Advice for Developing Wilderness Trad

So I have stumbled upon an incredible area which sits in federally designated wilderness. Here is the problem: I live in an area dominated by sport climbers who will be hanging and drilling as soon as they get wind and the area will be destroyed. Although the climbing is in wilderness, it is also only a twenty minute hike. I have some experience with development, have a few trad lines to my name, but haven't taken an entire area under my wing like this. I am very, very psyched on the area.
Anyway, I would like to hear from some people with relevant experience and get some advice on how I might hold back the deluge.

well, seeing as how you are posting on MP, you are probably already headed in the wrong direction....

Start sending lines using traditional techniques.
Document thoroughly.
If others come afterwards and bolt, then it's on you to make it right.

Don't post it on MP.

slim wrote:well, seeing as how you are posting on MP, you are probably already headed in the wrong direction....

I can see why you think that but thats not the situation. Others will for sure post the climbs, bet your bottoms. Whether or not the climbs end up on MP is not the issue. They will.

You can't "develop" an area and maintain its wilderness character. Go climb it, but don't talk about it or write about it. Is it about the climbing or the ego gratification?

BHMBen wrote:Start sending lines using traditional techniques. Document thoroughly. If others come afterwards and bolt, then it's on you to make it right.

This is the stance I was thinking I might have to take. I live just minutes from the area and could monitor development (chop bolts) indefinitely if it came to that.

Oh and James? That is a nice fantasy but that's not how it works in real life. People will come and develop these walls, for sure, whether I get involved or not. You can try and judge my motivation, but then you are missing the point entirely.

If bolting is even allowed, it would be hand drilling only right? Sportos are way too lazy for that shit, everybody knows that.

If it is in designated Wilderness, why do you assume people who develop sport climbs are going to come and ruin it? I have put up my share of sport climbs, but I wouldn't take that style into a wilderness area.

secretsanta wrote: Oh and James? That is a nice fantasy but that's not how it works in real life. People will come and develop these walls, for sure, whether I get involved or not. You can try and judge my motivation, but then you are missing the point entirely.

Hasn't happened yet, why do you assume it will?

And even if it is inevitable, it's your choice to be part of the problem. Do your climbing, have fun, if somebody else puts up bolts, cut them. But if you publicize these climbs, bolts are installed, and the USFS ends up closing trailheads and trails to preserve the area, you will share some of the blame for that.

Just my opinion. I don't publicize secret or ecologically fragile spots when sharing has the potential to damage them or result in loss of access because of overuse. That's pretty basic outdoor ethics to me. Not everyone will agree.

so u want to know how to avoid getting a bunch of sport climbers at your crag really? Well first off i would say that they could contribute some great routes. but you do not want that. you want to trad climb there and not have a deluge of people at your crag. Um is it that hard to climb routes somewhere and not tell anybody that is not involved? or am i missing the point here? jus kinda confused man

I've never developed a crag before, but I have stumbled upon some virgin-looking lines and climbed them with great reward (reward made greater by the fact that I looked and could not find any mention of these climbs in guidebooks or on MP). In my opinion, more needs to be said & done about preserving the wilderness feel by leaving things undeveloped and undocumented so that other people can have the same adventure you're having now - look at the cliffs from afar, move closer to look at a line and then look inside themselves to see if they have what it takes to venture into the unknown. But how do you develop & document an area and mark it down as "intentionally undocumented and unbolted"?

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be too much room for leaving wild places undocumented on MP, the beta capitol of the world (it's like asking the USGS to leave a few blank spots on the map). I think that MP could change, though, especially if you have a quorum of locals who agree to not making a guidebook on an area (as with some crags near the Gunks) and who become administrators who can politely prevent people uploading pages on MP out of respect for the local no-beta ethics. Such a no-beta ethic is necessary, in moderation, to ensure that all future generations of climbers have an opportunity to experience truly wild places and thereby quench their human thirst for exploration. It would be truly awesome if you could establish that ethic with this "wilderness" crag you're "developing".

If the crag is as great as your are alluding to and only 20 minutes from the road, do you really think other climbers are not aware of it? Maybe they have already decided to leave it be since it is in Wilderness, or climbed there discretely and left it as it was. I have found that often a lot more people visit an area further out in the woods than you might be aware of at first.

While monitoring development (chopping bolts) is one option and probably at some point a necessary tactic if what you are saying is true. It is only a small part of it. You need to develop a set of ethics for the community climbing there. Spread the word to climbers in the area, ask them NICELY to maintain a traditional set of ethics.

Establish the first ascents of the majority of the routes in the area yourself giving you say over how the route is maintained. If there are too many to do yourself invite other trusted climbers that will uphold the ethics you would like. Keep it small.

That being said unless you put routes up shoulder to shoulder it will be hard to keep people from bolting the in between 1 and 2 star routes you might have overlooked. Even that people still will probably bolt over a route or a section of a route they feel is runout. Because they are too ignorant to contact the FA and discuss this. This is where chopping bolts comes into play.

M Sprague wrote:If the crag is as great as your are alluding to and only 20 minutes from the road, do you really think other climbers are not aware of it? Maybe they have already decided to leave it be since it is in Wilderness, or climbed there discretely and left it as it was. I have found that often a lot more people visit an area further out in the woods than you might be aware of at first.

Yep.
Everyone wants to assume that crack was virgin before they put their fingers in it.

secretsanta wrote: I can see why you think that but thats not the situation. Others will for sure post the climbs, bet your bottoms. Whether or not the climbs end up on MP is not the issue. They will.

you will need to put up the routes via solo methods (free solo, rope solo, whatever) and never breathe a word of them. Two can keep a secret, but only if one (or both) are dead....

If the answer to "is this place, this stone, truly that high of quality that others will definitly come?" is yes then develop for high human traffic (and mitigation of collateral damage).

if No or maybe just climb there and move on. like a fart in the wind...

be a trad ninja. thats my two cents.

gf9318 wrote:Don't post it on MP.

kinda of like the three rules of Fight Club ;)

Option 1: Climb everything in your chosen style. Document. Make info public. Trust people to respect the style of the first publicizer.

Option 2. Leave it alone. Let some other power-drilling violator spray their ego all over our vanishing, doomed wilderness and bank your good karma for dicey hook placements.

If you want it to stay pristine, DO NOT TELL ANYONE. If you want to develop it with a partner, then choose her carefully and swear her to secrecy. That will probably delay others from crashing your party. However, it is public land… think about that - public. If others find it, they can climb it in the way they see fit and there is not a fucking thing you can do about it. That could suck or be great, but that's life. Hearing you talk about sport climbers in a derogatory manner and mention chopping bolts makes me cringe. You make a lot of assumptions that i have found to be totally fucking false.

If it was me, I would tell one or two trusted friends. We would enjoy the FAs, and hope that others (and there will be others) would enjoy and respect the area in the same way we did. YMMV.

I hope that you have a great time with the new lines and wish you the best in minimizing climber impact in the future.

secretsanta wrote:So I have stumbled upon an incredible area which sits in federally designated wilderness. Here is the problem: I live in an area dominated by sport climbers who will be hanging and drilling as soon as they get wind and the area will be destroyed. Although the climbing is in wilderness, it is also only a twenty minute hike. I have some experience with development, have a few trad lines to my name, but haven't taken an entire area under my wing like this. I am very, very psyched on the area. Anyway, I would like to hear from some people with relevant experience and get some advice on how I might hold back the deluge.

What's your goal for the area? That would help in determining how to proceed.

More than anything I would encourage putting in solid anchor bolts that are well thought out and up to date. I've seen a lot of "trad" areas where the FA's put NO bolts in and that leads to people either killing the trees on top for TR anchors or retrobolted anchors which piss off grumpy first ascentionists.

Beyond that, develop the area so it's friendly to the public. Too much ego in climbing already so if your plan is a "hardman" crag with nasty runouts and what not you will end up having more controversy than if you're willing to just make the routes well protected or mildly spicy if that's what the area calls for.