Public comment on wilderness area fixed hardware

I saw a quote in the article that I thought was interesting.  Someone from the conservationist side of the argument says: “maintaining wilderness character requires that climbers accept a higher level of risk in wilderness and maintain some humility and respect for the peaks they scale.”

This actually rings true to me. But what happens when a nut becomes fixed due to a fall? Did the climber break the law? At that point is it different than a bolt? Maybe that solution is what already exists (hand drilling only)?

Ultimately, I feel like my time spent climbing in the wilderness has been really special and I am afraid to lose that. And I really like what JCM said about it being a fictitious distinction.  I know a few climbing experiences were for sure on wilderness land.  But some I am not sure.  I just know it was wild.  I think keeping area development in character with the surrounding land is the ideal. In a completely different context, my old boss/mentor brought up the principle of least astonishment. It’s meaning should be obvious, and I think it applies here as well.  

And maybe there is room for sport crags if they are off the beaten path, without significant impact to the surrounding land. Now trying to describe sport climbing as a sub discipline of climbing to anyone not in the know is a completely different challenge….

Controversial alternate take: I disagree with the concept of Wilderness altogether.

Which is exactly why we need to protect our wilderness areas now.

And I really like what JCM said about it being a fictitious distinction.

I think this line of argument will do your cause a disservice, I'm just saying. Attacking the very underpinning of multiple decades of wilderness protection to maintain the plausibility of bolt-at-will is not a good look and will serve to rally people against you who would otherwise perhaps agree with the idea of some allowable bolting. Just my opinion of course.

Remember that bolts are not the only climbing 'installations' that would be covered by such bans. It would also include basically all rap anchors, including 'tat', for example. I've climbed a fair number of routes in areas officially classified as wilderness and encountered very few bolts, but have definitely utilized numerous existing rap anchors as well as creating a few of our own. I guess if this regulation comes into effect, and is enforced, all climbers will then have to emulate Paul Preuss!!!  It would definitely cut down on the crowds--- but most of them aren't in the wilderness areas anyway.

JCMwrote:

Controversial alternate take: I disagree with the concept of Wilderness altogether. The Wilderness concept is an ahistorical fabrication left over from some really racist Victorians.

The Wilderness concept also creates a bizarre binary between the land of capitalism where the land is logged and mined and grazed and otherwise pillaged with abandon, and some special magical "untouched" "natural" place (a fiction, as noted above) where any human influence is unwelcome. This leaves out the middle ground, of well managed land where human influence and non-human ecology can interact in a healthy way. Where regular people can just go an interact with the landscape within some reasonable guidelines. This middle ground is an important area, and encompasses a wide gradient of level of human influence. I think that recreational infrastructure like trails and bolts fit well into this middle ground. 

We need more places where you aren't allowed to build a factory or shopping mall or strip mine, but you are allowed to put in a sport climb or bike trail. But we seem to go in the opposite direction. As more areas are taken over by development, the response is to lock down harder on the designated "Wilderness", thus squeezing out the middle areas.

I agree that Wilderness is somewhat of a historical fabrication, but short of a LandBack solution (which is extremely unlikely, regardless of if it is the right thing to do or not), is there some better solution to creating areas that are protected from commerce? If you have something I'm not aware of I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I don't think there is. "Wilderness" in this context is a legal term that implies a high level of protection. There are other middle areas as you suggest, which don't have the protection of wilderness, much more than there are wilderness areas. These areas aren't locked down and people are free to do pretty much whatever they want. Why can't we choose to keep a few of these special places free of permanent installations?

I for one am in favor of some areas being special places that do have these greater protections. Sure, it will make climbing harder there or some areas much more inaccessible, but isn't that the character we are looking for in a 'Wilderness'? As with everything in climbing, all of the rules we create for ourselves are artificial anyway, and often we keep them in place to protect the character and experience we have in these places. Having bolts, even if only for rapel anchors, undoubtably changes the character of your climb. Once you know there is a set of bolted anchors you can 'easily' follow down, it removes much of the commitment of the climb. This will undoubtably lower the number of climbers going out and trying these routes, but preserves their adventurous nature. There will still be places in non wilderness areas that create a middle between easy bolted sport climbs and gnarly adventure routes, but why not leave a few of these special places with a true wilderness character?

This a BIG DEAL CHANGE to how climbing has been done in the US for the last century. The general rule has been that in wilderness, you can place bolts as long as you hand drill them. You can also leave slings on blocks and fixed pins. You cannot use power drills. And some heavily-trafficked wilderness areas, like Yosemite and Joshua Tree, have more specific and in some cases restrictive policies.

The Park Service draft dramatically, dramatically restricts fixed anchor use as compared to the status quo. It potentially criminalizes not only new routing, but also pretty routine route maintenance. It can justify banning climbing entirely from whole parks. And it betrays a lack of understanding of both climbing and what’s already illegal under the Wilderness Act.

• It requires every wilderness land manager to review whether allowing climbing at all is "necessary for administering the wilderness area for wilderness purposes." (NPS Draft Manual 41 at p. 6)
  1. So after this review, a park could simply determine that climbing is not allowed at all. And as one of the factors to consider is the "history" of climbing in that wilderness, a land manager can ban new areas on the basis that there's no history of climbing there.
• It requires written, detailed, applications for any new route that requires fixed anchors. (NPS Draft Manual 41 at p. 5.)
  1. So forget about wandering the wilderness looking for a nice wall to go ground up on. If you leave so much as a sling behind, you're required to first apply, in writing, to the Park manager, with detailed information on your route, including the type and quantity of fixed anchors you want to use (how are you supposed to know before you go up?). The standards for approving or denying your proposed route are not clear, nor is the timeframe for the Park’s approval. So you may have to wait a few seasons for approval, if it comes. Hope you can get the vacation time to hike back out to that cirque in six months; hope the weather’s still good; hope no one’s illegally snaked your route.
  2. And if you spy an untouched crack system and go for it with clean gear, you better hope that corner doesn’t pinch down for 30 feet. If you place a pin or a bolt, you’re a criminal.
• The procedures for existing routes and bolt replacement are overly restrictive. I’ll quote:
  1. “Existing fixed anchors may continue to be used. Parks should evaluate all routes with existing fixed anchors when practicable, as funding and resources allow, through either a park, area, or route specific MRA. On routes that have not yet been evaluated, climbers may make emergency replacements of pre-existing fixed anchors if necessary to exit the climb in the safest and most expeditious manner possible. All other replacements must be evaluated through an MRA before being approved, though a park-specific planning process may provide more direction regarding replacement of fixed anchors. Once a route has been evaluated and approved for continued use in wilderness, replacement of existing bolts on the route may be done without a new MRA unless wilderness character conditions have changed since the initial review, or if the replacement will include the drilling of a new hole or the use of a power drill.” (NPS Draft Manual 41, p. 4.)
  2. Let’s break that down. The Parks are supposed to “evaluate” all routes; the standards for this evaluation are not entirely clear but presumably will be similar to the MRA analysis at pages 6-7. So an existing route can be removed if non-climber park managers determine that it is not “necessary” to administer the wilderness area.
  3. For existing routes that have not been “evaluated,” preexisting fixed anchors (including slings!!!!) can only be replaced without a cumbersome permit application if the replacement is 1) in an emergency; 2) if necessary to exit the climb in 3) the safest and 4) most expeditious manner possible.
     • So replacement of lead bolts (or fixed pins, or threads, or any other fixed anchor) is not permitted without a permit under non-emergency conditions, or when you’re not “exiting” a route, or if you are “exiting” a route under emergency conditions, if it’s not done in the “safest” and “most expeditious” manner possible—an evaluation that could be made long after the fact by non-climbers.
  4. For existing routes that have been evaluated and suffered to remain, bolt replacement is allowed unless you need to drill a new hole. Good luck if the rusty quarter incher snaps off, or if a rockfall-smashed stud can’t be drilled out: now, instead of just patching the old hole and drilling a new one, you have to go prove that your new hole meets the MRA standard, write out a permit, and come back at some future date.
     • Or, bafflingly, if the replacement requires a power drill? So power drills have been banned for decades, but now they’re getting backdoored in for bolt replacement? This policy is awful.
     • It’s unclear to me why the language for evaluated routes switches from “fixed anchor replacement” to “bolt” replacement here: slings and sometimes pins need to be replaced too!
• The sample application (Draft NPS Manual 41 pp. 10-11) betrays a lack of understanding. You need a permit for ice screws and pickets? I can’t think of more ephemeral anchors. You can get a permit for a power drill? Using a power drill has never been permissible in wilderness areas without undergoing an MRA.

I hear what some folks are saying about permadraws and sport routes in wilderness. I think reasonable people can disagree about particular crags and situations and I would hope that climbing management policies can account for those situations on a case-by-case basis. But this guidance is a sea change in management of climbing in the wilderness. I think climbers should consider opposing it, and consider writing your congresspeople to support the Protect America’s Rock Climbing Act.

In particular, I’m thinking about wilderness granite climbing in California. I just got one of Vitaliy Musiyenko’s High Sierra guides, and I’ve been flipping through and circling routes I want to do someday—in Hamilton Lakes, Kings Canyon, deep in the Kern headwaters. I have my eye on my own lines I'd like to add someday. There is so much granite face climbing to do in the Sierra wildernesses: the domes around Courtwright; Tuolumne; Half Dome; Domelands. This climbing just isn’t doable without bolts. They’re not sport routes. And the new routes are not going to get done if people have to hike in 15 miles, scout and document a proposed route, apply for a permit, wait a year, then go back, only to find that their bolt count is off. And it’s not safe to restrict bolt replacement on new or old routes; if a bolt needs to be fixed, it needs to be fixed. These routes will fade into rusty obscurity if not maintained. And the solitary, untrammeled wilderness character of exploration, of self-reliance, of adventure, will go unfulfilled.

And there are so many high alpine walls throughout the west that take a bolt or a pin or a sling here or there: the Hulk; the Wind River Range; the North Cascades, RMNP. These routes are the pinnacle of wilderness climbing: remote, serious, adventurous. Climbers are good at policing their own quality of experience and recognize the slippery slope of overbolting. They’re also good at maintenance. That’s why Snake Dike hasn’t been rebolted despite all the clamor, but the bolts on many fairly obscure lines get replaced.

The NPS should take this policy back to the drawing board, or Congress should make the rules clear.

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

Which is exactly why we need to protect our wilderness areas now.

I think this line of argument will do your cause a disservice, I'm just saying. Attacking the very underpinning of multiple decades of wilderness protection to maintain the plausibility of bolt-at-will is not a good look and will serve to rally people against you who would otherwise perhaps agree with the idea of some allowable bolting. Just my opinion of course.

I appreciate the opinion. For the record, I haven’t commented yet, I guess I’m just working out what I want to say here.  

Probably not gonna happen, but I guess the wilderness designated areas could remain and instead, the other land could become more wilderness like.  But now I’m talking about things I don’t really know much about and I guess also advocating for more restrictions.  It’s a tough issue that’s for sure.

edit to add due to post limit:
Nkane 1 wrote:

This a BIG DEAL CHANGE to how climbing has been done in the US for the last century.  

Nice write up. That is really thorough and really hits the nail on the head for how I feel.  

How do we articulate this to the people in charge? I would ask if I can copy paste it but some of the language is kind of charged.  Have you made a comment yet?

Frank Steinwrote:

And, Bill. You climb in the Sandias. Are you okay with removing the fixed hardware on those Sandia routes that depend on it?  It is all Wilderness up there, after all.

I haven't seen anything credible in this thread about removing everything.  In contrast to the text quoted above, this is how it is:

“Existing fixed anchors and fixed equipment in wilderness may be retained pending completion of a Minimum Requirements Analysis, as funding and resources allow, that determines they are the minimum necessary to facilitate primitive or unconfined recreation or otherwise preserve wilderness character ....”

Bill Lawrywrote:

I haven't seen anything credible in this thread about removing everything.  In contrast to the text quoted above, this is how it is:

We were just being dramatic Bill. The bolts will stay.

Alex Fischerwrote:

If bolts are an "installation" in wilderness, then so are trails, trail signs, bathrooms, and established campsites. Let's remove all those first, and then we can get around to removing all the bolts after that.

It's clear that "installation" in the wilderness act was meant to refer to larger structures like buildings.

... actually even that is a fallacy - check out the smithsonian institution shelter on top of the highest peak in the lower 48, aka mt. whitney

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Institution_Shelter

i think we should consider the issue of bolting in the wilderness, when those, who advocate bans on fixed installation, etc. grounds actually deal with their own (nps/nfs) hypocrisy first...  

Bolts are better than tat.  Everybody join the Access Fund!  And the AAC.  Write letters to your professional politician Law Makers.  

Maybe you, too, can become a professional politician!  

Some general thoughts here not directed at anyone in particular …

A) Limiting climbers to hand drilling only slows down the inevitable. Eventually, Snake Dike will have gym-bolt-spacing at which point traffic would trend towards intolerable.  It might be just another generation without better controls. 

B) Bolts are indeed “permanent installations”. Historic precedence is all that has kept wilderness managers from broadly banning them so far. And, hell, pit toilets, roads, and worse have been around even longer. But all of these are besides the point of simply working out how best to manage a limited resources.

C) If pooping in a pit toilet in a wilderness area suddenly went mainstream where most folks just couldn’t get enough of doing that, the area would and should quickly fall under a quota system. Creating a sport crag has a like effect.

D) The vast majority of rock with new-route potential does not have a trail leading up to it. Create a nice sport climbing crag?  An ad hoc trail will appear and probably not with much forethought as to erosion, etc.

Aren’t there just a couple ways to keep wildernesses from being overrun when becoming overrun is close at hand?  1) Don’t make it easier for folks to drive to them and stay there. 2) Don’t add more permanent installations that attract the hordes .,. such as sport routes and mussy hooks that can attract the everyday gym climber.

Or not. 

I'm curious to know how many sport climbing, or even trad areas with 'convenience anchors', are located within designated wilderness areas. While I am sure that some are, I am doubtful that there are a large number ( maybe others will prove me wrong). Of course, there is the situation of certain areas, the walls in Yosemite being the prime example, which are officially though dubiously, designated as wilderness, but which, while primarily traditional, still have large amounts of fixed gear.
My concern is that many land managers will take a hard line interpretation and effectively, if not actually, ban climbing in many of our most important climbing areas. From what I read, in the thread about the rescue there, of the attitude of the park superintendent at Black Canyon, I'm sure that he would love an excuse to limit or ban climbing in that park.

I favor protecting wilderness areas, though think that there should be buffer zones, such as the Valley, with more limited protections, but feel that it is wrongheaded for the managers to focus  on the very limited amount of fixed gear for climbing while still permitting trails, horse packing, etc. within the wilderness boundaries. I might feel differently though, if there are indeed many densely bolted/ intensely used sport climbing areas located within true wilderness areas.

i think we should consider the issue of bolting in the wilderness, when those, who advocate bans on fixed installation, etc. grounds actually deal with their own (nps/nfs) hypocrisy first...  

Oh yeah, that's gonna happen.

Alan Rubinwrote:

I'm curious to know how many sport climbing, or even trad areas with 'convenience anchors', are located within designated wilderness areas.

I’m aware of two cases where climbers have suppressed documentation on MP of sport climbs / areas in wilderness. Unwillingness to work with land managers and hiding controversial routes … adds to the momentum behind the proposed action that started this thread.

Bolts are not installations, give me a break. Installations are buildings, roads, dams, mines, tramways, bridges. Read the debates leading up to the establishment of the Wilderness Act for context.

Take a photo of the walls of Yosemite or Tuolumne, no one can tell there are thousands of climbing bolts on them. Add one building, even just a shed, at the base, and it's an obvious installation.

Might be my third and so last post here for the day …

Impact … good to define “installations” in terms of impacts to a wilderness. And I guess some might want to measure impact only in terms of actually being able to see the installation from afar and not even in terms of impacts from added traffic - foot or motorized.

It is easy to get hung up on a word or a phrase. Maybe it is worthwhile to talk in terms of what is desirable and so  worth preserving. Copied from a gov site (or pick something similar from, say, a private conservation site):

“… wilderness retains its primeval character and influence, and is essentially without permanent improvement or modern human occupation. Untrammeled – wilderness is essentially unhindered and free from the actions of modern human control or manipulation.”

Bolts are not installations, give me a break.

https://climbingport.com/how-to-install-rock-climbing-bolts/

You have to admit, the tap dancing around nomenclature is quite confusing.

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

You have to admit, the tap dancing around nomenclature is quite confusing.

It's not confusing for anyone, it's a matter of scale and perspective. Don't forget, tossing a nut in a crack or a sling around a tree and rapping off is going to be an "installation" too.

Greg Barneswrote:

It's not confusing for anyone, it's a matter of scale and perspective. Don't forget, tossing a nut in a crack or a sling around a tree and rapping off is going to be an "installation" too.

If that is case then so would be tossing a tent peg in the ground or a sling around a tree for a llama. Which is certainly not the case. The issue is that placing a bolt is de-facto permanent. Therein lies part of the issue. Not with standing the question of what is an "installation."

Let’s cannibalize ourselves while motorized lazy people pave and trample our lands. Good plan. Sprinkle in random race-warrioring so you can feel really good about chewing into our noble pursuit. Wake up people. Climbers unite.