Criminal Charges for Route Cleaning?

[slopr]

"A long and vegetated climb, which if cleaned up would provide the most moderate full-height route on the chief." - Kevin McLane on "Crap Crags" p.251 - The climbers guide to Squamish 2005

[jipstyle]

First, a big thank-you to Kevin for posting and clarifying his position. I feel much better knowing that no one ran to hide behind the skirts of the police. Legal intervention is something we should do our best to avoid because, as has been mentioned, once the law is involved things will change (permanently).

So Kevin and crew have legitimate (ish) concerns with damage to GWN due to rockfall from cleaning. Jer wants a clean casual route going the full height of the Chief.

If we had to pick one of the two routes to stay, which would we choose?

I'm really not a fan of hypotheticals, particularly in internet arguments, because they always derail the thread and we end up discussing irrelevancies. Both routes exist. At least, we hope that GWN still exists. .13d is far beyond my abilities but I realise how important it is for us to have and maintain these kinds of hard climbing.

It is also important to have varied moderate routes. Providing more routes for more people will help spread people out. It will also bring more traffic.

Moving forward (I'm a work .. corporate speak will spill out from time to time .. apologies), we need to discuss how future route development may impact existing climbs. This is the point of your hypothetical, I get that.

If Jer had done this cleaning etc without GWN being known about/climbed would that change the situation? The potential route would have been damaged and perhaps not even done. It seems like there is perhaps a double standard at play here because the route was done first. Where is the line where it would be acceptable to clean above and damage another route as is alleged? It isn't like we are talking about the Grand Wall here after all.

There is no double-standard here. An existing climb .. exists. An imaginary perhaps-line on wall that has never been climbed .. does not exist.

Climbing has always been first-come-first-served. No one would have blinked at Sonnie's sending 'The Path' on gear .. in fact, it would have been hailed as a proud send .. other than the fact that bolts had been placed 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, cleaning this line may have damaged an existing climb. The key word is 'existing'.

Does CRAG have an online presence? How can the average climber get an awareness of what is being discussed and or decided? (perhaps these last two are questions for both Jer and Kev).

Excellent question. If it doesn't, it should.

I don't know the answer here, but would guess that for the average local and roadtripper climber they are more likely to climb Milk Road than GWN. From that alone, at the height and location of the climb would make my answer to my original question (pick one) Milk Road. I did the corner pitches years ago and loved them, but the approach was not fun at all. Being able to go up from there at a reasonable grade is a great addition to the area.

Following this line of reasoning, bolting every crack makes them more accessible. At some point, we have to draw a line (in the sand, please .. no rock scars). Traditionally, that line has been drawn by the First Asses (heh). Changing that priority is not something that will (or should) happen on an internet forum.

Much furious typing has provided all the relevant views regarding 'bringing the rock to the level of the masses'. In the end, the masses will win (inertia and mass are bedfellows, after all), unless we all respect those who climb harder and climbed first.

I don't like the damage to the rock that was caused, but am more concerned about protecting people than rock in discussions of trundling damage potential. People can get hurt or killed. Rock can only be chipped or cracked.

Excellent point.

My impression from both Kevin and Jeremy is that CRAG may be a good idea, but isn't generating any solutions in any kind of timely fashion. When even the people on the committee itself can't get along what is the likelyhood that the committee will produce?

Committees are like unions: they're only good in theory.

[Mik]

boyd and smith have free'd every individual pitch i think as of summer 09? they have not done it as a continuous push (please confirm)? as a result, the low percentage moves, coupled with the fact that there may or may not be holds left to use would lead someone to conclude that the holds are gone (when observing the rock scars).

so the route definitely exists (GWN)