Sport & Trad Closure at Torrent Falls

[JB]

reason is not welcome here... duh!

[Wes]

Just in case you need a break...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/South_Park

Kyle: Oh, fuck! I'm sorry Jesus! Don't kill me!

Cartman: Ow! You stepped on my foot you pigfucker!.
Stan: Dude! Don't say pigfucker in front of Jesus!
Cartman: Meh, fuck you!

Kyle: You're such a fat fuck, Cartman, that when you walk down the street, people go "God DAMMIT, that kid's a big fat fuck!"

[reospeed]

ha ha ha

[rhunt]

thanks Wes

[captain static]

The impacts at Torrent are going on at popular crags no matter the who owns the land, no matter the style of climbing. The same problems that cause private land owners to shut down a crags can shut down precious trad crags on National Forest land. The problem isn't that climber's needed to change their behavior when climbing at Torrent Falls, but that climber's need to change their behavior no matter where they're climbing. While Torrent Falls might be Mark's backyard, Muir Valley the Weber's backyard, the PMRP the Coalition's backyard, and the National Forest is OUR backyard we all gotta learn to not fuck it up.

Thank you Steve for stating the crux of the matter. Our behavior & numbers create impacts that in turn can jeopardize access. Like the Webers the RRGCC also considered charging for access but chose not to. Charging for access is not a complete solution unless everyone charges including the USFS. If everyone does not charge there will be many who will avoid the charge and go climb where it is free. This would just displace the impacts from one place to another. I remember when the Mountain Parkway was a toll road, the first toll was just before the Slade exit. Being the true dirtbags we were at the time, we would get off at Stanton and drive the back roads to avoid the toll.

Information on minimum impact climbing/expected climber behavior/area specific rules has been widely disseminated. The most obvious place for climbers to find such information is in Ray's guidebook. The USFS/PMRP/Muir/Torrent all have kiosks with posted rules. Specific to the situation with Torrent, information appeared in the Access Fund e-News, the RRGCC Newsletter, & was posted on this website, the RRGCC website, on rockclimbing.com and was subsequently picked up by other climbing related websites. It is not like the information isn't out there.

I agree that person to person communication/peer pressure is the most effective way to influence people & in this regards the RRGCC did conduct several "meet & greets" at various crags in an attempt to raise awareness. However such an approach is very time/labor intensive.

"Taking our message to climbers" was a significant part of the RRGCC's strategic planning last year and will certainly be a major item of discussion this year. Along the lines of Liz Weber's suggestion perhaps the RRGCC could arrange a summit of private landowners & the USFS to discuss ways to raise awareness about low-impact practices and keep crags open? The USFS is very interested in educating people about low-impact practices.

[Huggybone]

I'm telling you, yellow tri-cams.

Blue for minor offenses.

[bcombs]

voiceofreason , for a non climber you sure know alot of climbing terminology.

[Liz_Weber]

]... Like the Webers the RRGCC also considered charging for access but chose not to. ...

Thanks for your comments, Bill.

As a minor point of clarification, Rick and I have never charged access fees for users of Muir Valley, have never considered doing so, and have no intention of doing so in the future.

We appreciate your expression of receptivity to listening to concerns of landowners and to working together to keep both public and privately-owned land accessible to climbers.

Liz Weber

[voiceofreason]

my boyfriend is a climber and I go down to the red river gorge with him and usually just sit at the bottom reading or take pictures. After years around him and his friends I may know a little.

[captain static]

Thanks for the clarification Liz. I was posting off the top of my head and didn't dig back through this long thread to review your previous post.

[endercore]

Mark-
thanks for all you've done. I'm bummed, but it's your land and i respect that. It's to bad you still have to put up will all of this bitching and critique of your business after all you've done for us. I look forward to finding enough money to rent a cabin with some friends and have the place to myself.

[Zspider]

voiceofreason wrote:

my boyfriend is a climber and I go down...

***********
Lucky him.

ZSpiddy

[Saxman]

Now 10 people will want to rent a cabin for the day. Might work out well for him. People organize in groups and he can still rent the cabin to non-climbers.

[charlie]

voiceofreason wrote:

my boyfriend is a climber and I go down...

***********
Lucky him.

ZSpiddy

Holy shit dude. Welcome to the first post you've made that I appreciate.

/golf clap

[Saxman]

Now he just has to work on his delivery. He must live in some weird Twilight Zone where the quote button never properly loads