Bolts are installations?

J R wrote:

Just throwing an idea out there (Not sure if it’s been discussed) Removable bolts can be a compromise for future wilderness climbs where active or passive pro are inadequate. This would make bolts, by definition, not installations. This would also make an onsight attempts really hard. I don’t think it would make a difference though because most hard sport route climbers have pre-placed draws . A pre placed removable bolt would be an easy adjustment to live with, even if it IS an inconvenience. 

You sort of have to question  why removable bolts have never caught on in 30 years.

Marc801 C wrote:

You sort of have to question  why removable bolts have never caught on in 30 years.

Because it’s more convenient to install a permanent bolt, get an FA and then forget about it. And I’m merely brainstorming a means to satisfy the looming access issues we face. 

V-threads

Hand drilled

Should slow down development for future generations.

Ackley The Improved wrote:

V-threads

Hand drilled

Should slow down development for future generations.

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/121749716/drilled-rock-threads

I use RBs all the time when putting up new routes.  They are great, but the holes are virtually impossible to see from below, and would be extremely hard to find during an onsight lead. I think they would have limited useful application, such as for the first few clips near a hiking trail.

RBs dont help the problem with anchor bolts either

Gunkswest wrote:

I live at Joshua Tree and have climbed here since the early 1980s. I was involved with:

- the 1992 Joshua Tree General Management Plan (which proposed having climbers register at the West Entrance before each individual climb and proposed making the road through the Lost Horse Valley a one-way loop [both of these ill-conceived plans were ultimately defeated by climbers]).

- the 1993 Joshua Tree Climbing Management Plan (which placed a prohibition on new fixed anchors in JT wilderness and established a non-wilderness area of the park where fixed anchors were allowed [the fixed anchor zone is a small portion of the entire park and some bolts have already been removed from areas outside this zone]).

- the 2000 Joshua Tree Backcountry Management Plan (which speculated that fixed anchors might be installations under the Wilderness Act).

The posts up forum contain some conjecture and misinformation. It's really important that you spend some time understanding this situation. It is complicated and nuanced but has nationwide ramifications as CD correctly surmised. Why do I think that? Because of statements made by the Joshua Tree superintendent on April 20, 2021 (see below).

1) During the April 20, 2021 virtual public meeting, Joshua Tree Superintendent David Smith answered the following question:

Question: "Is the CMP eventual outcome going to have effects on National Park's policy around climbing nationwide?"

Answer: "Yeah. We are the first park that has really been approaching this issue since the policy documents came out regarding bolting in wilderness. So this plan does have the potential to have precedent nationwide for other parks. I have been working with probably a dozen different national parks that have climbing issues over the last three or four years and they are really looking for someone to stand up to really be able to really face this issue. So, it does have the potential to have a nationwide effect." 

See April 20, 2021 meeting video at 1:42:12

Virtual Public Meeting video 2021

2) The park and park planners have made a number of notable shifts based upon questioning by the Access Fund. Here are three examples:

A) In late February 2022, the park posted responses to questions asked during the February 8, 2022 virtual meeting. Question number 13 and the park's response are below:

Question 13: "Since the lion's share of climbs in Yosemite are in wilderness areas, how do these decisions affect those climbs and other climbing areas at large?" 

Written Park Response: "This climbing plan will have no effect on the management of bolted routes at Yosemite or any other park managed by the National Park Service. It is limited to lands managed by Joshua Tree National Park. Park managers rely on laws, regulations and policies to help manage their particular park sites." (emphasis added by bold)

NOTE HOW THIS DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS WHAT THE SUPERINTENDENT STATED IN APRIL 2021 - THAT THE PLAN WILL LIKELY HAVE A NATIONWIDE EFFECT AND THAT HE HAD BEEN DISCUSSING THIS WHOLE ISSUE WITH A DOZEN OTHER PARKS. 

B) The park originally called this document a Climbing Management Plan. They wanted to include slacklines, highlines and Tyrolean traverses. The Access Fund informed the park that slacklines and highlines were not climbing and as such, should be addressed in a separate plan. The park subsequently changed the name of the plan to Rock Based Recreation and is still including slacklines and highlines.

C) Through the last two comment periods, the park has received significant push back about its belief that fixed anchors are installations under the Wilderness Act. Recently, when pressed on this, the Joshua Tree superintendent stated that bolts were abandoned property and thus, he could have park staff remove every bolt in the park today. He contrasted that draconian action with the "reasonableness" of calling bolts installations and being able to keep some amount of them. 

THINK ABOUT A-C. ARE THESE STATEMENTS/ACTIONS CONSISTENT AND DO YOU AGREE WITH THEM?

3) The Access Fund held a webinar last week (March 9, 2022) specifically about fixed anchors in JT wilderness. You can view the video here:

AF anchors in wilderness webinar

It's really important that all climbers who utilize federal lands throughout America do some research to understand this complicated issue.

Everyone should read this, your voice can make a difference.

https://eveningsends.com/let-there-be-bolts-in-climbing/

Cole D wrote:

https://eveningsends.com/let-there-be-bolts-in-climbing/

Bish contends "Today, to call something a “sport climb” or to call a person a “trad climber” is just an empirical observation devoid of appraisal, like saying El Capitan is tall. There’s just rock climbing. There are just routes." 

He misses the point entirely, it's not the routes themselves that make the difference, it's the people. "Trad" climbers are different from "sport" climbers, some "trad" climbers even climb alot of sport and vice versa. The difference is the way trad climbers approach climbing and the impact their actions have on the land. I'm sure there are sport climbers who are great stewards as well, I'm just speaking in generalities because that's the way the NPS has to approach the world.

Really it's not fair to take these monikers and attach them to specific groups of people but I can't think of a better way to delineate between the two, I'm open to suggestions. I'm sure there are dirt bikers or hikers who recreate responsibly (whatever that means exactly) and those who don't. What are they called? 

If sport bolting is eliminated in JT and elsewhere there will be less climbers, less people will join up, and maybe many would just stick to the gym. I think that's what the NPS wants, less people, or at least to put a check on the flow. It's not a pretty job but someone has to do it.

Tradiban wrote:

If sport bolting is eliminated in JT and elsewhere there will be less climbers, less people will join up, and maybe many would just stick to the gym. I think that's what the NPS wants, less people, or at least to put a check on the flow. It's not a pretty job but someone has to do it.

dude you missed the point entirely! it’s not the sport climbers or the trad climbers or even boulderers who have caused this, it’s the speed climbers!

J R wrote:

dude you missed the point entirely! it’s not the sport climbers or the trad climbers or even boulderers who have caused this, it’s the speed climbers!

Speed climbing is 99% indoors so no problem there but I think Hans' et al antics on The Nose attracted way too much normie attention to the sport and indirectly birthed an access problem.

Tradiban wrote:

Speed climbing is 99% indoors so no problem there but I think Hans' et al antics on The Nose attracted way too much normie attention to the sport and indirectly birthed an access problem.

#Sarcasm

Cole D wrote:
Bolts being singled out for “impact” is hilarious. 

I don't think it is the bolt itself.  It's the impact created after the bolts go in.  

Go after the power drills. $5k fine for possession of a power drill in a designated wilderness, $10k per hole if you get caught using it.

Greg D wrote:

I don't think it is the bolt itself.  It's the impact created after the bolts go in.  

If THAT key point can be separated from the discussion, we may be onto something. Singling out sport climbing doesn’t make any sense, and that language puts lots of high quality classic and historic climbing, nationwide, in question. Climbers and climber advocacy groups are much better positioned to know what’s a gym/grid bolted squeeze job, and what’s a conservatively bolted sport climb, and all the grey and nuance in that discussion.

if it’s about crowding FROM bolting after bolted routes are developed, let’s have an honest debate about that, and talk about how to manage that.

Just saying bolts = more impact, or no bolts = less climbers is cuckoo bananas to me. It’s not preserving the way our user group interacts with the wilderness. 

this plan seems to just be giving federal land managers a template to remove or ban bolting whenever they see fit.  A MRA / permitting seems fine (although certainly can be abused) but if climbers or climbers advocacy groups have nothing to do with that process, then it’s potential for abuse is enormous. 

This is where we are headed if we aren’t careful

https://savegrampiansclimbing.org/

there are a hundred reasons you could find to rationalize some kind of banning or restrictions on all of the user groups of public land. When I look at all of the impact and threats to public lands, I don’t really think about bolts or sport climbs until I get down to about 500 on the list, but thats just me.

I wholly agree that being good co-stewards of public lands and working with the parks service is the correct approach. we should always be attempting to get our shit together enough that the focus can go elsewhere.

Bolts are part of how we recreate. Sport climbing is a legitimate type of climbing. There’s no reason to just throw in the towel on that. The park wants to do a better job managing our user group. Let’s help them do that, and be clear about what are direct attacks to our usage and what’s reasonable or what would help.

Hopefully there is a solution to be had. Some revised wording, without setting new precedents, and without giving a template to the rest of the federal land managers for easy banning of climbing. The matrix of types of climbing is an area that could be improved. It seems like it’s calling all sport climbing “heavily bolted sport climbing”. Maybe they should add a type of sport climbing thats called reasonably bolted / and or low impact because of things like longer approaches, or popularity. And then call that type of sport climbing also acceptable wilderness climbing. what comes to mind here for me are bolted anchors, and a route like peace in Tuolumne. It’s almost like someone from the 70s/80s showed up to write into the plan “BY is good, Peace is bad”. Or in the eastern Sierra at sheelite canyon, Pratt’s is good, ecstasy is bad. Etc etc etc. 

If folks are worried about impact from gym like sport crags in the Wilderness, grid bolting, short approaches, crowds, crag dogs, Bluetooth speakers, etc, etc then someome can write up something to address those things. That’s not about bolts

Calling sport climbing / bolts incompatible with wilderness usage is just not something I can get behind. but i guess that doesn’t matter much. maybe given the language and a template to easily ban bolts of any kind in the wilderness, including anchors on climbs, trad and multipitch, where gear anchors aren’t available, land managers will all play nice and fair with our user group.

Maybe we won’t have an Australian situation where a culturally sensitive area that’s possibly just  one petroglyph or one cave, becomes a tool with which you can close the surrounding hundreds of meters of rock from climbing, but leave the area open to Disneyland.

Maybe some of the folks that are currently only stoked on moderate gear routes won’t ever get also stoked on sport climbing or harder climbing, and can stick to climbs with walk offs.

Banning guidebooks would have a larger impact on climber impact than any bolt ever. Id love to hear an argument where a tiny hole in the rock hurts anything in the wilderness. We blow up whole moutains to power cities via dirty fossil fuels, a handful of dust in the wind isn't hurting anything. These federal land managers just don't want more work, that's the extent of limiting land use. 

Matthew Jaggers wrote:

Banning guidebooks would have a larger impact on climber impact than any bolt ever. Id love to hear an argument where a tiny hole in the rock hurts anything in the wilderness. We blow up whole moutains to power cities via dirty fossil fuels, a handful of dust in the wind isn't hurting anything. These federal land managers just don't want more work, that's the extent of limiting land use. 

I don't think the NPS has the authority to ban books.

As it has been stated many times before, it's not the bolts themselves that are the problem, it's the people they bring in. The bolts, trails, signs, etc are the things the NPS can regulate, so that's what they are looking at. Comparing it to blowing up mountains and what-not is nonsensical.

Tradiban wrote:

As it has been stated many times before, it's not the bolts themselves that are the problem, it's the people they bring in. 

Which is why decisions on where new bolts can be placed should be about more than just their density on a particular route, like how likely they are to result in overuse or destruction of wilderness character. It seems to me that the current status is fine at JT - existing sport routes in wilderness don't get much traffic. So, the management plan should avoid strong and black/white language like "bolts are prohibited" or "bolt-intensive climbs are incompatible", and instead soften the language so we don't end up (in JT or elsewhere) with a Grampian-like situation. 

The CMP is about as legit as we can hope for.

Bolts are installations, if you think otherwise you’re awfully stubborn and just wrong. Which don’t get me wrong, you’re totally allowed to be, you just look like an idiot