permit required

Does anyone know of another city in America that requires a permit to climb ice? Here in St Paul Minnesota the park service is requiring all climbers to pay a $25 fee and sign a waiver before they can ice climb.

Tony Vavricka wrote:Does anyone know of another city in America that requires a permit to climb ice? Here in St Paul Minnesota the park service is requiring all climbers to pay a $25 fee and sign a waiver before they can ice climb.

Your first question should be "does any other city in America allow - legally sanction - ice climbing at all within the property it has juristiction over" If you find one then you can compare details. You might expand your search to include counties, states and various federal public lands. I think you are going to discover a myriad of regulations and red tape. Many involving $$$$

Colorado Springs requires a permit to rock climb at Garden of the Gods, which is a city park (or atleast they used to). But I think the permit is/was free.

Tony Vavricka wrote:Does anyone know of another city in America that requires a permit to climb ice? Here in St Paul Minnesota the park service is requiring all climbers to pay a $25 fee and sign a waiver before they can ice climb.

That sound ridiculous. I can understand park user fees but to single out climbers is crazy.

Phoenix does not require any permits to climb in the city park system. Phoenix is quite progressive about use of its parks: equestrians, mountain bikers, hikers, climbers are all welcome to use the city parks with no permit involved. The same goes for Scottsdale, too.

Tony Vavricka wrote:Does anyone know of another city in America that requires a permit to climb ice? Here in St Paul Minnesota the park service is requiring all climbers to pay a $25 fee and sign a waiver before they can ice climb.

That is kinda crazy. It's my understanding that once you start accepting payment for something--especially recreation on "public" lands--you open yourself up dramatically to litigation in case of accidents. Of course I don't think that's a very good idea with something like ice climbing.

Full disclosure: I'm defintely not a lawyer. :)

--Marc

The town of Little Falls NY requires permits to rock climb and I would guess ice climb since you can do both within the same park depending on the season. It is paid permit $3/day or $20/yr.

kiamarie wrote: Don't be so hasty. Alot of it is about access issues. A big part recreation fees is to discourage people from being there if the area is getting too much traffic. We deal with that alot out here on the Uinta Wasatche Cache NF.

That's disgusting in and of itself. Essentially what you are doing is keeping poorer user groups from being able to access our National Forests.

Will Butler wrote: That's disgusting in and of itself. Essentially what you are doing is keeping poorer user groups from being able to access our National Forests.

We have a place called Fossil Spring here in AZ. A beautiful, huge flowing spring. It is free and easy to get to it. It is also a disgusting, filthy pig stye of a place because the typical slugs and pukes just litter it so it looks worse than a landfill. I will not visit it because of all the broken glass, old camp fires, diapers, paper plates and fecal matter just crapped in the open.

The forest service should shut this place down, clean it up, and then charge $20 to park there and use it, and also limit the number of people there each day. Yeah, I'm all for easy access, until the slobs and pukes trash the place into a shithole. This happened at Tonto Creek, where the private landowner closed access to a nice stream in a wildernessw area of the NF due to the huge amount of litter and crap left behind. My wife and I have personally filled a 30 gallon trash bag on more than one occasion at that spot. Personally, I think people like this should have their hands chopped off Saudi style. They disgust me no end and don't deserve access to such places. They can litter and crap in their own damn yards.

Sonic has Slurpees that are half off from 2-4 . . . otherwise I wouldn't want to pay for ice, either.

Basically Ouray has the same deal, except no waiver, we all buy memberships and are happy to do so.

Lake City has a waiver and also takes donate items and/or fees for the "ice fest" (which is a open-ended just climb some cool stuff type fest), and again, I have no problem with it, either.

$25 -- is that once with the annual waiver, or is that anytime you show up?? -- if it's just once a year, lighten up, it goes for a great vocation. If it's everytime you climb, well f that.

In St Paul MN there is no problem with over use, and there is no problem with trash near the climbing areas. In fact climbers are the only ones using the areas and the city has done nothing to improve the areas; no bathrooms, no parking areas, no trails.
There is no comparing the small amount of natural ice in St Paul to the climbing park in Ouray. I wouldn't have a problem paying a fee for an "ice park"
The city of St Paul does not charge for ice skating yet every rink has a paid manager, the city does not charge or require a permit to go sledding.
This is not about access fees, it is about requiring climbers and only climbers to pay for a permit to use the city parks.

Tradster wrote: We have a place called Fossil Spring here in AZ. A beautiful, huge flowing spring. It is free and easy to get to it. It is also a disgusting, filthy pig stye of a place because the typical slugs and pukes just litter it so it looks worse than a landfill. I will not visit it because of all the broken glass, old camp fires, diapers, paper plates and fecal matter just crapped in the open. The forest service should shut this place down, clean it up, and then charge $20 to park there and use it, and also limit the number of people there each day. Yeah, I'm all for easy access, until the slobs and pukes trash the place into a shithole. This happened at Tonto Creek, where the private landowner closed access to a nice stream in a wildernessw area of the NF due to the huge amount of litter and crap left behind. My wife and I have personally filled a 30 gallon trash bag on more than one occasion at that spot. Personally, I think people like this should have their hands chopped off Saudi style. They disgust me no end and don't deserve access to such places. They can litter and crap in their own damn yards.

Access fees still penalize the lower income group.

I think a simpler solution would be to hire rangers who subsidize their incomes by fining the living hell out of offenders, target said rangers to problem spots, make the fines prohibitive, repeat. Move the rangers to places as needed. If people were regularly getting 1000 dollar fines for littering and the money was used to pay for the ranger's salaries and park's upkeep the problem would be solved in a cost effective manner.

Problem solved and no one ends up deciding who is and isn't allowed in our natural places.

Hunters pay a fee in Iowa, and I still end up picking up hundreds of shell casings and beer cans every year, I hardly think that money goes to land stewardship.

In America, we think that money will solve all our problems, A fee would not make the ice any more safe to climb. Futhermore, what is the problem that the money is trying to solve?
In china, there are some 40 capital punishments, oddly littering is not one of them. A better "punishment" for littering would be to have the litterer take a group of girl/boy scouts on a mission to clean up 1000 pounds of litter. Then the problem of the litter would be solved and all the bureaucratic waste would be avoided. Plus the scouts could earn a badge and a valuable lesson.

Obviously, it is best to ask your employees (government) for permission (permit/license) to recreate on your (public) land and pay money to do so.

No thank you!

A few more items that penalize the lower income group from climbing ice, most of which exceed the $25 permit, assuming the permit is good for the entire ice season: harness, helmet, synthetic clothing, gloves, mountaineering boots, crampons, ice axes, rope, biners, slings, webbing, screws, backpack, transportation, food, and/or hospitalization.

What a minute, I wasn't poor until I bought all this crap! Now, I can't afford the $25 climbing permit. Aaagh! The government is oppressing me!

Marc H wrote: That is kinda crazy. It's my understanding that once you start accepting payment for something--especially recreation on "public" lands--you open yourself up dramatically to litigation in case of accidents. Of course I don't think that's a very good idea with something like ice climbing. Full disclosure: I'm defintely not a lawyer. :) --Marc

A private entity? Maybe. A city? Definitely not. Governmental bodies have sovereign immunity.

Ben Cassedy wrote: A private entity? Maybe. A city? Definitely not. Governmental bodies have sovereign immunity.

This depends upon state laws, each one is some what different. In Wisco there are not permits/fees for climbing on state land like Devils Lake (it is not even a 'designated use') in order to avoid opening the state up to liability for 'maintaining' the resource. Climbing at one of the local county parks was banned for this reason, and to avoid the county expense for rescue.

Merlin wrote: Access fees still penalize the lower income group. I think a simpler solution would be to hire rangers who subsidize their incomes by fining the living hell out of offenders, target said rangers to problem spots, make the fines prohibitive, repeat. Move the rangers to places as needed. If people were regularly getting 1000 dollar fines for littering and the money was used to pay for the ranger's salaries and park's upkeep the problem would be solved in a cost effective manner. Problem solved and no one ends up deciding who is and isn't allowed in our natural places.

You've got to be kidding if you think the Forest Service can afford to send rangers out to give nothing but littering tickets. They don't even have the resources to maintain the road system here in AZ in the NFs. Charging a fee and limiting the number of users is really the only way it is going to work. Besides, just because you are 'poor' doesn't mean you shouldn't pay. Hell, nearly 30% of the population don't pay federal income tax, but they get to use all the services others of us pay taxes to use such facilities. The solution is to charge people for access and they will appreciate it much more. If it is free, the slobs & pukes will just turn it into another shithole, like they do now. By the way, how do you figure a poor person littering is going to be able to pay a $1000 fine, if and when they might be caught? My solution is proactive, your's is reactive.

Ron L Long wrote: This depends upon state laws, each one is some what different.

Minnesota, at least, has sovereign immunity for municipalities. Of course, sovereign immunity isn't an absolute bar to recovery against a governmental entity, but it makes recovery very difficult. Effectively then, I don't really think the city is really exposing itself to liability by charging a fee.

Ron L Long wrote: In Wisco there are not permits/fees for climbing on state land like Devils Lake (it is not even a 'designated use') in order to avoid opening the state up to liability for 'maintaining' the resource. Climbing at one of the local county parks was banned for this reason, and to avoid the county expense for rescue.

Can you cite a source for your claim, i.e., the claim that Wisconsin state parks charge no fee due to liability exposure for maintaining the resource?

I will admit I'm not well versed in either Wisconsin or Minnesota state law, but in my quick research Minnesota does seem to have typical sovereign immunity standards.

Edit: found this for Wisconsin:

390. Summarizes Wisconsin's recreational immunity statute, sec. 895.52, which provides municipalities with broad immunity from liability for the death or injury of a person engaged in a recreational activity on municipal property. Also summarizes significant court decisions interpreting the statute. 1/31/02.

Link{24668778-288B-41DB-9165-D58186BD178A}&DE={FD6947C5-CE1C-4755-A31A-CF7F98D3EBFA}

Ok, another update (since my last post editing got all fubar'd).

I checked and Minnesota's recreational use statute includes 'municipal power agencies' within its purview. I don't know the precise definition of a MN MPA, but if the land in question is indeed owned by a MN MPA, then I would have to agree with Mark that charging a fee would expose the MPA to potential liability.

Assuming the land in question owned by a municipality proper (or a county or the state), then I think my original assessment of governmental immunity would be correct.

In case you can't tell, I'm bored as shit here at work.