Gold Wall in Sonora - Reopened

The property owner of the Gold Wall area saw a group of climbers late at night with headlamps, making noise, lighting a fire, and camping at the base.  There is a now a "CLOSED" sign at the trail to Gold Wall.  The Access Fund is working on restoring access.  In the meantime, please respect the property owner's wishes.  

Dammit.

That is really lame.

Look for night climbing to become climbing's next big access headache, especially for bouldering areas

Man, I sure wish more climbers would learn to tread lightly and be more thoughtful. 

This is really unfortunate, such a good crag. There’s literally a sign before you walk up the the crag as to what is expected, most of what is listed is just general curiosity at a crag or being outside. Incredibly disrespectful, I can’t imagine what these people do at other areas if they think what they did is ok. I don’t think people realize climbing and many outdoor activities are privileges not rights and we need to be sensitive as to how we interact with these areas. As a community we need to figure out a way to address this  - it will continue to happen if we don’t educate our own community. 

Shit, Spent so much time at Au wall this winter and saw nothing but respectful climbers at the crag. I hate how a few knuckleheads can ruin it for us all.

Hoping the next step is not climbers ignoring the closure, climbing anyway, and further angering the land owner (leading to a worse outcome).

I'd go ahead and count on people ignoring the closure.

Mountain Project mods haven't been helping either. The Columbia College campus has been closed to visitors (climbers and otherwise) for a year due to COVID and several attempts to get a closure notice added to the page have been ignored. One of the attempts mocked by an MP admin. The closure post was timed, so it now appears as though an MP admin was mocking the idea of picking up trash.

Edited to add: Admins Salamanizer and Vicki have proven to be helpful in getting a closure sticky added to the Columbia Bouldering page.

Further Edited to add: Admins have not added any information about the Gold Wall closure.

A screenshot from Sonora access fund rep.

Not sure where good wall is, (I don’t see it on the site) but I think I have heard it’s on Table mtn. Does this closure affect other areas of Table mtn. like the Grotto?

I can’t see why adding closure notices to pages here is not a good idea and being mocked is even worse. That only seems to jeopardize future access by not informing people of what closures are in effect and how to follow them.

Only the Gold Wall is on private property, so the closures only immediately affect the Gold Wall and no other table mountain crags. 

Matt Schilowitz wrote:

Not sure where good wall is, (I don’t see it on the site) but I think I have heard it’s on Table mtn. Does this closure affect other areas of Table mtn. like the Grotto?

I can’t see why adding closure notices to pages here is not a good idea and being mocked is even worse. That only seems to jeopardize future access by not informing people of what closures are in effect and how to follow them.

Gold wall route info isn't published online due to a request from the land owner, so there is no page to post a closure notice. It is probably the worst kept "secret" of Bay Area climbers; arguably the best sport crag within an easy day-trip drive if you aren't strong enough for Jailhouse :P

Joe Manlove wrote:

I'd go ahead and count on people ignoring the closure.

Mountain Project mods haven't been helping either. The Columbia College campus has been closed to visitors (climbers and otherwise) for a year due to COVID and several attempts to get a closure notice added to the page have been ignored. One of the attempts mocked by an MP admin. The closure post was timed, so it now appears as though an MP admin was mocking the idea of picking up trash.

Well, that’s the first I’ve ever heard of this. I thought we addressed all the Covid stuff when it first came out. And who mocked you and why? Do you have a link or copy of the message? Because I find that really hard to believe unless there’s more to the story. Either way, shoot me a PM with the details of what needs to be addressed specifically and I’ll have it handled today. 

Salamanizer Ski wrote:

Well, that’s the first I’ve ever heard of this. I thought we addressed all the Covid stuff when it first came out. And who mocked you and why? Do you have a link or copy of the message? Because I find that really hard to believe unless there’s more to the story. Either way, shoot me a PM with the details of what needs to be addressed specifically and I’ll have it handled today. 

Nonsense. I've reported this comment for review about a dozen times. I also DMed several of the admins listed for the area asking for an access sticky, I believe that included you. I got no responses.

The original comment that was worth a yawn from admin was from a Columbia College student and climber requesting that people stay out of the area. At the time both the College and the State park were closed. The student expressed concern that people were ignoring the closure and risking our access and the health of our community.

To be fair, yesterday I requested an access sticky and one was actually put on the area.

Joe Manlove wrote:

Nonsense. I've reported this comment for review about a dozen times. I also DMed several of the admins listed for the area asking for an access sticky, I believe that included you. I got no responses.

The original comment that was worth a yawn from admin was from a Columbia College student and climber requesting that people stay out of the area. At the time both the College and the State park were closed. The student expressed concern that people were ignoring the closure and risking our access and the health of our community.

To be fair, yesterday I requested an access sticky and one was actually put on the area.

Hello - I saw it in the page improvements today and made the update. Once outdated it won't instantly be updated so another page improvement request might be needed to revise in the future. 

Thank you Vicki. That's much appreciated. Having one of our local areas closed is devastating, compounding it with the loss of another would be beyond belief..

Joe Manlove wrote:

Nonsense. I've reported this comment for review about a dozen times. I also DMed several of the admins listed for the area asking for an access sticky, I believe that included you. I got no responses.

Huh... that’s weird. I never saw one or remember a DM. We got dozens of requests at the time so it’s possible it could have gotten buried or forgotten. The Sonora areas not somewhere I usually admin heavily over though. I do tend to the Columbia Boulders when I see stuff though as I used to attend the college there and did quite a bit of bouldering in the Labyrinth there around 99-01. 

Salamanizer Ski wrote:

Huh... that’s weird. I never saw one or remember a DM. We got dozens of requests at the time so it’s possible it could have gotten buried or forgotten. The Sonora areas not somewhere I usually admin heavily over though. I do tend to the Columbia Boulders when I see stuff though as I used to attend the college there and did quite a bit of bouldering in the Labyrinth there around 99-01. 

Had I known that, I'd have reached out again. The situation has been very frustrating because climbers, (mostly non-locals) have been ignoring the closures and endangering our recently formed good relationship with the College.

Since we're in a thread about the GW, how about some access stickies on Table Mountain and SPH pages asking people to avoid it while access is resolved? It looks like the access sticky on the Table Mtn page is from 2016.

Is goldwall still closed or has it been cleared up that the people who did it are dumbasses?

Why not start charging a small fee to climb GW? $5 per climber, soon dude will be setting up a lemonade stand and taking his hat off as you pass by to go climb.