Tallulah Gorge Peregrines

BHMBen wrote:Not unless Paul builds that time machine.

Ben, you know that I agree with you and Paul on the underlying issues here. But I'm starting to get uncomfortable with the direction this discussion is taking. Getting bolting under control is one thing, but staking out an extreme position that crags shouldn't be opened to the public is just going to lose you the support of a lot of people who'd otherwise be on your side.

Will Eccleston wrote:So is it you guys' positions that crags should not be officially opened? If that's the case I feel like a total schmuck for having wasted so much of my life on this all week.

This is the kind of reaction you can look forward to at the big meeting if things keep going the way they're going.

JL

I have climbed a little on SE sandstone, so probably am not entitled to an opinion. But, how about something like a bolting moratorium so that retros, rebolts, and just plain inappropriate bolting can be sorted out area by area, and route by route. Any bolts that would go in during the moratorium would be chopped, no questions asked.

saxfiend wrote: Ben, you know that I agree with you and Paul on the underlying issues here. But I'm starting to get uncomfortable with the direction this discussion is taking. Getting bolting under control is one thing, but staking out an extreme position that crags shouldn't be opened to the public is just going to lose you the support of a lot of people who'd otherwise be on your side.

John.
If YOU can build a time machine, I am okay with that.

BHMBen wrote: John. If YOU can build a time machine, I am okay with that.

That depends on what kind of time machine you're talking about. If it's one that will take us back to a time when the SCC wouldn't disrespect you and your property rights, I'm all for it.

If it's a time machine that goes back to when climber cliques kept crags out of guidebooks/off the map so they don't have to share them with anyone outside the clique, then no thanks (speaking of entitlement).

JL

As I asked a few posts ago, are we talking about climbers on the SCC's property, or climbers that have wandered off onto Ben's property?

If the SCC was transparent, you would only have to look at their records to dispel our fears. When I first grew suspect it was on a trip to see the newly acquired Deep Creek. When I arrived my jaw dropped. Crap everywhere, hanging right in plain site along a Historic Trail. We only own access to the Historical Cumberland Trail so now that gives us a right to trash this cliff with no thought for the Hiker or other user groups. I have not had many bad sinking feelings while climbing, but this ranked right up there with seeing Boatrock blasted. The irony of it all. If no board member can show who bought Deep Creek for how much by who and who developed it we probably will be left in the dark. The devil is in the details. I challenge any current Board Member to show up with these details and show some transparency, otherwise I figure we will get another song and dance at the next show.

Will Eccleston wrote:As I asked a few posts ago, are we talking about climbers on the SCC's property, or climbers that have wandered off onto Ben's property?

Oh, just damn guys....
Since y'all are doing a good job of getting it twisted...
My simple point concerning Steele is that climber's and their dogs and their noise are NOT welcome off of SCC property.
My inside dog has been attacked, my wife has been bothered, loose dogs from the lot have breeched our yard, and the SCC sanctions climbing wherever....
It's wrong and that is all.

I am in such support of climbing at Steele that I'm meeting some new folks (to me) up there today.
Y'all both know me...
Attempts to marginalize by you two are lame.

John...
You of all people slinging the word 'entitled' at me is so laughable.
The time machine was a joke....
Most of what I see here is.
Especially most attempts to understand the bigger picture.

Word is that uptightness like yours is stalling talks.
I expected butthurt over the truth.
Can anyone answer Shannon's post?
Na.
Probably not.

Ben, I have no idea why you would think I'm trying to marginalize you. Seriously. You say the following:

"My simple point concerning Steele is that climber's and their dogs and their noise are NOT welcome off of SCC property. "

This was never conveyed before, at all. All that was conveyed by Paul's posts was that the SCC purchase and management of Steele was killing you and your family. So, in the interest of figuring out how to fix that problem, I asked if we're talking about people on the SCC property or people that have strayed off onto yours, and I feel like I'm being lambasted for trying to find a solution to your problem.

AND

Shannon's post has been answered before and will be again, since the info seems to have either not reached everyone or wasn't satisfactory. The semi-short answer is:

A group of climbers got a tip to check out the cliff at Deep Creek. They liked what they saw, and they approached the state and received permission to start developing routes there. But the closest legal parking was 2 parking spots a 5-mile hike away. This was all brought to the attention of the SCC, and much talk commenced as to how to get workable, legal access to the area. There was a piece of property available, but it was much, much bigger than the SCC needed for parking, and vastly more expensive than the SCC could afford. The owner was not willing to subdivide. Cody Averbeck had been looking for some nice property in decent proximity to climbing, and he stepped in and offered to buy the entire parcel and cleave off a piece to sell to the SCC at a reasonable price. And that is exactly what happened.

There was not a single thing about the transaction that was illegal, amoral, unethical, a ripoff, or otherwise wrong in any way. I was the SCC Treasurer at the time and I can assure you of that.

Also, the hiking community and organizations representing them gave over half the money to fund that parking lot because they also very much wanted a nice access point to that beautiful area, and that represented a partnership that was really new for the southeast.

Now, it did not happen smoothly or quickly, and both the state and the neighborhood wanted to "ease into" the process, and after people donated all kinds of money, the message they got, for a while, was "please don't visit Deep Creek yet" which I will grant you, sounded really, really bad, and left a lot of people asking questions. Especially since, right when people were being told not to flock to the crag that they'd just bought a parking lot for, Cody wrote an article about it that appeared in Climbing Magazine, touting what a gem it was and what a major success story it was. Super-duper bad PR move.

Will Eccleston wrote: SCC purchase and management of Steele was killing you and your family.

Sensationalize much? What I said was that the SCC being there was a pain in their ass. Pretty big stretch from their to "killing you and your family."

I tried to bow out of this thing and have a nice birthday and holiday weekend but some people just don't know when to STFU. Best thing for you to do at this point is gonna be keep my name outta your mouth till you can step to me at this meeting.

Oh man. Why am I still here? Why?

Paul, it was not at all my intention to sensationalize what you said. I was merely paraphrasing and meant nothing by it. And I would love to talk to you (and everyone) at the meeting. However, my mother will be visiting with us from Florida later this week. It would mean taking a half day off from work to drive down there and then missing an entire evening's worth of hanging with mom. I am still deciding.

saxfiend wrote: If it's a time machine that goes back to when climber cliques kept crags out of guidebooks/off the map so they don't have to share them with anyone outside the clique, then no thanks (speaking of entitlement). JL

The second time you've alluded to this. I really don't know what got this bug up your butt, but let's review a little history:

In the early '90s Mark Cole puts an article in Climbing covering Jamestown, Steele, and Yellow Creek--all with less than iron clad access. Shortly thereafter, access to all three is closed.

Rob's first guide ('86) covers Point Park and the Markhams (which is what we called Bee Rock in Chatt then, after the family that owned the access). Shortly thereafter, access to both is closed. Nearly killed access to Sunset, too. I remember going up shortly after the book came out and finding 50+ cars overfilling the little parking lot, covering up the (then) vacant lot across the street, and lining the road on both sides for hundreds of yards and blocking two way traffic. For some reason the local residents get pissed--go figure. Rob tried to play cute on the Markhams by saying, 'can't give directions for access, ask a local, but here's what's there'. Didn't work.

Rotert's underground guide for Cashiers, a cautious attempt to expose what's there, covers Rock Mt., at that time one of the premier and most visited cliffs in the area, but owned by the High Hampton. When crude, profane, lycra clad bozos start showing up in the lobby of a high end (tho' over rated resort) asking 'where's the rock, dude?', access is closed.

Jeep, Doc, Whitney, et al. start developing Big Green in the late '80s. Panthertown at that time is Duke Power land, a notoriously uptight organization. The word from Jeep is, 'you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you.' When the USFS swaps land and gets Panthertown, Big Green gets put in a guide--which might not have happened if climbing had shown up on Duke's radar screen before that and they moved aggressively to kill it.

When a group discovers a new crag, and the SE is blessed with lots of stuff that still is waiting to be discovered, there is the understandable desire to keep it QT while all the gems are plucked. Kind of like hobbits with mushrooms. But generally after that the desire is to make it known if, if, the access is ironclad. Certainly I pushed the N. side of Whitesides for years as the best place to climb in the SE in the summer, and the Netherworld as having many, what are now moderate, trad climbs. Pushing the envelope on access is one of the attractions of what I earlier called an anarchic pastime, but requires low profile, no trace presence. Usually, the land owner could give a crap about useless vertical rock, unless the people using it affect their life, experience, and liability--it is in fact their land. It works, until the hordes show up and kill everything. And such exploration provides the information of what areas to target for people like the SCC and Access Fund.

Cracks me up that you accuse explorers of 'entitlement'. Which entitlement are you pushing, that you deserve to be let in during the earlier development without putting in the time and effort, or that you should be allowed to enjoy a brief burst of activity before the person who owns the cliff becomes appalled by the activity and says, 'Eff you.' If an area of murky access remains quiet, well, you can still put in the time and effort to find it and climb there. If it is publicized and closed, then you can't. Insisting that you should know everything that's out there seems to me to be the ultimate, absurd, sense of entitlement.

To circle back to what we were talking about, it should be obvious that grid bolting, perma draw hanging activities in this context is guaranteed to kill access.

BHMBen wrote:These are conservation, ethics, stewardship issues.

This
and what Jim just said.

Stewardship is about much more than access--though it is a major part of that as well.

Will,
I don't know who your source is, but my message has been relayed repeatedly to Matt and, unfortunately, Bernard is upset about it.
The SCC hasn't given a crap about trespass here til I raised the issue.
It's taken some aggression to get the point through to a dense crew.
The prior owners moved, in part, because they felt infringed upon.

I just happen to know the channels in the SCC because, in addition to hunting behind the house like the prior owner, I am also a rock climber.
To the right, though...
Is it cool to roll over the line where a silent old lady from Attala has holdings?

Look at Jim's post.
That's all true.
Climber's have been their own worst enemy in Alabama for years.
Kool-Aid.
Koooooool-Aid.
This ain't a fairy tale.
We gotta act right.

Jim Corbett wrote: The second time you've alluded to this. I really don't know what got this bug up your butt, but let's review a little history [sanctimonious "history lesson" snipped]

And this is the second time you've totally misrepresented what I posted, so my assumption is that you either have a reading comprehension problem or are deliberately obtuse. Either way, I'm not interested in wasting my time explaining it again.

Ben -- it's painfully obvious that the SCC is mismanaging Steele (and probably other areas) to the detriment of you and other property owners, and that needs to be addressed. But with you and Paul continuing to antagonize people like me and Will who support your goals, I don't know how that's going to happen. I'm half-tempted to see if this thread can be locked as Paul suggested for y'all's benefit, just to keep you from alienating even more supporters.

JL

John.
Alienation is not a concern and I don't need assistance or nannery from you.
Let it roll.

You guys are spewing crap that I don't even really think you believe.

John,

Please don't lock this thread. But thanks for caring.

Lock the thread? Fuckin' A that's chirldrish..

Paul, Ben, Shannon, Jim.. Good luck. Looks like this is going to turn into a shit show..

Threads like this may be uncomfortable for those in power but nothing changes until individuals rise up, ask questions and try to make meaningful progress.

Don't stifle someone's opinion just because you don't "like the way this thread is heading."

BHMBen wrote: To the right, though... Is it cool to roll over the line where a silent old lady from Attala has holdings?

It is for the SCC's property manager...

mountainproject.com/v/10949…

Paul Barnes wrote: It is for the SCC's property manager... mountainproject.com/v/10949…

And just in case the damage control machine scrambles their fighters to take that down...here's a screenshot.

Sure hope this thread does not get shut down because it is revealing a lot of how the SCC and Southern climbers currently operate and communicate with one another. I gotta tell you it sure is sad and ugly.