Climbing at Paradise forks

Mike wrote:

Generally speaking, yes it is. It's not always as comfortable of a stance as sitting on the rim with your feet dangling over the edge, but it's OK enough, and you can help reduce the erosion in the area. There are probably exceptions, but this is mostly the case.

Two of are will mostly do the leading with the other two following. We will probably swap routes so setting up TR is going to be necessary for our two parties. I know we will most likely sling a with a long static line, but to avoid the rope from swinging/moving and causing more erosion, I plan to leave a cam up top to weigh the TR rope and have the static line as a back up (something that was suggested on the paradise fork page). Is that still the common practice done here?

That is commonly done and a great practice at the Forks.  A very easy way to not weight trees.  Quick and easy, no bolts needed.  Thanks for checking and being careful!  Much appreciated.

Bolts on the rim at the Forks/Volunteer/Overlook is Flagstaff's elephant in the room.

(some) old skool flag clymberz be like

aaaaand a little bit of this...

...finish it off with a butt-load of this.

These two I used with a directional bolt to climb Drop The Hammer, awesome route by Trevor Bowman.

Anything beyond the rim of the canyon is Designated Wilderness area (Sycamore Canyon Wilderness), which means anything motorized is banned. Please respect those rules.

Ivan Cross wrote: Anything beyond the rim of the canyon is Designated Wilderness area (Sycamore Canyon Wilderness), which means anything motorized is banned. Please respect those rules.

Ivan, please respect these rules also.

(U.S. Forest Service Regulations)

This thread is weird. Are you guys making snarky, underhanded remarks to each other? I can't even tell. I think you all need to go to that meeting and do shots together or something.

Flagstaff is a pretty silly place.

You mean why do I think it's silly? I don't know, it's just a feeling I have living here the past few years. People seem flakier and less effective at getting shit done than in most places I've lived. Obviously it's hard to judge a whole city from the small number of people I interact with regularly, so I'm being at least partially facetious, but this debate seems a microcosm of the feeling I have. Like I get the impression it's been going round and round for years. (And also that it's possible many of the players in Flag climbing hold grudges against each other for slights real or imagined, although obviously I could be wrong here too.) And really that's fine; I don't have much of a horse in the race, and I'm planning on moving out of Flagstaff in a few months, but I don't think "silly" is too much of a stretch to describe it.

Short Fall Sean wrote: You mean why do I think it's silly? I don't know, it's just a feeling I have living here the past few years. People seem flakier and less effective at getting shit done than in most places I've lived. Obviously it's hard to judge a whole city from the small number of people I interact with regularly, so I'm being at least partially facetious, but this debate seems a microcosm of the feeling I have. Like I get the impression it's been going round and round for years. (And also that it's possible many of the players in Flag climbing hold grudges against each other for slights real or imagined, although obviously I could be wrong here too.) And really that's fine; I don't have much of a horse in the race, and I'm planning on moving out of Flagstaff in a few months, but I don't think "silly" is too much of a stretch to describe it.

Flag climbing is a weird world... Everyone seems to want to keep it a secret and make all climbing as hard as possible to get info to. Just what I have seen. TBF most Flag climbing is choss anyways, the Forks are cool but a lot of hassle. If I want to climb choss I will just go climb stuff in the canyon. If I want to be scared to death I will go climb in the Supes. If I want secret awesome climbing go climb in Ancha. Avoid Flag.

Haha, yeah I mostly agree with you, John. I realized a while back that if a friend were roadtripping in the southwest there wasn't a single Flagstaff crag that I would tell them they had to come check out. (Ok, maaaybe the Winslow Wall if they also happened to be big Eagles fans.) If you put it all together, it makes for a super solid quantity of local climbing, but nothing is destination level. In a way, that's cool though, especially when you combine it with the secretive nature you mention - most places are rarely crowded.

Short Fall Sean wrote: You mean why do I think it's silly? I don't know, it's just a feeling I have living here the past few years. People seem flakier and less effective at getting shit done than in most places I've lived. Obviously it's hard to judge a whole city from the small number of people I interact with regularly, so I'm being at least partially facetious, but this debate seems a microcosm of the feeling I have. Like I get the impression it's been going round and round for years. (And also that it's possible many of the players in Flag climbing hold grudges against each other for slights real or imagined, although obviously I could be wrong here too.) And really that's fine; I don't have much of a horse in the race, and I'm planning on moving out of Flagstaff in a few months, but I don't think "silly" is too much of a stretch to describe it.

Welcome to the show, Sean.

Short Fall Sean wrote:but nothing is destination level.

But isn't the Waterfall world class?!

Flags best crag is in Leupp.

Richard Fernandez wrote: Flags best crag is in Leupp.

I have no idea if this was your intention, so I'm not trying to pick on you, but this could be taken as you implying that I would have a better opinion of Flag climbing if I was cool enough to know about the "secret" Leupp* crag, but then not helping me out by offering to show me said crag and instead just alluding to it in a mysterious way, which is all pretty hilarious given the last several posts.  :)

*And unless there's meta levels of coolness going on, I have climbed at Diablo Canyon**, and it's great, but I still don't think I'd call it destination.

**Am I allowed to say these words online or is someone going to tie me to the train tracks now?

No worrez Sean. I'm glad you got to go to Diablo. For 11 years I've been very, very vocal about it and invited everyone. I don't subscribe to the Rouge is Vogue and Keep it Secret mantra. You're correct to say it's not a destination but it may someday be. Aside from that, Oct 16th at 7pm will be the NACC meeting. Lots of information will be shared. It would be nice to meet you there.

Consider the fact that at this precise moment, dozens of influential and prominent Flag climbers and developers are reading this thread and will not offer any input. It's hard to progress and share ideas around here. Hopefully that'll change. 

I climbed at the Forks for three years from 2010-2013 and definitely saw the impact of setting TR's from trees. The million dollar question with respect to putting bolts in is how crowded do you want the place to be?

My first home crag never got bolted in spite of erosion issues and maintained a traditional ethic with minimal bolting. As a result, trees died, erosion happened, and the TR setups became real inconvenient leading to less traffic at the crag.

My newer home crag had a pine beetle infestation followed by a fire that made the top anchor situation bleak. However this crag got all new bolted anchors up top and as a result the crowds come in droves where one leader will be putting up ropes for a half dozen new climbers to bang around on.

I loved climbing the Forks while I was there and for one would hate to see it turned into another crowded, chalked-up, litter-ridden suburban crag. Its location seems too pristine to support that, but ultimately its up to the Flag locals as to what the future bolting ethic will be.

Short Fall Sean wrote: You mean why do I think it's silly? I don't know, it's just a feeling I have living here the past few years. People seem flakier and less effective at getting shit done than in most places I've lived. Obviously it's hard to judge a whole city from the small number of people I interact with regularly, so I'm being at least partially facetious, but this debate seems a microcosm of the feeling I have. Like I get the impression it's been going round and round for years. (And also that it's possible many of the players in Flag climbing hold grudges against each other for slights real or imagined, although obviously I could be wrong here too.) And really that's fine; I don't have much of a horse in the race, and I'm planning on moving out of Flagstaff in a few months, but I don't think "silly" is too much of a stretch to describe it.

This thread sure makes Flag seem like a shit-show but 95% of local climbers are great people and get along very well.  

I realized a while back that if a friend were roadtripping in the southwest there wasn't a single Flagstaff crag that I would tell them they had to come check out.

Have you spent much time at the Waterfall?  Many folks including some pro-climbers that have passed through consider it to be a world-class crag.  Also, Sedona is not for everyone (which I totally understand) but have you climbed some of the new school long routes in Sedona?  They would easily get 4 stars in Red Rocks.  Would love to hear your thoughts on these two places.