Corona Arch rope swinging, rappelling now illegal

ksl.com/?sid=33008751&nid=1…

I wonder what the signs of wear would be.. Just the traffic around the anchors? The anchors themselves?

"Feds stop random mindlessness".

Ya think? Crikey it's about time. Move on people.

This doesn't bother me. I've never done the swing. I have friends that have. I've watched the video. I'm sure it's fun, but turning a sandstone arch into a carnival ride is not a sacred right worth protecting if damage to the arch is significant.

People today don't seem to understand keeping things on the DL. If it doesn't have a thousand views and 200 likes then it didn't happen. Sad, sad, sad.

I blame the mormons that sold their souls to the deodorant commercial….

first the bad beer and now this. -2 for utah

gavinsmith wrote:I wonder what the signs of wear would be.. Just the traffic around the anchors? The anchors themselves?

I'm not trying to be a smart ass, but the signs of wear are the group of 20 college kids standing on top of the arch jumping off. Even if you tube wasnt around, there was no way to keep this on the DL. Once you turned the corner, if people were swinging, that was all you could see. My wife and I were there right after someone splatted. I'm not necessarily in favor of the feds making more rules, but in this case I'm surprised it took this long.

PosiDave wrote:I blame the mormons that sold their souls to the deodorant commercial…. first the bad beer and now this. -2 for utah

bwahahaha

And while they are at it, they should make doing anything with a GoPro strapped to your head illegal. That might make a significant dent in the number of fatalities in this country.

Just go run a line across and swing in a way that doesn't hurt anything. The arch is just easy so you don't really need to know much to do it that way. It isn't good for sandstone, not sure if that means the feds should be allowed to ban it but I think I would rather see them standing for years instead of possibility damaging them to the point of falling.

Here is my problem with this:

You can graze cows on almost every square inch of Utah (it cost tax payers hundreds of millions of dollars each year to subsidize grazing on public lands).

You can drive a motorized vehicle to almost every single place in Utah.

You can file a mining claim on almost every square inch of Utah.

WHY is this important enough to prohibit. The damage is nothing compared to cows, cars and mines.

Visitors had frequently complained to the agency that rope swinging detracted from what should be a quiet and peaceful experience of nature. Swinging creates a circus atmosphere with much yelling and whooping as riders sail back and forth through the arch.

"The rope swingers are a new breed," said Grand County Council member Chris Baird, a climber on the board of Friends of Indian Creek. "If one person is ruining the experience of thousands of people, you have to say there are other places in the desert to go swinging around."

Until last May, Corona sat on a one-square-mile section of state land and the BLM was powerless to regulate activity there. The Utah School and Institutional Trust Administration, or SITLA, put an end to commercial guiding there out of liability concerns in early 2013.

At the time, one guide warned that do-it-yourselfers would get hurt because rigging the rope for safe swinging requires knowledge and experience that few would-be swingers possess.

The prediction proved accurate. A young man from West Jordan plunged to his death on the end of a rope that was too long in front 70 people in March 2013.

Just days before the land transfer took effect last May, another man was critically injured after attaching his swing rope to the wrong anchor.

sltrib.com/home/2030361-155…

Often, allowable and prohibited activities are based in history and the activities that took place first. Jeepers before mountain bikers, for example. I am reminded of a mountain biker on the Sovereign trail throwing a temper tantrum when a motorized dirt bike appeared. "You can't be here! You have a motor" he screamed. Fortunately, the motocrosser couldn't hear him. I politely said, "Hey bro, not only did they build this trail, but they were hear long before you snot nosed, spandex wearing, yoga matt toting dufus from SLC or Boulder even heard of Moab".

As for the arch, this has been a quiet, pristine, majestic destination for hikers of all abilities to visit for many decades. This was one of my favorite places to walk or dogs. Often, we had the entires place to ourselves which is why we liked to go there. Sometimes, we would see one or two other people. Now, there are large parties hooting and hollering, in addition to the physical impacts resulting from high use, quite a change for the historical nature of the area.

With tens of thousands of miles of rock walls in area, rope swingers can find plenty of places not already a popular hiking area. it would be nice to restore this area.

Cows and mines have a greater value to a greater population. I'm not defending unlimited grazing or the environmental destruction mines can cause, but we have to remember that pretty much everything revolves around the almighty dollar today.

Rappelling the arch is pretty cool and easy to do even for first timers.

They could have added longer chains and limited party size and maybe only allow it at certain times/days and then people could still do something pretty cool and safe without damaging the rock / ruining hikers experience.

Definitely have to agree that large groups swinging ruin the experience for a lot of hikers. I know that when I did it we were there all day and some people probably thought it was cool but most were probably disappointed.

So it has been 2 years. Anyone in Moab know what the BLM decided?

I can't find anything more recent than October of 2016 stating the BLM will take comments from the public for 2 months before reaching a final decision to permanently ban or take no action.

Chris Schmidt wrote:So it has been 2 years. Anyone in Moab know what the BLM decided? I can't find anything more recent than October of 2016 stating the BLM will take comments from the public for 2 months before reaching a final decision to permanently ban or take no action.

https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/eplanning/projectSummary.do?methodName=renderDefaultProjectSummary&projectId=51142

The comment period ended at the end of Dec. A decision will probably be issued later this winter or early spring. But figure the ban will be permanent.

So how many of you commenting here have been up to the top of Corrobs Arch?

Chad Miller wrote:So how many of you commenting here have been up to the top of Corrobs Arch?

What are you, the cops?

Just curious how many people in this thread have ever been to Corrona Arch and seen the conditions first hand.

I've seen it. Think worst rope grooves in Sandstone you've ever seen then double it. It was pretty bad just from years of rapping but the jumping/swinging exacerbated it.Corona arch is a zoo just from the tourist attraction standpoint the jumpers added another level to the Chaos. It's one of my favorite Arches so I understand why people go there. I can see why with so many people out there they had to end it. More people almost always equal more restrictions / rules.