Dear Fellow Climber,

The Las Vegas Climbers Liaison Council would like your feedback to determine whether climbers support or have concerns with the climbing management initiative as written in the wilderness management plan for the La Madre Mountain and Rainbow Mountain Wilderness Area. Your feedback is important in helping guide the future of climbing in wilderness areas for Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area. If you have not read the climbing management initiative already, please take a few minutes to review or website: LVCLC.org. The information is the rock climbing management initiative as written in the wilderness management plan. After you have read it, please click on the link below to begin a survey. Your answers are completely confidential and there is no way anyone can identify who is providing the survey answers. This survey is very brief and should take no more than 10 minutes of your time. Please feel free to contact me at lbuchina@yahoo.com if you have any questions or concerns. Again, your answers are extremely important to us.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=eUgP4wReMzw6hqGJ7Gb2DA>>>>>

Thanks for your time.

LVCLC

I wrote a long letter to the BLM over a year ago commenting on their 'ideas' for climbing management. Has something changed since June '07? This initiative is certainly appreciated, to keep people informed and involved, but if there is nothing new from the BLM, this seems a little dated.

Do I have to pay a fee for the LVCLC to support my opinion? Last time I checked they did.

For what's its worth I support the management initiative.

Andrew,
The climbing initiative within the wilderness management may be modified to some degree. The purpose of the survey is to find out what climbers think of the initiative so that the LVCLC can voice a clear opinion based on the user group it represents. The hope is that hundreds or thousands of climbers will take the time to review the plan and fill out the survey based on their own opinions.

Anyone have a link to the actual plan?

To get a copy of the plan, one way to do it is to go to the LVCLC home page and follow links to current issues/bolting, and you will find the BLM's initial proposal. It takes some time to get through it.
I think anyone who climbs at RR should look it over and comment, and there is a larger issue here that might not be apparent to most climbers. The FS ban on fixed anchors in Wilderness still hangs over us from '99. This is the first Federal land management agency that is close to finalizing a plan for climbing management in Wilderness, and it is very likely that other agencies will use this as a template as they contemplate their own needs in this area. Thus, what happens in RR might well happen across the country.
Check it out, comment, raise hell.

Aaron,

if you check out my personal page here on MP, I have the climbing iniative portion of the wilderness management plan in jpeg format (Rainbow Wilderness photos).

Same proposal, just the BLM may finally be getting around to it's next draft based on our past comments?

What's new here is that you are asked to share your comments with LVCLC.

In my opinion, it with worth everyone's while to read the whole proposal, so that you can see how the BLM proposes to restrict other user groups and you can think about where climbers fit into the larger scheme of protecting the remaining wilderness values of this beautiful area.

I think some of the reasoning behind BLM proposals for dealing with hunter's camps and with geo-caches bear directly on the bolting issue.

Certainly the BLM should have a sound management plan for the wilderness areas around Red Rock Nevada. But my reading of the proposed management plan as it pertains particularly to the control of bolting and establishing of new climbing routes leads me to conclude that the BLM is focused on the wrong priorities. It seems that the drafters of the management plan have indulged themselves in taking a side on the long-standing debate about the ethics of bolting. This should not be the role of the BLM as an organization or its individual staff. There could be so many other higher priorities in managing the wilderness area to preserve and protect the wilderness experience.

The proliferation of common use trails, the effect of visitors' dogs on the wildlife, and the marking of the red cliffs with white climbing chalk are more legitimate concerns than limiting the number of bolts and the number of new routes with bolted anchors and protection. Bolts are usually totally inconspicuous unless you are within 50 feet or so anyway. I support the responsible use of bolts to provide safe rock climbing opportunities, both for first ascentionists in establishing a new route and for those who follow. I'd like to see the BLM partner with the climbing community to focus more on education instead of enforcement of ever expanding regulations. (And I completed the LVCLC survey to express these same thoughts.)

Larry, perhaps I am getting the wrong message from the plan. I appreciate knowing your interpretation. It stimulated some thoughts that will take a lot of words to express. My apologies for taking up so much space to do so.

The matter of interpretation is fundamental to this issue. Part of my concern with the plan relates not only to how the plan will be interpreted and administered, but also goes back to the root of how the Wilderness Act of 1964 is interpreted and administered.

You explain that the Wilderness Act of 1964 specifically states:

"where man himself is a visitor who does not remain"
"without permanent improvements"
"the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable"

My interpretation of these statements allows me to comfortably take the position that a reasonable number of bolts to facilitate safe traditional climbing, for climbers of all levels from beginner to advanced, does not violate the Wilderness Act.

As to the first statement, placing anchor and protection bolts for safety does nothing to encourage a visitor to remain in the wilderness area. So, I don’t see how this facet of the Wilderness Act applies to the discussion.

As to the second statement, I don’t believe that a reasonable number of strategically placed anchor and protection bolts would ever have been construed by the original framers of the Wilderness Act as “permanent improvements”. It seems much more likely that the law was written with the intent to prohibit roads, structures and other facilities usually associated with the advance of “civilization”. In fact, the proposed provisions of the management plan give credibility to this interpretation since the proposed plan itself establishes a framework for the BLM to permit additional bolts. The question simply boils down to a judgment about what constitutes a reasonable number of bolts. Past experience with the bureaucracy of the BLM gives me little confidence in the ability of the BLM to make reasonable, much less expeditious, judgments on this issue.

As to the third statement, as I said in my previous post, bolts are usually quite inconspicuous, even “substantially unnoticeable”, except to those who are up close and looking for them. I agree that a rock face grid-bolted and festooned with new shiny hangers would be aesthetically displeasing in a wilderness area. Not only that, bolting on such a scale might attract hordes of sport climbers similar to those present in the Calico Hills. This would indeed be detrimental to the spirit of a designated wilderness area. I do not endorse and would strongly oppose the establishment of single pitch sport climbing routes in the Red Rock scarp because, as you rightly point out, swarms of people hanging around on the ground for long periods of time would have a large detrimental impact on the natural area.

I understand and accept that a bolt management is essentially guaranteed to be part of the wilderness plan. I only hope that the BLM will make interpretations on how to manage bolts in a way that is consistent with the original intent of the law (not as extreme environmentalists or anti-bolt fanatics would like now to interpret the law), is practical to administer, encourages education on good outdoor behavior, and does not impose unreasonable and unnecessary restrictions on those who are responsible in their outdoor behavior.

The part about not allowing bolts in the first hundred feet is irresponsible and dangerous.
Is the BLM trying to promote "R" and "X" climbing? that's sure what it appears like.

I'll have to comment on with them I guess.
I'm just not convinced they listen.

josh

There are many many problems with the BLM's proposal, but climbers (that's us, right?) need to step up and comment, and get involved. They, the BLM, have had public input sitting on their desk since June '07, so if you're just getting up to speed with the plan, you're on the late side. But it's never too late until the govt. signs off on the final document.
Thousands of climbers visit RR Canyon in a calendar year. Where are their voices?

So, if it's placed 89' feet off the deck, "permit 2"; 103', go to "permit 1"? That's a workable plan?

I like the hand drill method. This BLM proposal seems overreaching and overly complicated. Prohibiting hand drills is simple and effective. Is there a single high traffic sport crag in the world that was put up exclusively with hand drills?

My point was simply a reply to your question about what is "not workable". I think it is fairly obvious to anyone who would actually try and follow the "plan" that it is not currently workable.

I don't live in Las Vegas and so I cannot attend BLM meetings or easily give them feedback. I doubt that my observation that the plan doesn't work is hardly an epiphany. However, if it is then please carry my concerns to the next meeting with them. I have already filled out the LVCLC survey in my attempt to have my views heard.

I applaud the BLM’s efforts to actually protect and preserve our national resources. I just don't understand how micromanaging bolts is going to accomplish anything other than open them up to litigation, overstretch their budgets, and create an adversarial relationship with climbers.

I still don’t get exactly what the problem is that they are trying to solve. Perhaps bolts are the problem, but I don’t see how. Can someone enlighten me on this? Then perhaps I could, as Larry suggested, provide an alternative that might actually solve the problem and not create NEW problems like the current plan is going to do.