Acquiring access

[Corona]

You're right about the county mounties--they're some of the most bored and corrupt in the state. If you decide to have a look yourself, I recommend parking in the bank down the road and walking to the crag.

The base used to be quarried a few decades ago, so for years I'd just assumed that it was the same brittle limestone that you find around roadcuts and such. On closer inspection, it turns out that's not the case, though there are a few sections that are complete chossy shite (like the whole west side). I went back again today to scout the place out more throughly, and am a lot more enthusiastic now. The cliffs are higher than they seem from the road, and it looks like there's potential for 130-160 routes. I'm going to go check out a real estate office on Monday to see if they have any idea about properties bought and sold in the area. From talking to some folks at the local pub, it sounds as though the spot has been used for much in years. Someone had leased it for a while to for cold storage, but that's about all.

[Corona]

I probably still woulda assumed it was a choss heap, eh, if I hadn't been to Rifle...

[tomdarch]

Regarding the land owner's liability (and remember IANAL):

In Illinois there is a set of laws that were enacted to encourage land owners to allow access for recreation (in reality, hunting and fishing) that go a long way towards indemnifying the owner as long as they don't charge money for access. If I understand correctly, these laws are pretty common, and I'd think that Indiana would certainly have them.

As with most laws, they have a funny legalese name - does anyone know what the general name is for these laws to help Corona find them in IN?

Also, a good starting point for finding out who bought that property (esp. in rural areas) would be to call the main/established real estate office in town. Even if they didn't do the deal, they often know just about everything that's going on in the area. If you go the courthouse route, there's probably someone there who will actually explain how to go about figuring things out. As long as that county doesn't have a lot of subdivisions generating a lot of real estate transactions, someone at the courthouse may know exactly the property/owner because they don't have to record all that many transactions.

And just remember: "No, sir, it's nothing line Cliffhanger. That's lots of old-fashioned "traditional" climbing. We want to use plenty of safety gear like these big, fat safety bolts!"

[rjackson]

Three minutes from your house makes it cool. Old quarries are notorious for places to hang out for local bored adolescents. There's usually already access and plenty of cleared sites for hanging out. Plus they're abandoned so no one bothers them when they're drinking beer and breaking bottles, unless of course they can be seen from the road.

I think there are quite a few quarries turned crags in Great Britain, and I talked to a guy in Panama recently who had developed an old quarry down there. The guy in Panama had access issues though. Once a year he'd do the token gift thing, burn off the scrub grass so he could get there and then created and maintained some bolted lines. Then the guy sold the land and he was having to start all over with the new owner.

Could be a great place to boulder and get in shape for the gorge. The police will probably just look at you like you're a liitle nuts and then maybe just leave you alone when you tell them you're training. Not sureI'd ever want to make too much of an investment (time and money) on somebody else's land.

And again, good luck.

[Corona]

I think a lot of the guys on this site have probably already seen this place before, and maybe even have checked it out. The first time I did was 9 years ago. I went out with my father, intending to have a guerilla climbing session. The rock was so chossy we quickly gave up. We also had to stash our gear and swim downstream to evade the cops.

Nearly a decade later, little has changed. The local kids still use the caves to shack up away from prying parents, and the local law enforcement is just as bored and paranoid--problematic, since the cliffs are roadside and visible a mile off. What has changed is my vision of what climbable rock is. I'm no longer looking at slab, but at angles 45 to horizontal, boasting rock quality much, much, much better than I'd dared hope for. While camouflaged hangers and interior routes would likely go unnoticed, parked cars and leader screams definitely wouldn't; with a possible change of ownership, it'd be really foolish not to give legitimatizing access a serious go.

Sure, it's an ugly, graffitied, ex-quarry with road noise. But it also has the potential to be a all-weather, all-season, tall, steep, hard, sport crag 35minutes from Louisville. Hell, I'll climb anything over 3ft tall if it's THAT close to my house.

As for the investment on private land, that's been a huge issue with crag development in New Zealand. Years of good relationships with farmers turn sour when the owners sell to residential property developers. Like you say, that's always the hazard of developing on private land. But hey, for Hoosiers, our options are limited anyway, particularly with little by way of rock and blanket bans on climbing in State and National parks (and I believe on BLM land as well?)

And thanks Tomdarch--I'll try to find something out about these sorta laws online. Any recommended, searchable legal databases?

[rjackson]

Southern Indiana seemingly has limestone quarries all over. Is this the one outside Paoli? If so, let me know if you have no luck finding out about the owners as I have a few contacts there.

Not sure how the law and liability work, but what about purchasing the crag as a group and setting it up like a club/organization. Lawyers out there familiar with Indiana law? I think that's how the saddleback motocross site got started in Kentucky (www.saddlebackeast.org). Not sure if the concept would cross over, but figure the liability has to be about the same.

[captain static]

You might want to talk to your Access Fund Regional Coordinator: http://www.accessfund.org/regions/rc/IN

[Corona]

That's a great Idea, Captain Static. I'll do that. I spoke to a real estate agent about the place. It seems that the property is still for sale for $300k, and that although there were offers made, the sales didn't go through for various reasons, including liability. As for purchasing the crag as an organization, I think there would first have to be a huge amount of invested community interest (not likely to happen unless there was existing development) to come up with half the purchase price, even if the AccessFund Indiana could match donations. Anyway, there's a lot of good information for approaching private land owners on the AccessFund website.

The owner is out of town at the moment, or I'd speak with him directly. Actually, it'd be a lot better if somebody else could approach him, as apparently he was a former college friend of my mother until they had a major falling out, and they've not spoken for decades.

Maybe if the guy sees development as increasing the commercial value (like at Torrent...?) of an abandoned property, then permission could be obtained to bolt there? The fact that it was 52 degrees in there when I went bouldering in there today when it was 100+ outside has really motivated me! 8)

[rjackson]

So at 300k I'm guessing there's some commercial potential, or is it a large parcel?