Rock Climbing with spikes in the sides of mountains

[+bigredmed]

Today's Wall Street Journal (6/11/03) had a front page article about the National Park Service authorizing rock climbers to leave climbing spikes nailed into the side of the mountain they are climbing. They have to get a permit, but are thus allowed to leave as many as they want. The article quoted a NPS employee as saying that this was a legitimate use of the wilderness areas and thus allowed.

 

If the NPS will allow some rock climber to pound nails into fragile rock faces, then its time to approach them about geocaching again. If climbing a rock and pounding a bunch of spikes into it as you go is a legitimate use, then why isn't geocaching?

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nebraskache/

[+The Leprechauns]

"To get credit for this cache, e-mail me the four-digit code number etched into the 47th piton on the main ascent route on El Capitan."

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Some mornings, it just doesn't pay to chew through the leather straps. - Emo Phillips

[+briansnat]

They also allow camping, which has about as much impact as geocaching.

 

"Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois"

[+Criminal]

quote:

---

They also allow camping, which has about as much impact as geocaching.

---

 

HAH! BrianSnat finally said something incorrect! I knew it would happen sooner or later.

 

A geocache site will result in considerably less damage than a camp site.

 

http://fp1.centurytel.net/Criminal_Page/

[+Renegade Knight]

quote:

---

Originally posted by BrianSnat:

They also allow camping, which has about as much impact as geocaching.

 

_"Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois"_

---

 

I'm with criminal on this one. Camping leaves a rather nastly thumb print the only consolation is that campgrounds are where the park service puts them. Still I like my campgrounds.

 

As for spikes in the mountain, all the more reason for geocaching, caches have a limited life span either by the owner getting tired of the cache, plunder, or the landowner requiring they be removed after a specfic period of time.

 

Spikes are pretty much forever. Would you trust the spike placed by someone else? No? Me neither, I'd place my own every time that someone elses wasn't up to snuff.

 

=====================

Wherever you go there you are.

[+bigredmed]

The thing that gets me is that they see this as a good thing. The same year the Old Man in the Mountain FALLS OFF and turns into the Tallis Slope in the Valley, we have the National Park Service giving the OK to nailing bolts into our mountains.

 

The paranoid in me sees this as another example of an "eco-oligarchy". Those people who do sports or activities that are deemed by the oligarchy to be cool enough get one set of rules, those that do other things that are not deemed cool enough get another set of rules that the oligarchy pretty much sets as 24 pages of "No ______ on Federal property!".

 

We have a park service, BLM, and FWS that will happily go pluck some mountain climber off a cliff or go dredge some kayaker out of the white water, and then bust my chops for wanting to put a geocache in a picnic area of a federal park.

 

Inconsistencies and double standards really bug me. This one was so public that I had to comment on it.

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nebraskache/

[Dinoprophet]

quote:

---

Originally posted by bigredmed:

The same year the Old Man in the Mountain FALLS OFF and turns into the Tallis Slope in the Valley, we have the National Park Service giving the OK to nailing bolts into our mountains.

---

Sorry for going off topic, but holy smokes, this is the first I heard of this! How sad!

quote:

---

Daniel Webster said:

"Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."

---

I hope this doesn't mean he's closing up shop!

 

Well the mountain was so beautiful that this guy built a mall and a pizza shack

Yeah he built an ugly city because he wanted the mountain to love him back -- Dar Williams

[+nincehelser]

Pitons in fragile rock are kind of useless. They only work when things are strong and stable.

 

Would I use one placed by someone else? Yes, after inspecting it, of course. Placing one piton into a solid rock face can be really hard work, and you'd be stupid not to take advantage of those already in place.

 

It's a lot like trail blazing. If you insist on driving your own, you won't get very far.

 

As far as the "Old Man on the Mountain" goes, he was in declining condition for years. Folks knew he was eventually going to slide, and some effort was made to preserve him, but no one expected him to go so soon.

 

George

[+bigredmed]

You all seem to be missing the point. We are being shut out of federal lands for the reason that geocaching is deemed detrimental to their mission while people who do a sport which is directly damaging to the environment are welcomed.

 

Its time to re-address geocaching on Federal land.

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nebraskache/

[+tozainamboku]

quote:

---

Originally posted by bigredmed:

You all seem to be missing the point. We are being shut out of federal lands for the reason that geocaching is deemed detrimental to their mission while people who do a sport which is directly damaging to the environment are welcomed.

---

 

Yes and No. The NPS has always banned certain activities while allowing others. It may seem that the rules have no reason behind them. In some cases it is clearly political. The Clinton administration moved to ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone. The Bush adminstration, which received big donations from the snowmobile industry, reversed that decision. Campgrounds make a bigger environmental impact than geocaches, but you don't get to decide where to camp. The rules are that you must stay in one of the Park Service's campgrounds for which you need a permit and generally pay a fee. Perhaps all geocaches should be hidded by the park service and you would need a permit (and fee) to go find them like using a campground.

The rule to allow rock climbers to leave climbing spikes may make a better argument. After all one objection to geocaching is that a man-made item is being left in a natural place. This rule still requires a permit and the park service will be able to monitor the number of climbers that do this and have some control to keep it from getting out of hand. I think the objection to geocaching has more to do with the finders rather than those hiding the cache. So long as some geocachers continue to go off trail and tear through vegitation seaching for a cache, it becomes hard for the park service to prevent damage.

I agree that the park service should review the geocaching ban. The fact that they have changed rules for other activities has nothing to do with this however. Geocaching needs to be judged on its own merits

 

-- I found it in the last place I looked.

[+nincehelser]

I agree with what tozainamboku said. Nicely put.

 

George

[Bender]

Dang Snat, you blew it!!

 

Bender

 

Searching, for the lost Xanadu

[+Bloencustoms]

I'm not so sure that pitons and expansion bolts are damaging to the environment. Most of them are made of steel, which will rust away. They may be unsightly, but the only people likely to see them are climbers, who certainly aren't going to complain about a tiny bolt hundreds of feet up a vertical cliff that actually facilitates scaling the thing. I do believe geocaching is subject to some pretty thoughtless regulations which seem hypocritical in the face of other activities in parks. But as for fixed climbing anchors, there are many irresponsibly placed anchors placed in the past. Now, manufacturers are offering a selection of hangers coated to match the rock they will be placed in. You'd need a pretty sophisticated telescope, and a lot of free time to find a properly placed modern climbing anchor. Most of the big famous vertical climbs were done decades ago in Yosemite, and the valley is in a constant state of geological change. Every so often, huge flakes of rock shear off of the walls and crash to the ground. Eventually all of the surface rock we see now will be gone, as will the bolts and pitons driven into it. Plastic will last longer than steel in many conditions. While "pounding a spike into the rock" sounds horrible, casually dropping a plastic water bottle on the ground takes comparatively little effort, and benefits no one.

 

"The fertilizer has hit the ventilator"

[+WildcatRegi]

as far as pitons being damaging, I found this at Rock Climbing

 

Rock climbing in the 1970s underwent a great deal of change at NOLS, as well as in the climbing community at large. Climbers in the early '70s were still hammering pitons into the rock. (Pitons resemble nails or spikes of different thickness and shapes, and are driven into cracks in the rock to provide an anchor to hold the climber's rope in the event of a fall.)

 

Then, in 1974, in response to the development of a "clean climbing" ethic, manufacturers of climbing equipment, most notably Chouinard, developed the use of hexcentrics and stoppers (artificial chockstones) that effectively replaced pitons.

 

The "clean climbing" ethic was a response to the increasing number of climbers on popular climbing routes, especially in California. Thousands of climbers, all using pitons, were leaving scarred rock and wider cracks wherever they had placed their pitons.

 

Hexcentrics and stoppers are placed, not hammered into cracks, are easily removed, and leave no marks on the rock.

 

 

"The hardest thing to find is something that's not there!"

[+kbraband]

quote:

---

Originally posted by MuzzleBlast!:

 

Hexcentrics and stoppers are placed, not hammered into cracks, are easily removed, and leave no marks on the rock.

---

 

As a geocacher AND rock climber I want to agree with an emphasize what MuzzleBlast found and posted. I would never drive or drill a piton into a route and I don't any climber who would. In fact, it's banned in most Midwest climbing areas.

 

[+briansnat]

quote:

---

The rules are that you must stay in one of the Park Service's campgrounds for which you need a permit and generally pay a fee. Perhaps all geocaches should be hidded by the park service and you would need a permit (and fee) to go find them like using a campground.

---

 

They allow backcountry camping in many national parks. Yes, most require a permit and some require, or encourage you to use an established campsite, but people are not limited to camping in campgrounds in national parks.

 

"Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois"

[+tozainamboku]

quote:

---

Originally posted by BrianSnat:

 

They allow backcountry camping in many national parks. Yes, most require a permit and some require, or encourage you to use an established campsite, but people are not limited to camping in campgrounds in national parks.

---

 

Yes, national parks allow backcountry camping. But my understanding is that there are designated campsites. These may be very primative so maybe I shouldn't have refered to them as campgrounds.

National Park Service regulations prohibit

"Camping outside of designated sites or areas.

 

-- I found it in the last place I looked.

[+briansnat]

quote:

---

Yes, national parks allow backcountry camping. But my understanding is that there are designated campsites.

---

 

It varies by park. If you lok at 2.10(a) it says "The superintendent may require permits, designate sites or areas, and establish conditions for camping." I think that 2.10.(a)10 means that it's illegal to camp outside designated areas where they exist.

 

This comes from Olympic National Park's website:

 

Backcountry Camping

 

Camping is prohibited outside authorized campgrounds within the Park unless backpacking at least one-half mile into the backcountry. Please keep the backcountry clean. Better still, leave it cleaner than when you arrived. There are over 95 wilderness locations. Wilderness Use Permits are required for all trail and beach camping, but not for automobile campgrounds. Obtain a backcountry permit from ranger stations and/or the park Wilderness Information Center. See the Permit and Fee Information listed above. Familiarize yourself with backcountry regulations before leaving on your hike.

 

Campsite - Camp in an established site when one is available. Avoid areas marked for restoration where small plants and excelsior netting have been placed to help re-vegetate damaged soil.

 

"Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois"

[+Team GPSaxophone]

quote:

---

Originally posted by BloenCustoms:

I'm not so sure that pitons and expansion bolts are damaging to the environment... They may be unsightly, but the only people likely to see them are climbers...

---

 

Do you just leave your geocaches out in the open then? Most caches I've found are concealed from the view of the casual passer-by.

 

Took sun from sky, left world in eternal darkness

[+Team OUTSID4EVR]

Ecological impact from a geocache is no more than backcountry camping, or many other permitted activities. This may not be true if the cache is near the visitor center and generates a lot of finds. I think most of us see some inconsistencies in the park policy of allowing certain activities while banning others.

 

It's all about numbers and clout. Climbers and other user-groups have more "pull" with the NPS than a handfull of geocachers. Therefore, the parks will not change their policy until enough noise is made. Maybe it's time to start shouting???

[+Bloencustoms]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Team GPSaxophone:

 

Do you just leave your geocaches out in the open then? Most caches I've found are concealed from the view of the casual passer-by.

 

---

 

Of course I don't leave them in the open. I'm trying to hide them. Climbing anchors (fixed or otherwise) aren't part of a game of hide and seek. You are not likely to see a climbing anchor unless you are very close, or actually suspended from it. As previous posters have stated, almost all modern anchors are removed after use. Your post seems to imply that the fact that something is visible makes it damaging. I don't see how a thirty year old bolt three hundred feet up a cliff is damaging anything other than the appearance of the rock as observed from a few feet away. I'd like to see a study showing how those old bolts actually harmed some habitat or something. It would be tough to prove, and I think a lot of people search too hard to find fault with other's activities and pastimes, caching included.

 

"The fertilizer has hit the ventilator"

[+bigredmed]

quote:

---

Originally posted by OUTSID4EVR:

Ecological impact from a geocache is no more than backcountry camping, or many other permitted activities. This may not be true if the cache is near the visitor center and generates a lot of finds. I think most of us see some inconsistencies in the park policy of allowing certain activities while banning others.

 

It's all about numbers and clout. Climbers and other user-groups have more "pull" with the NPS than a handfull of geocachers. Therefore, the parks will not change their policy until enough noise is made. Maybe it's time to start shouting???

---

 

Yep. The time to start some sort of organized discussion with the NPS/FWS/BLM is at hand. If they can issue a permit to leave bolts in the rocks, they can issue a permit to leave a geocache.

 

I tried the NPS website and found no meaningful contact info. There is a comment form, but after placing a comment, I received a webpage basically telling all users that they would not gaurantee that anyone would read it.

 

Anyone have any inside track?

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nebraskache/