Buried in Muir Valley!

[heavyc]

I would suggest making the parking lot smaller and once it's full then it's closed for the day.
I also think you should consider closing the Valley for one or two days a week to give yourself and the valley a break, (and maybe a chance to enjoy the area on your own) On the closed to the public days you could also consider offering half a day of climbing for half a day of trail work.

[herbalist]

of course,if it's to much work...you could just close it to climbing.

[toad857]

You could put up a gate with a sign that says "Closed for maintenance until further notice...call this number to volunteer".

yeah, only like "the first saturday of every month" would be this kind of designated day. could be useful. of course, then you need a volunteer to manage the volunteers...

or even just close it down entirely once a month. once word gets out about this "Muir Valley is taking a day-off" cycle, it would alleviate pressure all around, not just on those days.

[Toad]

You could just put up a few gates across the trails. I hear those can scare away a lot of people.

[pigsteak]

chop everything under 10b.

than what are you going to climb?

[ahab]

chop everything under 10b.

than what are you going to climb?

one of the other 112 .10b and under sport routes in the gorge?

[kato]

Andrew's got it- asking people to volunteer will get lots of good intentions, but asking people to do specific tasks cuts to the chase.

[clif]

It seems for lack of support that the idea of social stigmatization is DOA, but I think publicizing and generating a system of positive feedback for individuals that help and contribute is being preemptively discarded.

Make it so that there are advantages to being thoughtful, considerate an
appreciative.

I'd like to get your ideas on this, Cliff. Rick and I have tried to show our appreciation to those who have helped by the following

-Publicizing their contributions and thanking them on this forum.

-Giving Muir Valley T-shirts to people who did special volunteer work or made major contributions.

-Giving special perks such as limited passes to drive 4-WD vehicles down to the valley and special exemptions to the "No Dogs" rule.

-Invitations to dinner at our home to taking them out to dinner.

-Invitations to park down at our house and use the private (shorter) trail to the valley floor.

-Providing a nice place for them and their friends to climb at no charge.

What are your suggestions for things we could/should be doing to show our appreciation?

Liz

Mrs. Weber,

Creating a legacy wasn't always so glamorous.

I don't think you need to worry about showing appreciation, but the (14000 visitor days must be at least from 300-400 individuals?) ~250
people who do not contribute.

This is apparently the same problem that undermines initiatives at the rrgcc. I just grew tired of hearing so much about individual climbing achievements (online spray list, points, threads, ... ) and thought that if the same attention/recognition was paid to the effort of making it all happen the 'lack of participation' problem could be mitigated.

Perhaps it is too negative an approach, but instead of trying to please everybody I was considering a public record that would recognized those that do contribute and by omission identify slackers (stigmatization)

This is primarily a way to solicit at least a minimal monetary tithe.

The volunteering I think is more task specific. I would leave it to climbers to keep the bathroom facility clean and stocked-(maybe have a lock on it and allow people a copy of the key as an award for efforts?)

I think the idea of a fee for parking is a good way to raise funds for road upkeep and limit reckless driving and overcrowding.

Open source weeding/small scale trail work seems plausible as mentioned.

Also, a celebration for the folks who get something done over the year could be hosted by a group of volunteers- a big grill, a keg, 50 lbs. of hot dogs or tofu seaweed sandwiches... ~300$ -a dollar per person? a volley ball and twister.

[rsd212]

Just to put in my $0.02...being a city boy with only a handful of days off each year I find it very difficult to volunteer at the Red after driving 7 hours and only having 2 days of climbing to satisfy me for the next couple months. I just can't afford the time. However, whereas locals can give the time it seems we should help out with the expense. Straight donations are fine, and in fact this thread is guilting me into donating to Friends of Muir Valley, but the fact is that it won't reach that wide of an audience. Here's a couple of suggestions for getting us city-folk to contribute:

1) Shirts. Design an awesome shirt. $25 donation gets you the cheap cotton, $50+ gets you synthetic moisture-wicking.

2) A bounty system. Theaters around here will often have a board listing exactly what things they need and a little envelope that lets you donate for that exact project ($20 for a filing cabinet, $300 for costumes, etc). Have a bounty system and people can feel more pride that they contributed to something that means more to them personally ($50 for some gravel, $100 for permadraws, $20 for lumber to build a bridge).

3) Parking passes. I just paid $35 for a Wisconsin State Parks sticker and didn't think twice about it. Either buy an annual pass, volunteer, or park even further up the road somewhere (or, of course, just climb at Roadside...). This has the advantage of being mandatory (with a loophole for people who can give time instead of $). Compared to any one of the state parks up here, Muir Valley is a climbing mecca and definitely worth paying for.

[StepLEFTskyline]

A lot of the comments I have read seem to be leaning towards limiting and shutting down access in MV. This seems to be counter productive to what Rick and Liz have so generously worked hard to do. If I am not mistaken what the owners would like is some help both through volunteer work and through donations. If everyone who cant volunteer donated and everyone who doesn't have the money to donate volunteered I think we could take a huge weight off of Liz and Rick's shoulders.

On top of this we need to spread awareness to people who may not know that we are climbing in someones back yard and that if we want to continue climbing here we must be extremely respectful.

I dont want to see MV become like torrent falls. I love that it is open to climbers and I defiantly think that it is pretty elitist to try and stop 5.10 climbers from enjoying this wonderful area. We just need to give back more and I think we will all be able to enjoy climbing in MV for a long time.