Cavers lose minds over photos of Chris Sharma on stalagmites

Filed under useless "controversy." I'm so glad a climber with clean hands and shoes is getting grief for ruining cave formations. 

​Muh caves!​

I'm glad Prana admitted the mistake and realized the issue. It doesn't take much to destroy and irreparably harm these environments. The last thing we need is social media elements encouraging it.

Dean Potter lost his Patagonia check after climbing Utah's delicate arch back in what 05/06?! In this case Prana is proud of Sharma's complete disregard for another country's natural wonders?! Man have times changed. Spain should ban Sharma's visa permanently to set an example! Shame on Prana! Dispicable behaviour by someone who some might look up to in the professional climbing community.    

Ryan Marsters wrote: I'm glad Prana admitted the mistake and realized the issue. It doesn't take much to destroy and irreparably harm these environments. The last thing we need is social media elements encouraging it.

Prana only admited it was a mistake to take the picture! Not that Sharma climbed the formation. Big difference

LNT or Instaspray, who you got?

Tim Stich wrote: Filed under useless "controversy." I'm so glad a climber with clean hands and shoes is getting grief for ruining cave formations.

Muh caves!

How much damage could he really do in flip flops?

Marcelo wrote:

Prana only admited it was a mistake to take the picture! Not that Sharma climbed the formation. Big difference

They said the photo shoot was a mistake. That includes posing for the picture.

Yeah, that photo shoot was definitely a terrible idea. They must have had an entire group who knew absolutely nothing about caving. Touching formations is pretty much the biggest sin a caver can commit.

Go where I want, do what I want. Pretty much the mind set of lots of climbers today,been that way for a long time, pretty much why areas get closed.

On the FB caver page someone even suggested extorting Prana for some cash towards cave conservation. This really is the Age of I'm Offended.

You should see the blasting that goes into making walkways in a show cave. You should see just how dirty cave exploration is. The whole don't touch thing comes from show caves, where finger grease discolors formations, but lint actually and dust are what need the most cleaning. These hysterics over Sharma are embarrassing, frankly. Get over it.

Marcelo wrote: Dean Potter lost his Patagonia check after climbing Utah's delicate arch back in what 05/06?! In this case Prana is proud of Sharma's complete disregard for another country's natural wonders?! Man have times changed. Spain should ban Sharma's visa permanently to set an example! Shame on Prana! Dispicable behaviour by someone who some might look up to in the professional climbing community.    

A. Patagonia has a lot more backbone than Prana...didn't they sell out to J. Crew or some nonsense? 

B. Sharma has to be a Spanish citizen by now, he is married to a Native and is opening a second Spanish gym...I feel like that'd be hard to accomplish on a visa, no?

Cave man

Marcelo wrote: Dean Potter lost his Patagonia check after climbing Utah's delicate arch back in what 05/06?! In this case Prana is proud of Sharma's complete disregard for another country's natural wonders?! Man have times changed. Spain should ban Sharma's visa permanently to set an example! Shame on Prana! Dispicable behaviour by someone who some might look up to in the professional climbing community.    

Different situation, imo. Patagonia did not commission Dean Potter to go out and climb Delicate Arch, not did it hire the photographer for the shoot. 

Prana admits that it hired the photographer to do this photo shoot. In that case, it is entirely possible that Sharma didn’t know whether this specific cave was a no-touch place, or whether he was taken to a “take your scrambling photos here” spot. 

It is an unfortunate photo, and probably involved multiple clueless people contributing to this PR debacle. But unless you find evidence that it was Sharma who told the photographer, “let’s go here, so I can boulder V0- in flip flops for a catalog photo, Prana’s been bugging me to give them more photos.” I don’t think Sharma should be the primary target for blaming. 

As unnecessarily incendiary as this post title is... I'll bite.

We aren't cavers, we are climbers. If cavers think that what he did was wrong or against the code of cavers... it probably is. Do you know how many inane and weird "rules" climbers have that we would legitimately be upset about if they were broken, especially by an outside group of non-climbers? When you're treading on someone else's terrain of expertise if you will, you don't get to tell them what they have the right to be upset about.

I also wouldn't say that the cavers are "pissed," they are rightfully disagreeing and are raising awareness to an issue they care about, there is nothing trivial or dumb about that. You can disagree but they are well within their rights to oppose the shoot and the message it sends and to confront the people and company involved. You're right it's a non-controversy because it's just a clear case of someone made a mistake, someone called them out, and the party who made the mistake should and did apologize and make it right. Case closed.

TL:DR: Cavers calmly raised opposition to something us climbers would, in a parallel situation, raise just as much of a stink over. All in all, a well handled situation.

Sharma gets a pass. It's not even that good of a pic!

Lena chita wrote: 

Sharma didn’t know whether this specific cave was a no-touch place

Any child that's ever done a guided tour of a cave has learned that every cave is no-touch place.

It is an unfortunate photo, and probably involved multiple clueless people contributing to this PR debacle. But unless you find evidence that it was Sharma who told the photographer, “let’s go here, so I can boulder V0- in flip flops for a catalog photo, Prana’s been bugging me to give them more photos.” I don’t think Sharma should be the primary target for blaming. 

Lol...he's the one that did it but it wasn't his idea....

Yeah... climbing on cave formations should never happen.  The cavers are totally right and the photo goes against LNT in caves.  Prana went too far and makes me wonder if they care about minimizing environmental impact while recreating.  At the very least, if they weren't away of the photoshoot details the photo should have never been printed.  

As a caver and a climber, caving ethics are as much of a cluster as climbing ethics. I'll never understand how it's ok to engage in "microshaving" (blasting rock inside of caves to gain access to new passage), yet climbing on an inactive formation is enough to get people all riled up. The algae and moss on that formation are doing more damage than sharma is. Most cavers I know think this outcry is absolute BS; caving, especially project caving, is inherently LNT.

Sloppy Second wrote:

Any child that's ever done a guided tour of a cave has learned that every cave is no-touch place.

Maybe he’s never been on a guided cave tour. Or maybe he was in a tour where they led you to a SPECIAL one rock that you were allowed to touch, on your tour (I’ve seen multiple commercial guides caves where this is the case—they tell you that you shouldn’t touch stalactites, as a general rule,  but here is one exception, you can touch this rock. )
And so maybe he assumed that if he was taken here for a photo shoot some authorities have cleared it. 

Lol...he's the one that did it but it wasn't his idea....

I see that you’ve never had a photo taken professionally, where it is the photographer who calls the shots. 

There are definitely action photography where the photographer gets whatever shots he can, while staying out of the way of the climber (think Free Solo). But there are a lot more staged photos, with muktiple retakes, where the camera guy calls the location, and all the details.

Not climbing related, but I get photos taken fairly regularly for various university press releases, promotional videos, Etc. Here how it goes:

Excuse me miss, can you stand over there? Hold something in your hands please, like you are studying it. Maybe an X-ray film? Look up! Wait, can we move this out of the way, and put some beakers in the background? Do you have something colorful? Blue would go nicely here? Any blue beakers? Oh, and can you put it higher up?

(Sorry, I can’t, there are rules about liquids stored above eye level) 
That’s ok, maybe you can sit down instead... we’ll take some standing photos, and then sitting. Is that a microscope? Can we move it here? It would look better over here?( sorry, can’t move the microscope)Oh... well, maybe we will put the beakers here? I need something red! Can you guys find something red in here?

Ok, there, good. Now, turn more this way, please? Tuck your hair behind the ear on the left... can you tug your shirt down a bit? The collar needs straightening. Is it ok if my assistant fixes it? Yes, don’t move please! That’s it! Now, rotate just a bit to the right. Look at my left ear. Yes, one more? Can someone fix the lab coat, I can’t quite see the name tag. Yeah, let’s fix the hair a bit, looks like you have a loose strand sticking up. Now, look at the microscope. No, turn it off, the light is making a bright spot. Can we raise the chair a little bit? 

I can assure you, none of that is my idea. Even though I’m the one in the photo

Edited to add: I have no idea what he does or doesn’t know about the caves. I was just responding to the post that he should be fired by Prana. 

This is a pretty mild case of Prana fucked up (Chris was involved, but hardly an instigator), Prana got called out, Prana apologized and promised to do better. Maybe their doing better will include educating Chris Sharma about caving.  :)

Sloppy Second wrote:

Any child that's ever done a guided tour of a cave has learned that every cave is no-touch place.

Calling BS on that.