NRG Southside Meadow River Crags

Hey guys, this past weekend some climbers received warning tickets for parking at the standard parking areas for Area 51 and the Other Place. Right now the word is that the private owners of the rail trail and crags do not want anyone out there, no exceptions. This is not a case of climbers behaving badly, but over this past spring there have been several ATV accidents, including one fatality. That's the main reason, but to be clear, there is NO climbing at Area 51, Other Place, or other southside areas. If you go out there, be prepared to meet DNR officials who are spreading the word and turning folks back. We don't know how long this closure if going to be for; obviously access to this area has been finicky for years, but it's looking pretty bad right now.

This really sucks, and in my opinion it's a result of the huge influx of people coming into the outdoors that's happened post Covid. It's no one individual's fault, but we should probably get used to more things like this happening. 

Any word the NRAC is looking at the access issue with this area?

NRAC can’t do much. All but one crag of the meadow is on private property. This has been an ongoing issue for many years. 

Terrible news, it is my favorite area.  What a huge loss. Here's to hoping NRAC can work out something with the landowners. (Also, donate to NRAC!! Things like this proves how important they are!!)

One more post - Meadow River Gorge, WV climbing closure.

Post links to the official release here - https://www.newriverclimbing.net/blog/access-alert-meadow-river-south-side 

For the time being, please do not climb at any of the Meadow River South Side crags downstream of Glade Creek. And please do not drive on the rail grade at all, regardless of location. You can still access the rail trail upstream of Glade Creek, but NOT by motorized vehicle.

Access to the South Side of the Meadow River has been tenuous at best for some time. For years now, climbers have occasionally faced locked gates and adamant land managers, but access has always opened back up, often for long periods of uninterrupted time. Nevertheless, access has never been entirely legal; regulations have only been unenforced. Now, land owners, the NPS and WVDNR have made decisions to shut down access due to the irresponsible actions of a small number of ATV riders. To be clear, this is not just a prohibition on driving the rail trail. The South Side of the Meadow downstream of Glade Creek is closed to all recreation. We recognize that the vast majority of off-roaders on the rail trail have been responsible resource users. This is a case of a few bad actors tipping a formerly balanced scale. We applaud efforts to shut down the erratic, occasionally violent, behavior of a few irresponsible people—but we want to draw a distinction between them and the rest of us.

For more than a year, NRAC and the Access Fund have been engaged in dialogue with the owners and managers of the land on which Glade Creek and many of the South Side crags lie. We were pretty optimistic about the future of access there, but we are unsure what that looks like right now. Our hope is to eventually regain legal access to these cliffs via Propps Ridge Rd. and the Glade Creek rail trail. We hope to also secure land near the bottom of the trail for a parking area, but we are doubtful that it will ever again be acceptable to drive on the riverside rail trail.

Discussions like those underway between climbers and land managers tend to be long and delicate. Adding further confusion to the situation is the involvement of multiple agencies. Please be patient while we try to work this out. We’ll try to keep you updated on the regular.

We are all stewards of land once explored and occupied by Moneton and Tutelo tribes, as well as many others now long lost to history. Respect for them must be present in everything we do.

Chris Whisenhuntwrote:

NRAC can’t do much. All but one crag of the meadow is on private property. This has been an ongoing issue for many years. 

It's worth mentioning that when we talk about this "private property," we're not really talking about individual landowners. The two property owners in this case are huge trusts/LLC's who tend only to communicate through attorneys, and who really have no desire or motivation to work with LCO's or any other specific user group. This is not some guy sitting on his porch who can be plied with a Virginia ham and a form letter from the Access Fund. It's been frustrating to hear from some folks who think that NRAC has some kind of magic bullet to resolve this issue.

Just a brief update from the NRAC BoD: This closure has NOTHING to do with climbers, and everything to do with ATVs. There's been trash, destroyed roadblocks, and a few physically violent confrontations between ATVers and landowners in the area. Much of this has occurred on other sections of the southside road that climbers never go to.

 I know that climbers love to self-police each other, address bad behavior, and be vigilant in preserving access through responsible land use. Not gonna lie, it feels good to call out folks for littering, parking poorly/illegally, or sneaking onto closed crags and I've done plenty of that. But at this point I've seen a lot of climbers taking potshots at each other and at NRAC, trying to throw blame for this tragic closure on the Meadow, and it's completely misdirected. As important as we like to think we are, this had nothing to do with climbers' behavior. And if you want to get all sanctimonious after the fact of this closure, you'll only have a leg to stand on if you have never, ever, climbed or drove across the private property of the Meadow River; otherwise you've been "breaking the law" and "threatening access" too by your own definition.

But to state the obvious, at this point it WILL threaten possibilities of future access if climbers continue to try sneaking onto these closed crags. This is a great opportunity for our community to continue to show that we're the responsible party here, rather than criticizing each other.