Escalante - Cabin Wall closed to climbing

Instant Pot Mexican Shredded Beef

Sarah Z wrote:

You may want to not be a dick…. “withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest.” I am protesting the obscene amount of water usage by private organizations through withdrawal of participation. I played golf ~ 3x weekly 10 years ago haven’t played golf in 6 years. 

So?  

There is a lot more you could easily do. 

Chad Miller wrote:

So?  

There is a lot more you could easily do. 

Who says I am not? 

Sarah Zplus wrote:

Who says I am not? 

Just a hunch that you’re not. 

Chad Miller wrote:

Just a hunch that you’re not. 

Interesting, glad you gleaned so much information about me. Would love to have a real life conversation about what I am or am not doing HMU. In other news- Cabin Wall and the Island remain closed for a variety of reasons. 

Chad Miller wrote:

Hey man you're really being a jerk here. Why don't you chill. 

Grug M wrote:

Hey man you're really being a jerk here. Why don't you chill. 

I’m just messing with the trolls.

Back on topic.

WCCC is still trying to  work out a solution that will allow climbing access to Cabin Wall.  Everyone please be respectful and don’t do anything that could jeopardize the work that WCCC is doing.  

Chad Miller wrote:

There is a lot more you could easily do. 

True of almost everyone about almost everything.
But when stated as a hunch about specific people one doesn't know, still comes off as arrogant, presumptuous, and rude.

I know who you are Sarah. I’ve met you and I have no doubt that your dedicated to protecting this area and trying to reinstate access for climbers.

Your comment about about quitting golf to save water came off as self righteous and shallow. I should of taken the high road and ignored it. I apologize.

We all could do more to conserve water and protect areas like Cabin Wall. One of the biggest things is limit the amount of travel we’re doing to get to theses places and reduce usage. 

Chad Miller wrote:

I know who you are Sarah. I’ve met you and I have no doubt that your dedicated to protecting this area and trying to reinstate access for climbers.

Your comment about about quitting golf to save water came off as self righteous and shallow. I should of taken the high road and ignored it. I apologize.

We all could do more to conserve water and protect areas like Cabin Wall. One of the biggest things is limit the amount of travel we’re doing to get to theses places and reduce usage. 

I read this as: don’t visit

Vanilla Drilla From Manila wrote:

I read this as: don’t visit

Sure.  Or consider how far you’ve traveling and the impact you’re having.  

If you do decide to visit then LNT and respect local ethics.

If harassing women on the internet and discouraging people from accessing public land are part of the "local ethic" then there is no reason anyone should respect it or the corrupt ranch that has closed Cabin Wall.

The BLM administers and manages Escalante Canyon. Information on the area and any regulations can be found on the site below.

https://www.blm.gov/programs/national-conservation-lands/colorado/dominguez-escalante-nca

Much of the canyon is managed by the BLM but there are also a handful of areas managed by the State Parks and Wildlife and even National Forest Service. I created a map to the canyon that highlights property based on who manages it, including private property. The file is too big to upload but you can view it as a free PDF from my website rock2rapid.com/climbing-guides/.  

I have no intention of defending the ranch or state parks and think that the transfer was shitty. However, I think calling the ranch corrupt is irresponsible. I believe the last thing we should be doing right now is pointing fingers and name calling, it gets everyone all ruffled up and on guard and makes it much harder to get to the other side of the conversation where progress can be made. I think it is fair to say that the ranch has done things to push climbers out, Cabin Wall being a prime example, but to say that they are corrupt is taking it a little too far. The way I look at it, the people that own the ranch don't live in the canyon so the people that are having issues with the climbers are the employees that are just trying to make a living and feed their families. Imagine being at work and a group of people, that have nothing to do with your job, come in and make your job harder on a regular basis. You're going to start telling your boss and your boss is going to see what they can do to eliminate the issue. The ranch took possession of the Cabin Wall in 2017 and did not close down access till recently. This tells me it is a direct result of bad interactions with climbers. I'm sure we have been blamed for things other user groups have done as well, but we do need to own up to what is ours and work to correct it.

Regardless of whether or not the deal was shady we still need to look in our own house before we point fingers at others. And anyone that thinks locals don’t contribute to the problem is naive. We need to take the concerns of the ranchers, BLM and Forest Service seriously and start to take steps to improve our image in the canyon. This is already being worked on, Rich Connors spent a day out in the canyon at the invite of the BLM to represent the WCCC and raise awareness. Kent Pease and the WCCC have worked together to make up cards to pass out to climbers that talk about the issues that have been brought to our attention. I don’t have a digital copy of the card but perhaps someone else could post it. Let’s look at these concerns and work to cut back on the bad interactions. Let’s be good stewards of the canyon and try to encourage others to as well. Support local organizations like the WCCC, and the historical society that are working to resolve the issue. If a legit law suit strikes up to fight this support it. But lets please stop the finger pointing and name calling, it makes the job harder and gets us nowhere.  

My personal opinion, all the secrecy and gatekeeping in that canyon helped contribute to the closing of Cabin Wall. There was a time when there was a benefit to keeping that canyon low key. If it had exploded at the same time as Indian Creek 30-40 years ago the political climate and land management policies were such that we probably would have lost a lot more access than we have. The canyon wasn’t ready to be mainstream, and it may not be still, but regardless it has been discovered and for better or worse it is getting popular and has been for many years. But times have also changed and land management policies have as well, we need to adapt to the new political climate and change the way we look at the canyon.

Land managers make decisions on how to manage based on known use. Because of low input from climbers, they haven’t been managing for our user group. In 2012 I sat down with the BLM as a representative of the WCCC to discuss their resource management plan for the Dominguez Escalante NCA and they included the rest of the Nine Mile Hill Area of Unaweep during the meeting. In the meeting the BLM rep told me that because of the documentation that was uploaded to MP by Nick Reecy and several other people, and the number of crag clean ups we had done over the years in that area, in the area they refer to as East Creek, climbers are considered the number one user group. Inversely, given how little documentation there was available for Escalante, climbers weren’t considered a user group at all and we were left completely off the list. This was during the time when I owned the old gym and I dug out Stewart Green’s book and I had a photo copied copy of the original desert rock. I had a monster collection of Rock and Ice and Climbing mags going back to the early 80s and I had my employees dig through and find every article written about Escalante. By showing them all of this written documentation they agreed to put us on the list as a user but like number 5 or 6 down the line.

Now, not being on the list doesn’t necessarily mean that we would lose access but what it does mean is if some user group on the list has an issue with our use, we lose and access gets shut down. If I remember right, auto touring and picnicking are the number one users on that list and they like to park in the same places we do.  Now that we are on the list when those parking areas get filled up, land managers will work to add more parking to accommodate or make other concessions to make it work for all user groups on the list. This is their 20 year plan that they tend to update every 30-40 years btw.

I think the State Parks and Wildlife would have done the swap even if we had a better reputation in the canyon and had been more open with our crags but it may have looked different. Maybe they would have cut out around the cliff or added an easement, maybe not. They flat out ignored us as a user group because they knew we didn’t have the strength to do anything about it. The WCCC found out the swap was happening because the local historical society told us just before it happened and it was too late for us to do anything. Maybe it could have been different, maybe it couldn’t. That’s conjecture at this point and it does nothing to help us. What I do know is that there is no climbing on state parks land anymore (as far as I know) and now we are dealing with the BLM and Forest Service. Those are federal agencies and are held to a different standard where they must get public input before they do things like land swaps or change regulations on lands that are being used. They hold open comment periods like the one that is currently open regarding permitting on the Gunnison River (if you’re also a boater please take a moment eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning…). 

The BLM wants to work with us to ensure access and to avoid conflict. When the question came up of Green Machine and its access being on public land, BLM Employees went out and hiked it to verify that it was on public land. This isn’t the same political climate that had the Park Service following Chongo around Yosemite, times have changed and maybe it’s time we change as well. 

Josh Fengel wrote:

Instant Pot Mexican Shredded Beef

Great recipe, thanks man!

Buck Rockwell wrote:

If harassing women on the internet and discouraging people from accessing public land are part of the "local ethic" then there is no reason anyone should respect it or the corrupt ranch that has closed Cabin Wall.

The BLM administers and manages Escalante Canyon. Information on the area and any regulations can be found on the site below.

https://www.blm.gov/programs/national-conservation-lands/colorado/dominguez-escalante-nca

Thanks for this, you inspired me to help you

Thanks Randall for your efforts and thoughtful discussion. I’ve posted a copy of the WCCC Information Card for Escalante (front and back) on the front page of this site for Escalante and added a short discussion in the Forum.

Thanks Randall and Kent for all your efforts. I'm sure it's not easy to work for climbing access in Western Colorado, however I think it's "irresponsible" to make statements suggesting that climber's make the ranch's job harder on a "regular basis". I fail to see how climbers have any impact on ranch operations. It is also counter productive to suggest that a ranch, that is clearly very proficient at getting government agencies to act against the public interest, is anything but corrupt. The extremely questionable land swap, implementing a school zone speed limit throughout miles of the canyon so that their cattle can illegally block the road (CSR 35-46-105), and new Open Range signs in narrow sections of the canyon for the same reason are obvious examples. People should get "all ruffled up" and take action to get back what was wrongly taken from them. The WCCC is great and people should donate, but that alone will probably not be enough to get Cabin Wall reopened. It's good for the WCCC to maintain relations with the ranch, but I would encourage people to post any ideas they have regarding how to put pressure on the government to fix this problem and to take on Little Dick Miller and his corporate, vanity ranch.

People should also know that this is not just about climbing. Little Dick's attempt's to discourage visitors to Escalante Canyon go back to at least 2017 when he objected to the canyon road being designated a Wildlife Watchable Area because "the designation will cause increased public safety and liability issues, due to increased vehicle traffic while encouraging distracted driving." ( blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files… , page 21) It's fairly obvious that the ranch wants discourage the public from visiting Escalante Canyon at the same time we pay to maintain the road and subsidize his ranch through grazing permits. It seems this corporation sees the public as it's enemy. Climbers are just the easiest targets.

Buck Rockwell wrote:

Thanks Randall and Kent for your efforts. I'm sure it's not easy to work for climbing access in Western Colorado, however I think it's "irresponsible" to make statements suggesting that climber's make the ranch's job harder on a "regular basis". I fail to see how climbers have any impact on ranch operations. It is also counter productive to suggest that a ranch, that is clearly very proficient at getting government agencies to act against the public interest, is anything but corrupt. The extremely questionable land swap, implementing a school zone speed limit throughout miles of the canyon so that their cattle can illegally block the road (CSR 35-46-105), and new Open Range signs in narrow sections of the canyon for the same reason are obvious examples. People should get "all ruffled up" and take action to get back what was wrongly taken from them. The WCCC is great and people should donate, but that alone will probably not be enough to get Cabin Wall reopened. It's good for the WCCC to maintain relations with the ranch, but I would encourage people to post any ideas they have regarding how to put pressure on the government to fix this problem and to take on Little Dick Miller and his corporate, vanity ranch.

People should also know that this is not just about climbing. Little Dick's attempt's to discourage visitors to Escalante Canyon go back to at least 2017 when he objected to the canyon road being designated a Wildlife Watchable Area because "the designation will cause increased public safety and liability issues, due to increased vehicle traffic while encouraging distracted driving." ( blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files… , page 21) It's fairly obvious that the ranch wants discourage the public from visiting Escalante Canyon at the same time we pay to maintain the road and subsidize his ranch through grazing permits. It seems this corporation sees the public as it's enemy. Climbers are just the easiest targets.

For the scrapbook ;-)

Thank you Kent, and thank you for everything you’ve done and have been doing to help advocate for the canyon. You’re experience and knowledge of the canyon have been invaluable in the efforts to keep climbing open. Please keep up the good work!

A lot of legitimate concerns have been brought up on both sides of the conversation but unfortunately a lot of disinformation has as well. I don’t believe I have the answers but my hope is to have an open conversation where we can cut through the BS and make our individual opinions based off of fact rather than rumor and conjecture.

I sat on the board for the WCCC for almost 10 years but I did step off in 2020 to pursue other things. Most notably, I recently took over as president of the Grand Valley Paddling Club and I’ve been focusing more energy volunteering for Colorado Discover Ability and developing more routes in Unaweep. I am not here to represent the WCCC or any organization, I am here as a private individual that would like to see a more reasonable conversation take place and maybe start to cut through some of the disinformation so that people have a better understanding of what’s going on for real in the canyon. But also, as the president of the paddle club, I do have a professional interest in keeping access to Escalante Creek open for the few nutballs that run it every spring, and conflict in the canyon effects all user groups.

I believe that the WCCC, that works very closely with and under the advice of the Access Fund, should be the only ones to approach any of the land managers including private property owners. They have built relationships in the canyon over many years and have the experience and the organization to back it up. My personal opinion, Jesse Zacher is the best person on the Western Slope for that job, and he’s there doing it, so let him do it.

To help clear up some disinformation I have created a map that I posted to my website as a free PDF download. It has some mistakes I’m sure but I plan to treat it like a living document that improves over time. The file is too big to upload to MP but you can find it here rock2rapid.com/climbing-guides

Fact (to the best of my understanding):

Escalante Canyon cuts through three counties (Delta, Montrose, and Mesa) and is managed by 3 government agencies along with a smattering of private property. The three agencies are the Colorado State Parks and Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and very briefly the National Forest Service (NFS).

Edit to add: The state still owns a few properties in the canyon, as well as down by the Gunnison River, and up on top surrounded by the Dominguez Canyon Wilderness Area. To my knowledge there is no longer established climbing on State property.

Edit again: While the State land is managed by the department of Parks and Wildlife it is managed more for wildlife than it is parks. Meaning it's there to preserve habitats not give us a place to play.

The portion managed by the BLM is in the Dominguez/Escalante National Conservation Area (NCA). An NCA is managed differently than other land the BLM manages and as part of the NCA a large portion north of Escalante is in the Dominguez Canyon Wilderness Area and is managed even more different. The wilderness area stops at the top of the canyon and does not come down into the canyon but if you hike the trails that head up and north you will be in the wilderness area. For the BLM’s definitions head to blm.gov/programs/national-c… for NCA and blm.gov/programs/national-c… for wilderness.

The canyon leads up to the Uncompahgre National Forest and as far as I know, no climbing has been developed on forest service property but they are there and worth mentioning.

My understanding of the land swap:

The state owned the property encompassing the Cabin Wall and the name’s sake Captain Smith Cabin. In the last year or so the parks and wildlife merged but at the time of the swap the property was managed by the wildlife division. The ranch that owns much of the private property in the canyon, and has since homestead days, owned property that had a marshland or some sort of wildlife habitat that the state wanted to protect, as is their primary mission. They did the swap without public input and it was an even swap that’s why the info on the GIS says they paid nothing for it. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Opinions: 

I personally am of the opinion that we should be posting and shearing the routes that are established in Escalante but I understand that many others don’t feel this way. I have heard many arguments on both sides over the years and I’ve already typed more than most will read so I will address my opinion as a rebuttal to two and welcome adult debate on the topic. I’m not trying to close out other arguments, please bring them up if you have any.

Escalante doesn’t have the infrastructure: 

Yup, absolutely correct. There is not enough infrastructure or even cliff line to handle a large population of people coming to the canyon. But several crags around the country have had the same issue and they have adapted and have come up with solutions and continue to do so as the climbing population grows. We don’t need to write the book because the book is being written all over the country in places like Indian Creek, Rifle, Joe’s Valley, Bishop, Joshua Tree, Homestead, and too many more to list. Each of these areas had a time when they had no infrastructure but local advocates like the WCCC helped to shape the creation of it. I started climbing in Bishop in the early 2000’s and the exact same thing was said there back then, I went there a couple of years ago and while they still have issues, it is mostly settled out and climbing access has been preserved. It looks different than it did back in the day, but it is preserved. The WCCC is working towards this here, if you think this is a real issue maybe send them an email and ask how you can help.

The reality is that Escalante doesn’t have that much cliff line, it doesn’t house a hidden Indian Creek. If you added up all of the routes in the canyon, on public land, it adds up to maybe the equivalent of Donnelly Wall, maybe. The climbing is good but there’s just not that much of it. The overcrowding issue that occurs currently is because all the people that go there only know about 3 cliffs, Cabin Wall being one of them, and opening up more cliffs will spread those people out more making it less congested. It must have been amazing to go there back in the day when you were one of 5 people in the canyon but it must have also been amazing to be a Ute native living in the canyon before Europeans showed up. Hiding the cliffs won’t stop the people from coming anymore, I’m sorry and to be honest a little jealous that I missed it.

All “Local” developers are against sharing information on routes in the canyon: 

I put up my first crag in Unaweep Canyon 10 years ago and have established several crags in that canyon with friends since. I personally know a lot of the local developers, though there are several I do not know. I’m not going to speak for anyone else but I don’t think the number of local developers are against it as you think. I would be interested in getting in touch with other local developers, if for no other reason than I try and ask around and see if anyone else has ever been to a new cliff line that I find, as a courtesy. If you develop locally, please shoot me a DM so we can chat.

If I’ve been told correctly, Chuck and most of the other old school Escalante developers weren’t even locals. My understanding is they were living the dirtbag life and traveling like I do now. I’m sure there was some locals involved too but I honestly don’t know, because the history was never recorded. I’m constantly being asked to respect a history I have no way of knowing anything about. I would love to hear or read the history, if someone wrote a book, I would buy it in a second because I love to hear the stories of the past. As I work on a Unaweep guidebook I’m going to be reaching out to as many developers as I can to get as many of the stories recorded as I can before it’s too late and that history is lost forever.

I’d like to encourage open debate and ask that people that disagree with anything I’ve said here or anywhere please chime in so we can try to understand each other. I’m not going to try and change your mind and I hope you’ll understand if I don’t change mine but I think with a little more understanding we can start to approach something that works for everyone. I will say that I personally wont bother to read anything that equates to the emotional maturity of calling someone a “stupid caca duty head” and I really hope that we can discuss as mature adults but it is Mouthoff Project so….  If you’d rather not discuss publicly, please feel free to DM me and I would be happy to discuss in private. We’re not going to fix the world but lets try and cut out the disinformation on both sides and try to come to an understanding.

Buck Rockwell wrote:

Thanks Randall and Kent for all your efforts. I'm sure it's not easy to work for climbing access in Western Colorado, however I think it's "irresponsible" to make statements suggesting that climber's make the ranch's job harder on a "regular basis". I fail to see how climbers have any impact on ranch operations. It is also counter productive to suggest that a ranch, that is clearly very proficient at getting government agencies to act against the public interest, is anything but corrupt. The extremely questionable land swap, implementing a school zone speed limit throughout miles of the canyon so that their cattle can illegally block the road (CSR 35-46-105), and new Open Range signs in narrow sections of the canyon for the same reason are obvious examples. People should get "all ruffled up" and take action to get back what was wrongly taken from them. The WCCC is great and people should donate, but that alone will probably not be enough to get Cabin Wall reopened. It's good for the WCCC to maintain relations with the ranch, but I would encourage people to post any ideas they have regarding how to put pressure on the government to fix this problem and to take on Little Dick Miller and his corporate, vanity ranch.

People should also know that this is not just about climbing. Little Dick's attempt's to discourage visitors to Escalante Canyon go back to at least 2017 when he objected to the canyon road being designated a Wildlife Watchable Area because "the designation will cause increased public safety and liability issues, due to increased vehicle traffic while encouraging distracted driving." ( blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files… , page 21) It's fairly obvious that the ranch wants discourage the public from visiting Escalante Canyon at the same time we pay to maintain the road and subsidize his ranch through grazing permits. It seems this corporation sees the public as it's enemy. Climbers are just the easiest targets.

I think you and I are both working to accomplish a lot of the same goals but going about it in different ways. I respect your opinions and respectfully disagree when I do. I'm all for opening up areas and encouraging people to visit the canyon I just think we should be encouraging people to be good stewards. I disagree with your assessment of the swap and the ranches role in the canyon, but respect your right to feel that way.

Edit to add: I don't think we will ever get access to Cabin Wall back by pissing off the property owner. For now I think we should be focusing on managing the crags on public lands and revisiting Cabin Wall in a few years when things calm down and our collective reputation in the canyon is better.