Do climbers make sparks?

Recently a young man was accosted upon exiting the closed national forest. His was response was that nothing he had on him could cause a spark and ignite a fire. Is he correct?

I feel like closing the national forests because they don’t have enough rangers to prevent a potential forest fire is very similar to police telling us we can’t go outside because they dont have enough officers to guarantee we won’t be mugged. They are definitely overreaching their power right now. In my opinion. 

I 100% agree. This is absolute insanity and I honestly can’t believe people are letting them do this. They made this decision so arbitrarily like it’s not even a big deal. These people are closing the fucking woods. Like how the hell do you just close all of the woods and nature. This is public land? You can’t just say ok sorry all of nature in California is now closed because of a couple of basically totally contained fires now. That’s utterly psychotic and I can’t believe so many people are taking it lying down right now. All of this land is PUBLIC land, it’s our land. What happened to the old climbing mentality of “fuck the rules we’re going to climb what we want because this is our land”? That’s what climbing was founded on. The same people that watch valley uprising and romanize the bad boy climbing mentality that the culture was founded on, are the same people that will shit if they see you climbing when an area is “closed” it’s gross. Get back outside, be smart adults, don’t start fucking forest fires, and let’s use the public land that is ours responsibly without some gross politician sitting behind a desk who hasn’t been into nature in 20 years telling us that we aren’t allowed to. 

3.4 million acres of forests in California have burned this year and your response is, "fuck this closing shit"? That seems pretty self centered to me. Sounds like there's need for people in the NFS to do something other than clean out bathrooms or babysit visitors. Let them do their work, it's probably more important than you think.

Tradibanwrote:

Recently a young man was accosted upon exiting the closed national forest. His was response was that nothing he had on him could cause a spark and ignite a fire. Is he correct?

Also, source? Or you just trying to stir the pot for no reason like a good troll does? Just wondering.  

It is not unusual for entire forests to close down. One particularly bad fire year in NM the Lincoln NF was shut down. Still, we went climbing at a roadside area, literally over a paved parking lot where nothing could possibly burn. Our thoughts were that we were practically climbing in the lot, which was open. We saw the ranger pull up into the lot mid-morning, and about 3:00 in the afternoon he announced: “All right boys, time for you to come down.”  He had nice fat trespassing tickets waiting for us. We took our lumps, but somehow I felt strangely grateful that he let us climb for better part of the day. 

Long Rangerwrote:

3.4 million acres of forests in California have burned this year and your response is, "fuck this closing shit"? That seems pretty self centered to me. Sounds like there's need for people in the NFS to do something other than clean out bathrooms or babysit visitors. Let them do their work, it's probably more important than you think.

Again, it’s an extremely lazy and negligent answer. Of course the fires are unfortunate, but they are contained to specific areas. In no rational universe is the answer to blanket close 1500 miles of public land. Surely areas could be closed surrounding fires with a buffer in case they spread but it’s so ignorant to just say “ah fuck it close the entire state because of bad air quality and what else?” This is my land, and this is your land. It’s no ones place to tell us we are not allowed to go into a perfectly safe area in nature because the air quality might be bad. And the people that are bending over and accepting this subserviently are part of the problem. Look at a map, the fires are minuscule compared to the land they have closed. Yeah again the fires are a huge bummer and should have been avoided in the first place, but goddamn act like an adult and stand up for yourself without government holding your hand the entire way it’s embarrassing 

Definitely the water pipe.

I have the boys set off a firework everytime i clip the chains

Tradibanwrote:

Recently a young man was accosted upon exiting the closed national forest. His was response was that nothing he had on him could cause a spark and ignite a fire. Is he correct?

Prolly some ganj

Tanner Jameswrote:

Again, it’s an extremely lazy and negligent answer. Of course the fires are unfortunate, but they are contained to specific areas. In no rational universe is the answer to blanket close 1500 miles of public land. Surely areas could be closed surrounding fires with a buffer in case they spread but it’s so ignorant to just say “ah fuck it close the entire state because of bad air quality and what else?” 

How about, "shit we lost enough already, let's chill out on human impact on the forest that ain't ablaze so we can get more NF people to work on containing the ones that are there?".  If the response is, "let's act within our self interest, because that's what climbers do!", you answered your own question on why the forests are being closed. To frame this as an afront on your rights as a citizen of the United States is laughable. The forests are closed perhaps so they'll be forests to visit next year. 

Long Rangerwrote:

How about, "shit we lost enough already, let's chill out on human impact on the forest that ain't ablaze so we can get more NF people to work on containing the ones that are there?".  If the response is, "let's act within our self interest, because that's what climbers do!", you answered your own question on why the forests are being closed. To frame this as an afront on your rights as a citizen of the United States is laughable. The forests are closed perhaps so they'll be forests to visit next year. 

You’re right. Lets shut down all forests for 11 months out of every single year and let people compete for permits for the one month they are open. Think about how beautiful it will be when the politicians finally tell us I am able to go into nature again! They can work on every single part of the NF as needed, and they can close what needs to be closed, and not a 1500 mile blanket closure because they are too lazy to be specific. Contrary to popular belief, you and I are both able to go climb in the 99% of the California NF that is unaffected without burning down another thousand acres. I’m sure you’ve been climbing for years without destroying everything to touch, so let’s continue that. No one is trying to stop anyone from working through the current problems, and no one is suggesting we fully open to include the areas that have been heavily damaged. But to reiterate again, it’s a lazy arbitrary answer to close hundreds and hundreds of miles of forests that are not even close to being in danger. Like it was said earlier, you might as well not let people act freely because they’re are not enough police to protect them, and they might be robbed or murdered or have an accident. Act like the adult you are and behave responsibly because that’s what you do, not because you’re forced to. 

Long Rangerwrote:

Also, source? Or you just trying to stir the pot for no reason like a good troll does? Just wondering.  

Source for the story? It's true. There's an elderly vigilante volunteer forest ranger that looks alot like me bitch slapping hippies as they flaunt the closure.

Tradibanwrote:

Source for the story? It's true. There's an elderly vigilante volunteer forest ranger that looks alot like me bitch slapping hippies as they flaunt the closure.

I'll vouch for that.

Frank Steinwrote:

We saw the ranger pull up into the lot mid-morning, and about 3:00 in the afternoon he announced: “All right boys, time for you to come down.”  He had nice fat trespassing tickets waiting for us. We took our lumps, but somehow I felt strangely grateful that he let us climb for better part of the day. 

... as would I.

Whether or not it’s the best thing to do is up for debate, but closing the NF’s is not because they don’t have enough rangers to prevent forest fires (they never do or will), it’s to minimize the chances of new fires starting because there are not enough fire fighters to fight them at the moment.

Climbers are probably the smallest group accessing the NF’s but they don’t have the gates installed with climber recognition software installed yet to just let us in. When most of these fires are well contained they’ll open up again because there will be enough fire fighters to fight any fires started by dem city folk smoking da weed or lighting dem illegal sunset campfires.   

I thought the "new posts" thing was taken off MP to slow down random CO dudes from posting in CA topics.

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/119632764/psa-launched-rocks-causing-wildfires

Not only do we need to keep climbers out of the forests, we need to stop lightning. Somebody get on that.

Jon Hartmannwrote:

I feel like closing the national forests because they don’t have enough rangers to prevent a potential forest fire is very similar to police telling us we can’t go outside because they dont have enough officers to guarantee we won’t be mugged. They are definitely overreaching their power right now. In my opinion. 

That logic would work, if you would be the only victim of a forest fire you started.

SInce that's obviously not the case....

Danny Herrerawrote:

I thought the "new posts" thing was taken off MP to slow down random CO dudes from posting in CA topics.

Don’t be so locals only, bro. Coloradbros been popping off on the forums since you were in pullups.

Also pick a narrative. Is it NF our public land, or is it, locals only brah. I do have an interest in wildfires and the management of them in CA as I, like a few million other people, would like to breathe clearly again one day.