Sport & Trad Closure at Torrent Falls

[Paul3eb]

Here is the deal.
We as a community.. failed to meet Mark on his terms.

We, the RRGCC and well meaning members of the community (the Terry in all of us) failed to get the message out to the folks who ultimately fucked it up.

We failed.

yep, in the end, no one to blame but ourselves. if people in cincinnati, people who work at the gyms, people who are just a couple degrees of separation from us all, had no idea about what was going on, then we failed. not "them". we say that we're responsible for the access, then we take responsibility for losing it.

[pigsteak]

man, now I am depressed paul....thanks for the bright smiles.

[Paul3eb]

all humor aside, failures are good, they're needed, they're essential to progress. they show us our weaknesses, show us what doesn't work, and give us new paths to take. without failures, success wouldn't taste as sweet. i'm not saying it's all happy and pretty but they're good and useful and not necessarily something that should make us quite as depressed as they often do.

if you'll excuse me, i have to go take a few tastes of my own medicine.

[redpointron]

Here is the deal.
We as a community.. failed to meet Mark on his terms.

We, the RRGCC and well meaning members of the community (the Terry in all of us) failed to get the message out to the folks who ultimately fucked it up.

We failed.

yep, in the end, no one to blame but ourselves. if people in cincinnati, people who work at the gyms, people who are just a couple degrees of separation from us all, had no idea about what was going on, then we failed. not "them". we say that we're responsible for the access, then we take responsibility for losing it.

i don't normally respond to threads like this, but here goes...

paul, hugh, and whomever else...i gotta disagree (to an extent) on this one. this is less a question of anyone failing, than it is a matter of fighting for a lost cause. don't get me wrong...i love a challenge, i love to prove people wrong when i am told that i can't do this or that, but this was broken in a way that couldn't be fixed from the beginning...

the notion of policing ourselves is absurd. when my son is acting up, i don't cross my fingers and hope my daughter straightens him out. even if she genuinely tried, he would tell her to, "get bent."

and that what happened...a small, albeit very visible, group didn't follow the rules. and, most assuredly, would have ignored them had any of us tried to enlighten them.

i have often told people when i coach them through the fire department interview processes that i can teach them how to make a hydrant or stretch a line, but i am way too late to teach them how to be a good person. we were way to late on this one.

i do agree, however, that failures are a key ingredient to progress, i'm just not hanging this one on me, you, or, even, pigsteak.

regards.

r.r.

[calvinivlac]

[quote="Corporate Whore"][quote="the lurkist"]Here is the deal.
We as a community.. [b]failed[/b] to meet Mark on his terms.

We, the RRGCC and well meaning members of the community (the Terry in all of us) [b]failed[/b] to get the message out to the folks who ultimately fucked it up.

We [b]failed[/b].[/quote]

yep, in the end, no one to blame but ourselves. if people in cincinnati, people who work at the gyms, people who are just a couple degrees of separation from us all, had no idea about what was going on, then [b]we[/b] failed. not [b]"them"[/b]. we say that we're responsible for the access, then we take responsibility for losing it.[/quote]

Some measure of self-assessment is necessary, but let's also be more honest here. The onus is definitely on the climbing community to behave and follow an owner's rules. That said, we might also expect owners (like Mark, who have a popular crag) to have realistic expectations about what climbers are doing and how they might behave.

I think part of the unfortunate truth is that if climbers were more of an income generator or critical to Mark's business, then Torrent would stay open. Enforcement might be tighter, as at HP40, but Mark would never cut into a critical revenue stream. Clearly, he's making enough via his regular business that climbers aren't that important.

I believe he cares about the climbers he knows (meaning the locals), but in reality, I don't think he cares much about the rest of the climbing community. Mark, if you do, then please let the climbing community work out something with you.

My proposal, from what I've gleaned here is:

Make people pay if needed. This covers the port-o-let and liability and whatever else. To say insurance is an issue is disingenuous. You most definitely have insurance to cover the activities of your paying customers, and they pay fees commensurate with market rates to cover those costs. We can do the same for our climbing-related activities.

I also respectfully ask that you realize the climbing community is not a regimented, tightly controlled body that can police itself. Putting up a few notices and expecting every climber to know about them doesn't seem realistic. We will have a few bad eggs from time to time. We need your help, in the form of signs, tighter controls and of course we should help pay for them via the RRGCC and donations of time, effort and money.

I know other people have said similar things, but this is my two cents in support of Mark, Torrent, and climbing in the Red.

Please consider re-opening Torrent. In the meantime, I'll take my business elsewhere. Fair is fair.

Calvin

[Huggybone]

I think everybody here is underestimating the sheer power of a yellow tri-cam.
That would keep everybody in line.

For all the sporties, that's the really big hunk of metal attached to a yellow sling.

Bad climber! WHAP!

[Torrent Falls]

Calvin,

Insurance is a cost applied to the business based on risk, which has numerous faces, and sales dollars generated. For this application, sales dollars sufficent to offset risk is not feasible. The climbing community will not bear this expense and provide a profit for me. Any lawyer worth their oats can eat a waiver up. The waiver is a nice initial bluff. Secondly, how many people have been on the defense side of a lawsuit. It is not fun. One can say, just turn it over to your insurance company. We'll the insurance company has to build a defense and it cannot due that without you. My time is not free. Therefore, the money generated by the climbing community does not provide a ROI. The risk/benefit is not there.

There are costs associated with policing the property for the nimnods breaking the rules. There is not enough money to offset this cost. Mainly it would be me, being the property owner, and I can make more money other than being a police officer. The cost would be roughly $100 per day to pay someone. I do not bring in $65 per month (on average).

I am just being a nice guy. I was still trying to be a nice guy by working this out and posting rules. Climbers, with the exception of the via ferrata, are not a profit center. This had not been a real problem unitl a couple of years ago when the RRG became popular. Now we are having a severe impact in my backyard. If it was just the few who behaved themselves, it would still be open. But I am not going to manage that.

I feel bad in a way, because I am letting some good friends down. But I do not feel bad to takers, dirtbags, and the scum who do not know how to conduct themselves in public places. For those that I do not feel bad for, For the ones that caused this closure, I wish that I could bring everyone that has been on my property with their dogs, foul mouths, shit, and piss and all their disrespectful friends to their yard and let us party on.

Note: None of this would have happened if people were respectful.

As far as this having an economic impact, well, we will see. I don't think so. My "net profit" on one boyscout is about 25 times more than one climber eating at my BBQ. Don't get me wrong. I thank you for eating there, but that is not where my money is. The via ferrata is paid for. I spend about $2500 per year in climbing gear. For all those doing math on my business, I have maintained over 5,000 via ferrata climber's per year and it is still increasing. The amount of climbers eating at the BBQ is greatly appreciated, but the climbing market segment is insignificant. What hurt me in the BBQ was Jeepers, locals, and Four Wheelers that used to come. I used to make a great deal of money on catering and weddings. I used to have sales from $6,000 to $20,000 per week in catering to corporations that used to come to Cliffview. Unfornately, that business has scaled back. There some numbers for you want to be analyst of Mark's Business.

[Steve]

at trad crags, this isn't a problem. it's what you're supposed to do. pee is natural, unlike babbo. in small, individual-sized doses, it belongs in the ground. so that's where i go. but the exact same behaviors get torrent closed. why? it isn't a trad crag. it isn't really even a crag. it's a man's yard.

Huh? Have you been to Fortress or Pebble Beach lately? Those places have suffered the same damage as Torrent. The impacts at Torrent are going on at popular crags no matter the who owns the land, no matter the style of climbing. The same problems that cause private land owners to shut down a crags can shut down precious trad crags on National Forest land. The problem isn't that climber's needed to change their behavior when climbing at Torrent Falls, but that climber's need to change their behavior no matter where they're climbing. While Torrent Falls might be Mark's backyard, Muir Valley the Weber's backyard, the PMRP the Coalition's backyard, and the National Forest is OUR backyard we all gotta learn to not fuck it up.

[allah]

And hows the business doing now? You must be roling in the money! You have everything paid for and everything, god i would die to have a business fully paid for. Good luck in your future business ventures, but it seems like you have everything totally under control

[Ballss]

The amount of climbers eating at the BBQ is greatly appreciated, but the climbing market segment is insignificant. What hurt me in the BBQ was Jeepers, locals, and Four Wheelers that used to come.

So apparently my money is appreciated but insignificant?