Climbing Survey

[jeallison4]

Your chance to help local climbers’ organizations, including the RRGCC, to conserve natural landscapes and ensure climbers’ access! Complete survey here: https://juliannallison.wordpress.com/su ... al-action/. Reply with any specific questions. Thank you.

[cliffff]

hi. i'm a prodigiously sexual man and want to find a way to balance my fertility with sustainability. how many wars do i need to support to offset my hope to have 6 kids?

[ynp1]

Pretty poor survey, but did take it. Hope it helps!

[wildhanimal]

Seems a little unreasonable to say that the increased popularity of climbing has caused 'excessive environmental impact', without giving any evidence to back it up...

It could also be argued the increased popularity of climbing has caused increased environmental awareness.

[chandler]

Access raises awarensss but also has an impact. This is nothing new. For example, the National Park Service has a complicated 100 year history of balancing protection with outreach and education.

Does climbing produce new environmental stewards? I believe the answer is “yes.”

Can climbers have a negative impact too? I believe that answer also is “yes.” Access Fund agrees: https://www.accessfund.org/open-gate-bl ... bing-areas

[Chiyram]

I don't think anyone can say that the increase in popularity of climbing hasn't had a negative environmental impact. It's evident at every crag I've been to across North America. Prime example was Roadside crag, it was destroyed because of more and more climbers coming into the sport without, or blatantly ignoring, the ethics. The easier the access to the sport and the outdoor climbing areas, the more issues we will have without filling the education and outdoor expectation gap.

[climb2core]

The magnitude of this “environmental impact” needs to be quantified. Short of some endangered cliff species, I hazard to guess that driving to Red causes more environmental impact than the 20-30 feet of erosion and compaction at the base of the crag. Of the tens of thousands of cliffline in Ky, the crags most likely impact a mile or two.

[Chiyram]

The magnitude of this “environmental impact” needs to be quantified. Short of some endangered cliff species, I hazard to guess that driving to Red causes more environmental impact than the 20-30 feet of erosion and compaction at the base of the crag. Of the tens of thousands of cliffline in Ky, the crags most likely impact a mile or two.

Want to talk about a paper thin argument? Pretty sure that was one of Trump's arguments for reducing Bear's Ears. Hey we are only going to destroy some of it, so no big deal. One, it's far more than a mile or two of cliff line... Second, I very much doubt that the people driving there are having more of an impact with emissions, than the tens of thousands that are walking the trails and climbing. Especially when you consider the number of people that live close by and that stay down there for the climbing season.

[cliffff]

Reading a review of Thomoas Franks' newest book, this paragraph reminded me of this thread-

And the real bad news is not that this Creative Class, this Expert Class, this Meritocratic Class, this Professional Class — this LiberalClass, with all its techno-ecstasy and virtue-questing and unleashing of innovation — is so deeply narcissistic and hypocritical, but rather that it is so self-interestedly parasitical and predatory.

I appreciate the professor from Riverside's effort, but it seems so insular and selective. I read the other comments as attempts to provide a broader context.

[wildhanimal]

Yes, climbing has an impact, I would never argue that it doesn't.
I'm just not sure it can fairly be described as excessively negative, especially in the Red. Sure, climbers cut trails, cause erosion, and trample down the base of crags.
But how much land in Ky has been rescued from oil pumping/dumping because of climbing? I would say climbers are now taking much better care of the land in the Red than it has been in decades past.

[jeallison4]

Thank you all for your input and insights. I initiated this project because I expected the growing popularity of rock climbing to lead to greater environmental awareness and participation in conservation/preservation activites, but that hasn’t happened. Environmental impacts from climbing and other outdoor activities, as well as climate and extraction, are increasingly well documented in the scientific literature. We hope to identify the kinds of environmental stewardship practices that climbers are most likely to engage in so that climbing organizations can develop more effective programs and recruit more climber-volunteers.

[captain static]

n example of effective engagement and participation of climbers in environmental conservation is the delisting of the White Haired Goldenrod in Red River Gorge - http://rrgcc.org/access-issues/2016/01/ ... emony.html

[Yasmeen]

Good point, captain static.

jeallison4 - just curious if this study has already been carried out with different results than what you mention above? From what I understand, the following study has passed peer review and articles on it will be in print within the next year: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED581008