Pway soon to be by reservation only?

This was just sent to me. Does anyone have more info? Edited for swearing.

i'm old and can't hyper link but weren't u advocating for a gate and fee a few months ago? 

was there today, a  shitload of hikers at the north mountain trail. BUT the cars at boulder natch blew me mind... i know the rangers told u as u drove in to not block the rode wtff??? if u put a climbing sticker on your car don't park like an asshole!!! go do crossfit or parkour or something wtf

HBTHREE wrote:

i'm old and can't hyper link but weren't u advocating for a gate and fee a few months ago? thanks dan u got yer moron wish?!?!   

Very eloquent. Perhaps you missed the point of bringing up paying a fee. It was to help address the issues that have been and are getting worse. (Like your parking comment). It was in hope to create a relationship between climbers and park. The place is becoming overrun. I wanted to address the problem before situations like this came to fruition.

It sounds like the park wants to have all access be funneled through the main gate for hiking. I’m not certain if that means a reservation rd closure. And if so, what exactly the reasoning is behind it. If it’s strictly monetary then it’s something we can deal with.

Cry all you want HB but I didn’t implement these new rules. Don’t act like I did. I love that place just as much as the next climber and that’s why I’m trying to solve problems before they arise. Oh and guess what?!  The problem is now in our lap when I tried to discuss what I saw coming from a million miles away.

-Best-

Your neighborhood friendly moron

huh??? creating  a relationship? don't block the road. there were multiple cars parked at boulder natch today that could've been parked better?? there are pullouts just past the trailhead area USE THEM at round pound don't block the road locals pass across the water. there was a climbers SUV blocking the water cross it's a multi use area plz don't F it up for climbers.

HBTHREE wrote:

huh??? creating  a relationship? don't block the road. there were multiple cars parked at boulder natch today that could've been parked better?? there are pullouts just past the trailhead area USE THEM at round pound don't block the road locals pass across the water. there was a climbers SUV blocking the water cross it's a multi use area plz don't F it up for climbers.

Yes a relationship between park and climbers.  Money designated for signage would be nice. Maybe one where people can block the mud pit by Round Pond. Blocking that is an easy mistake. Not everyone knows the four wheeling mud crew might drive through there. Most see it as an impasse because their vehicles won’t make it through. As far as the boulder natural parking goes, yes people need to not fuck it up for everyone else, but those people aren’t reading these forums. Most who know park appropriately.

BeCaUsE yElLiNg OnLiNe DoEs A wHoLe LoT.

Was out there today, usually avoid the weekends. I talked to the ranger on Reservation rd., and it sounds like they are seriously considering collecting entrance fees at the reservation rd. entrance. I've never seen that many cars as I saw out there today in the almost 30 years I've been going out there.

 yelling and whining online? whatever bud, a gate and fee at res road sux. A relationship tween climbers and park sooooooo we could hold hands walk through the woods picking up red bull cans and trash from everybody's proj?

HBTHREE wrote:

 yelling and whining online? whatever bud, a gate and fee at res road sux. A relationship tween climbers and park sooooooo we could hold hands walk through the woods picking up red bull cans and trash from everybody's proj?

You obviously have no clue how access works.

Joke

———

You

Access to Pway has been “free” for a long time as the park looked the other way when it came to people accessing from reservation rd. Technically there is a fee to use the park. What do you want me to say?  That’s the rule implemented by the park/state. I saw it coming and was hoping for a conversation from users as to come up with ideas/plans to bring forth to the park. Instead I was met with what felt like mostly silence on the MP forum. Some acceptance. Some resistance. Mostly silence. I don’t have the answer and we as climbers can get together and at least have a voice as a collective whole.  Perhaps better parking can be created down by boulder natural. These are things that take money. Money generated by gate fees. I agree a fee at the gate sucks but will gladly pay a $60/year fee for the state parks pass. Especially if some funds are appropriated to the climbers. These types of things don’t happen without help from our local cloning organization and access fund. They don’t happen without grants. Without legal red tape to work through. Without a relationship between climber and park.

The cats out of the bag. Pway isn’t going to be any less popular. This is the easy way for the park to address the crowds. Pway is big. There’s space for plenty. We just need a better situation with access/parking as it obviously is now about to be restricted. 

Mind you this could be covid related and temporary. I was hoping to hear any reports if anyone had them. Thank you Rick that was helpful information.

The park manager is a climber as are some of the staff.  There's a good relationship.  Red tape and access fund?  I don't think we need access fund, just common sense. If it's busy at boulder nat trailhead there's room for 5-10 cars 500' past. The rangers asked to leave ample room for emergency vehicles and no fires. 

HBTHREE wrote:

The park manager is a climber as are some of the staff.  There's a good relationship.  Red tape and access fund?  I don't think we need access fund, just common sense. If it's busy at boulder nat trailhead there's room for 5-10 cars 500' past. The rangers asked to leave ample room for emergency vehicles and no fires. 

If access is going to be restricted then perhaps we do need Access Fund. Perhaps not. Maybe these things can be sorted amongst ourselves but it’s becoming apparent they cannot.  Common sense also goes a long way but that is not a problem you or I can tackle.

You now acknowledge there’s a relationship after poking fun at the thougt of one. Lol. It’s obvious all you want to do is complain without offering any solution or some sort of constructive ideas. I think better parking will help.

Hey Dan, good on you for thinking about steps to be proactive. I'd be happy to help with any efforts you end up undertaking. Shoot me a message on here if you need help. 

FWIW, I think a reservation system would be a major overreaction to a short term bump in hiker / climber traffic. Once COVID is over and people can go back to indoor stuff I'd guess numbers will normalize a bit. Even with increased traffic, there is still plenty of parking if people think for a minute. A few people parking like idiots shouldn't result in a reservation system. 

Reservation systems for beaches in NH were a shit show because there was no cap on how many days you could reserve and no penalty if you reserved and didn't show up. Wallis Sands State Park was booked out all summer because people were essentially hording reservation spots and not using them or giving them to friends. I'd hate to see that at Pawtuckaway. 

I looked at Pawtuckaway's website on Saturday night. Every day has 460 reservation spaces available. It appears it is a general hiking reservation, not specific to a trail. When I checked there were 175 reservations left for Sunday, so it really doesn't seem like there would really be any danger of it being "full," based on the amount of cars I saw on Saturday.

Rick01 wrote:

I looked at Pawtuckaway's website on Saturday night. Every day has 460 reservation spaces available. It appears it is a general hiking reservation, not specific to a trail. When I checked there were 175 reservations left for Sunday, so it really doesn't seem like there would really be any danger of it being "full," based on the amount of cars I saw on Saturday.

Good to hear they set a high cap on the number of reservations. 

Maybe I can be resource as a climber and NH state park employee. I previously was an assistant manager at Pawtuckaway but I now I manage my own park. I still act as a climbing community liaison for the area and the current manager there is a climber (more into hunting and mtn biking now but will bust out the rack every so often).

Over the past 7-10 years, access through Reservation Rd. has become increasingly popular. I remember back in 2013 I was tasked with counting cars on a Saturday between Horse Farm, Res Rd, and Tower Rd. I counted over 200 cars between the three areas within one hour of driving around. 

In the past, the climbing community did a great job at not overcrowding or parking along the road, forcing it to become one lane traffic. This sadly has changed in recent years as people refuse to go to another climbing area if parking is overcrowded. This is probably due to how many people hear how great the area is and just go to it on their own or with friends that haven't climbed much outdoors yet. 

Each year, the need for a ranger grows, even if just to patrol the area. I used to pull out a ton of trash from Res Rd on weekends and the majority was from the hiker/illegal camper crowd, then I started pulling out couch cushions and makeshift pads from boulder natural from some ill-informed and equipped climbers that ditched them. Luckily there seems to be some great help in the community that also helps pick up every so often.

At the start of all of the COVID closures, Res Rd was closed to the public due to the increase in hikers and an increase in rescues, putting a strain on local EMS. The town of Nottingham was even turning people away from the Horse Farm on weekends. At some point both the Town and the Park decided to reopen back up but not advertise to see if visitation could control itself. It did for a little bit...Recently a fire warden could not even make it down to Round Pond in his wildlands firefighter truck, which is a huge issue, as parking in front of Round Pond and along the road prevents the local fire department from using the path to search for lost or injured people.

Climbers used to not share any of the blame for the issues there but they definitely contribute to some of the problems more now than in the past. No one group would be considered most at fault, there’s just people in all of them that do what they want and either don't care about repercussions or it never crossed their mind.

The sad truth is that for Pawtuckaway, this isn't a short bump in visitation due to Covid, it's the new normal. For as long as I've worked in Parks, there has always been talks about putting a tollbooth back there. The reservation system, although not ideal for us who frequently visit, at least can help control the amount of people using the land. The area can handle the people; the roads and parking areas cannot. I didn't think they were going to try the reservation system this year but the past two weekends of staffing the area and trying to tell people to park nicely must not have panned out. Although I don't work at the park anymore, I hope that if the reservation system stays, maybe it can lead to a new parking lot back there.

As someone already pointed out, technically the entire park is a fee area, there just was no fee stations back there. I also wouldn’t use the website as reference to what reservations on Res Rd would look like. The 460 limit is for the big parking lot at the campground which has a reasonable turn around time for spots opening. Maybe look at Monadnocks website to see the few different trails they have open for reservation for something more comparable. 

At first, I think the reservation system will either leave a ton of spaces vacant throughout the day or they will misjudge the estimated turn around times and parking is still bad until they figure it out.

**Just in case someone asks me about the road conditions. The roadwork falls on DOT and they don't usually let us know when they intend to grade it, they just show up randomly and start doing it.

Alec Woolley wrote:

In the past, the climbing community did a great job at not overcrowding or parking along the road, forcing it to become one lane traffic. This sadly has changed in recent years as people refuse to go to another climbing area if parking is overcrowded. This is probably due to how many people hear how great the area is and just go to it on their own or with friends that haven't climbed much outdoors yet. 

This needs to be part of every "gym to crag" program out there - the number of folks who show up late and try to cram their cars into Rumney/Pway/Farley parking despite it being full is embarrassing. 

Alec Woolley wrote:

 I used to pull out a ton of trash from Res Rd on weekends and the majority was from the hiker/illegal camper crowd, then I started pulling out couch cushions and makeshift pads from boulder natural from some ill-informed and equipped climbers that ditched them. Luckily there seems to be some great help in the community that also helps pick up every so often.

The trash from climbers is a huge problem. I am usually out at Pawtuckaway twice a week, and every week I pick up used finger tape at the base of boulders, bouldering pad price tags, whatever. Last week was an assortment of partially crushed plastic water bottles at the base of one boulder. Those were in addition to the destruction of a sapling near the boulder that was not near any established problem. So unfortunately, I can see the need for some sort of system to monitor, restrict or educate the amount of people in the park.

Big Red wrote:

This needs to be part of every "gym to crag" program out there - the number of folks who show up late and try to cram their cars into Rumney/Pway/Farley parking despite it being full is embarrassing. 

It’s always going to be a problem, people are not going to drive 2 hours and turn around cause the parking lot is full. Fortunately rumney has many alternatives to alleviate this problem.

My favorite thing I found in boulder natural was a full sized mattress. The amount of effort to drag that thing in didn’t seem worth it at all. I also agree there should be an entrance station on that end of the park. Pawtuckaway simply needs more money, some trails are in horrible condition, parking areas need expansion, and the park has the worst maps of any place I have ever been.

PAY TO PLAY....Wow, this is so touchy, I've been climbing at the park for over 30 yrs...I've run and partisipated in to numerous to count clean up projects at Rock Rimmon and , why did I do it, I use it , I love the dirty rock pile, it's my giving back ! I have no problem what so ever with a fee for use at Pway.  Access like the parking lot on private land at Whitehorse is precious, why is public land so different? Ok you pay tax's...but these entities are cash poor, we as a climbing community need to chip in...who paid for the rescue/recovery at Cannon and Rumney in the last few weeks? The state parks and federal lands we climb on need our assistance, not just lip service. Yes we need to pack in & pack out, leave no trace (and clean up after the few dirt bags that don't) respect local no bolt ethics, and work with land managers/owners for both access and development of areas (new and old), but don't forget this "ALL" costs money. Vote for who you think will help, but be realalistic, you use it , it's not free, despite the live free or die, we all love in NH.  Bravo to Dan and his continuded work and vision to the problem. This may be impacted by COVID, but it's been and will remain a climbers issue, we "CAN" solve!  

Reason number 7477474883 that  NH sucks. So they're gonna spend a bunch of money to build a fucking tollbooth and then pay someone to run it?  Maybe if they made people pay some fucking taxes then they could afford to make public land free to the PUBLIC. Fucking lame. This shit just makes public lands less accessible to those with less money. Glad i got plenty of years in there before this bullshit started. BTW I've seen plenty of the local color trash this place too. Rednecks speeding up and down that road late at night tearing it up and throwing cigarette butts everywhere. Thats the reason that road sucks so much. Fuck this blows.