Showing posts with label climbing ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climbing ethics. Show all posts

Tuesday, 30 October 2007

Superior Ethics or Environmental Recklessness

My friend Toby has a blog and this topic has been dealt with there http://lightfromthenorth.blogspot.com/2007/07/superior-ethics-or-littering.html (albeit in a different context). I wanted to raise the question again as this is read by different people.

This is the first of three rappel stations from the top of Lotta Balls buttress.


The American Safe Climbing association has done a fantastic job replacing bolts at Red Rocks. They haven't retro-bolted routes (as far as I'm aware) but replaced old dodgey bolts with modern safe ones. The bolts on Lotta Balls are new and I would assume placed by them. Someone has gone to the trouble of equiping the rap stations with slings and rings. I wonder is it acceptable to bolt descent routes when no bolts were previously placed? Do we have to wait until the tree dies of semi-natural causes before bolts can ethically be placed? I for one, would happily see two expansion bolts here and the holly given a fairer chance for life.

Saturday, 6 October 2007

The Friends of Indian Creek

Indian Creek is unique amongst American climbing Destinations. Most of the famous ones lie in National or State Parks and are subject to camping restrictions, park fees, and are managed by Rangers. Climbers are generally a good crowd and whilst they form a more anarchic group than participants in other sports are likely to do, every climber feels a stewardship towards the land on which they climb. In Indian Creek the camping is as wild as wild gets. There are no amenities and no drinking water. This makes the Creek not only a fantastic climbing venue but also a beautiful camping spot, where you can co-exist with unspoilt nature. This situation can’t be taken for granted, and in a country where land access is a privilege or exception rather than a right. The climbing community has formed a unique agreement with the land agency whereby they manage themselves. This is to everyone’s benefit; it means that climbers get the unspoilt environment that they so crave and the land agency gets the issues which they consider pertinent addressed. The main concern is human waste, and has been solved by the distribution of “wagbags”. These are basically bags into which you can defecate. The whole process, whilst sounding unsavoury, isn’t actually too unpleasant. This is helped by the presence of toilet paper, an antibacterial handwipe and a lavender scented water absorbent silica in the bottom of the wagbag. Although I could conceive wagbag mishaps, for example falling backwards into it, or urinating in one’s shoes, I found the whole process relatively straight forward and I’ve avoided any accidents.


The pristine camping


The wagbag. Restop 1 is for number ones.

The hightech insides.