesn't. People in the pursuit of some self-interest of their own may need that, but climbers don't. Yosemite itself sure doesn't - it needs less people, less building, less commercialization, less less less not more more more.

Even if I didn't know OP's history of retrobolting, the unabashed and frequent self-promotion combined with the inability to hear what others are saying would tip me off that this is not a person I want investing his energies on projects or a vision in my name.

thanks for eloquently making the point I tried to make rudely

rafael wrote:

thanks for eloquently making the point I tried to make rudely

Don't worry.  Erik doesn't get it, no matter how you serve it up.

And let me guess, you're not into Yosemite history or there being any climbing museum or center that celebrates our sport....but you've seen Valley Uprising a dozen times man that shit is sick, lol.  

Tell me Erik, have you proposed your idea to the community over at Supertopo?  I'm sure they will have a lot of feedback for you.

Erik Sloan wrote:

An even bigger lol that there is a consensus on bolting in Yosemite - unless you mean everyone is power drilling behind your back and you're not noticing it, haha. 

Erik, just stop. 

To say that "everyone" is power drilling is as myopic as it comes. Clint's not power drilling. Gabel (wasn't) power drilling. Brandon's not power drilling (as far as I know). Vitaliy doesn't power drill in the Valley (I don't know and don't feel like asking about Kings). Bosque, Mucci, and I don't power drill. If Beyer drilled on his East Face of El Cap weirdness, no one saw him using a power drill.  Enough people putting up routes use a hand drill that its use is not some archaic throwback, it's the way it is. 

Just because there are those who have no problem power drilling despite wilderness regulations, does not mean that "everyone" is power drilling. If anything, you can say that everyone who is selfish and shortsighted is power drilling behind my back, but don't think we're not noticing. 

How about indoor skiing facility at Badger pass for those that don't want to deal with the pesky weather.

Here's a pro tip Sloan: Get Ken Yager to post and lets hear his ideas. You aren't helping.

Remember, I'm the psyched local who has climbed El Cap over 100 times, and who has volunteered for over twenty years straight replacing bolts, helping maintain trails, and helping to create more modern guides to the climbs of Yosemite. I"m just throwing out suggestions of what it might take to get folks motivated to see something cool about / for climbers in Yosemite, arguably the place most revered for our sport. 

Erik, I'm starting to think your ability to understand English is severely impaired.  No one who knows anything about your ethics is the least bit impresssed.  The overwhelming consensus on this thread and many others is that the climbing community at large doesn't want or value your "contributions" and would be just as happy if you disappeared into the woods "Chongo" style and just left Yosemite alone.  GO AWAY!

The discussion about bolting is for another thread, but yeah for sure there are still people hand drilling (vastly inferior bolts compared to those placed by a power drill, but who cares about safety ;).

I started this thread because I've been shocked over the years about how few of the newer climbers know why the YCA was started, and no one has heard anything about progress on a museum space, whether inside or outside the Valley. Tens of thousands of artifacts have been collected, and now with the amazing movies documenting many of the most significant climbs, seems like there could be something really cool done with that stuff. 

Of course it was tangential to say that the government is not intersted in celebrating climbing in Yosemite by creating a dedicated section of a museum or separate space, because it has golf courses, swimming pools, and other things to take care of, but I can say having lived in Yosemite since 2002 you never hear a government person say 'we have the money, it is just a matter of connecting all the dots'. 

If a cool history climbing center was not going to be in Yosemite, where would be a good place for it?

Woot!

Erik

Rockclimbyosemite.com - Yosemitebigwall.com