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@devnull Thanks.
Reading that article, the analogy that occurred to me is trails. I don't object at all to trails in wilderness areas. And it's ok for the trails to be "permanent installations": with drainage, bolted down steps, etc.
The climbing infrastructure seems very similar, thinking of bolts as trails.
And like trails, we should control where they are. Social trails should be discouraged and blocked when found.
(Again, I'm just talking about wilderness areas, not all public lands.)
@devnull @louis Does the proposed update apply just to wilderness areas or more broadly to public lands? My thinking is that those are very different uses: I'm all for climbing, biking, camping, horse infrastructure on FS and NPS land, it's specifically wilderness where I'm questioning "permanent installations".
And yeah, horses on trail suck. I'm glad no bikes in wilderness. I'd like it if there were also no horses. Poop, trail destruction, a disaster in the rain and mud.
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@devnull @louis Great -- this is the kind of info I was looking for.
The update Hick & others are proposing would be the one that requires reg & approval of new bolts? So, your worry is that it effectively regulates away climbing bolts because of resource limits?
That's very different positioning than what I've seen. Namely that this update is supposed to save the ability to place bolts. Would be ironic for it to effectively end it.
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@louis thanks -- this has been useful for me trying to think about this issue. Appreciate the conversation!
@louis thanks -- that gives some useful addl insight.
I can see why the simplest answer from the wilderness admin perspective is "climbing anchors are clearly permanent installations. Thus banned".
If that's not what we the people want, then Congress needs to update the law. This seems to be what Hick et. al. are trying to do. Funding must be included.
I'm still unconvinced that we should modify the definition of wilderness to say "some permanent installations are ok". How wild is wild?
@louis no problem.
I find this issue puzzling. (I'm also surprised when our senator is making the same arguments as Joe Manchin.)
Trail maintenance is certainly an issue. And it seems like allowing more fixed anchors would only make the maintenance issue worse.
When I've asked my climbing friends about this, they've basically said they like climbing and the fixed anchors make that better and safer. And after all, they're doing less damage than those other people. Which I find unconvincing ...
@louis I don't understand. Please explain?
Are you saying that the FS doesn't have the staff to ban anchors? And so we should allow them? Or am I just confused?
