RRC Archives

I wish I were a cool kid - I'm not even a Kool-aid kid and I like Kool-aid.

joe, you truly have no idea on what your talking about on anything you just brought up on the torrent situation. nothing. well maybe other than he should close it and let everyone go somewhere else. but dude, i can usually take your ranting and even see some tiny piece of possible truth, but again, you have wrote nothing valid in this one.

as president he did save the pmrp. its still open isnt it and doing very well i may add. but again, what does pmrp and torrent have in common beside sandstone. private/public, no comparison in actions, regulations or really anything.

bob didnt buy torrent to save it for you or for climbers. he bought it to save it FROM you and climbers. or maybe he bought torrent cause he wanted to buy torrent and have a kick ass place to chill out. let me ask, did you ever make a donation to buy it ? didnt think so, i dont think anyone else did either. its not a nature preserve, its not a [public sport park, its his fucking house, period. he can open , close, kick out and spit on whoever and when ever he wants and that does not relate to the pmrp one little bit. none.

dont think he asking permission. think hes telling folks how it is. if they continue to fuck it up, its gone....again. even a dog learns if you smack it on the nose enough to stop doing what its doing. climbers just cant get it

look it up, it is a law thats on the books. do you really think the conspiracy runs that deep that the rrgcc has made up a law to tell private land owners around the area ? really joe, thats not even a valid point sloshed ass drunk... my guess is if you had more than the shirt on your back you would worry about law suits as well. i wish i could find a cute shaking head guy, but you can get the point....

again you really need to understand what is done for torrent is done for a privately owned tract and has absolutely nothing to do with the pmrp...how is this hard to comprehend ? maybe a picture would help but i cant draw...

they can hate ya, i dont. but to say you speak truth on this one. dude, you have spoken none and really just showed how little you know about the situation at hand. but yes, again, we do agree on something...shut it down, i got a key and i aint even that cool

As a fairly new climber, I was not around when Torrent was fully open to the public. I do, however, know the story and it has always seemed to me that climbers had their chance to act respectfully, and then had their chance to change their actions, and when neither of these things happened, they lost some of the best climbing in the Red. I don't think they really have the right to complain about the consequences their actions brought about (and I'm including myself in that- it is after all, a community- in the end, everyone is still responsible for the actions of a few, and is judged as such.), and should be endlessly grateful to Dr. Bob, first for what he did for the PMRP, then for saving Torrent, rehabilitating it and re-opening it, even on a smaller scale.
And Dr. Bob, I have, every once in a while, heard people bad-mouth Torrent while at other crags, and I can honestly say that 99% of the other climbers have always jumped to your defense, explaining the entire situation and why they should be grateful they can climb there at all, and that if they have any respect and/or brains, they would obey the rules.

Joe's statement does have somethings worth considering. First, the land is Bob's... and that imparts a responsibility on Bob to manage his land as he sees fit. Try this for an analogy:

I own a prime parking lot downtown. It says private and no parking. However, I let people that pay me park there and my buddies can park there for free. Now 99% of the other drivers find other places to park downtown, but there are always a couple dicks each week that ignore my signs and sneak in and park on my lot. As the owner, I get pissed and take out a billboard saying, if you don't stop parking on my lot illegally I am going to turn the parking lot into a mud hole that no one will be able to park in, unless all you drivers police those people illegally parking. (In effect what Bob is doing by putting out this thread on this public forum)

My question to Bob... why should the 99% of climbers that come to the Red and DO NOT climb illegally OR legally care what happens on your property? In short, It is not there problem and they have no vested interest in trying to be part of the solution. Now if you are one of the few that rent a cabin to climb...you might care, but you are PAYING for the privilege to climb. However, it seems to me that the very select few that have unpaid for climbing privileges should and do care. They are the ones you should be asking to help you out, because they benefit from the bolts not being chopped. I would be willing to help out in a heart beat anyway I could if it meant an opportunity to climb more often than the 4 days I can afford to rent a cabin.

By the way, this is not an attack on Bob. Though I have never had the pleasure of meeting you, I have tremendous respect for what you have contributed to climbing at the Red. Send me a pm if you are looking for Stewards of Torrent Falls, and for few more opportunities to climb there I am your man.

Also wanted to add, you should have Torrent Falls removed from the online guidebook and future paper versions. The fact that it is in there implies some level of comparability and accessibility to the rest of the Red, which is simply not the case.

Ian

bob,
pay the guidebook comments no heed, most are just kids with nothing better to do than run their mouths off.
Thank you for purchasing Torrent and keeping it open. While it is "limited", and why shouldn't it be, it's your land
to do with what you wish. I enjoy much about the Torrent propery, about 5 years
ago or so my son and I had a very cool experience there. He outclimbed a bunch of adults and then we "sprinted" to the top of the bluff to observe the waterfull from the top, he really felt like he was on top of the world that day. He really gained a lot of confidence in himself that day and I will never forget it. While I believe Mark owned the property at the time, just knowing it's still open for someone to have a similar experience is reassuring. The climbing is obviously awesome and I hope to someday rent a cabin and have world class cliffs right out the doorway at first light, it doesn't get better than that. Next time I come down there if there is anything I can do to volunteer my time to assist you in anyway please give me a private message and I'll do what I can to uphold the good name of so many unselfish (rule following ) people who call themselves climbers.
Locals please do what you got to do to keep the morons OUT, expose them, ridicule them, poop in their packs (as long as that's OK with Bob), whatever it takes let them know they aren't welcome if they can't follow the rules!

RRO wrote:joe, you truly have no idea on what your talking about on anything you just brought up on the torrent situation. nothing. well maybe other than he should close it and let everyone go somewhere else. but dude, i can usually take your ranting and even see some tiny piece of possible truth, but again, you have wrote nothing valid in this one.

as president he did save the pmrp. its still open isnt it and doing very well i may add. but again, what does pmrp and torrent have in common beside sandstone. private/public, no comparison in actions, regulations or really anything.

bob didnt buy torrent to save it for you or for climbers. he bought it to save it FROM you and climbers. or maybe he bought torrent cause he wanted to buy torrent and have a kick ass place to chill out. let me ask, did you ever make a donation to buy it ? didnt think so, i dont think anyone else did either. its not a nature preserve, its not a [public sport park, its his fucking house, period. he can open , close, kick out and spit on whoever and when ever he wants and that does not relate to the pmrp one little bit. none.

dont think he asking permission. think hes telling folks how it is. if they continue to fuck it up, its gone....again. even a dog learns if you smack it on the nose enough to stop doing what its doing. climbers just cant get it

look it up, it is a law thats on the books. do you really think the conspiracy runs that deep that the rrgcc has made up a law to tell private land owners around the area ? really joe, thats not even a valid point sloshed ass drunk... my guess is if you had more than the shirt on your back you would worry about law suits as well. i wish i could find a cute shaking head guy, but you can get the point....

again you really need to understand what is done for torrent is done for a privately owned tract and has absolutely nothing to do with the pmrp...how is this hard to comprehend ? maybe a picture would help but i cant draw...

they can hate ya, i dont. but to say you speak truth on this one. dude, you have spoken none and really just showed how little you know about the situation at hand. but yes, again, we do agree on something...shut it down, i got a key and i aint even that cool

All I heard was..."I got a key"....So there you go, your're going to do what you think is in your best interest.


Dear Bob, It's your land do as you please. Close it. You have more than suffered you fair share in the name of the "Community". As the head of the antagonistic shithead comittee you are hereby relieved of all responsibility for your own action in the defence or preservation of your property....BUT, It is truely disingenious to think that the rest of the world doesn't see the former head of the CC closing his own land while the CC and individual climbers will go hat-in-hand asking other landowners to open their land up to climbers. If you were a Eastern Kentucky native of the tri-county area, would you want climbers on your land when climbers don't want climbers on their land? UNLESS of course this is some sort of ploy for attention. You're hurt becasue climbers come on your land and disrespect you and you want the climbing community at large to tell you how important you are to the community and how we never would be able to climb in Kentucky if it wasn't for YOU...
I'm not really for sure but I think if you dab a little chalk on that pussy it'll dry up.

KD wrote:Was it the online guidebook comments that prompted your concern or something else? With all due respect, Bob climbing has been promoted to the saturation point and beyond in the Red for several years now. Every crag is loaded up for the most part on a given weekend with nice weather. It's your land - close it if you feel you should - you can do anything you want with it. That wont solve the issue of entitlement though - the sport has become so mainstream its "just like an outdoor gym..." All the cool kids have come to play partly because they were invited and promoted to. Once climbing loses it's sexiness and once the cool kids get 40 plus with arthritis it'll go away just like all such before.

I agree completely with you KD. Entitlement is a larger issue of American society not just climbers. The Red is over promoted and over crowded but that's "the necessary evil" we will have to live with in order to get what we want - more cliffs open to climbing. We can't be grateful to climbers, pro-climbers and their sponsors for donating money to secure access then complain about over crowding, we can't be grateful to Rick and Liz, Dr. Bob, the owners of Roadside and the Motherlode and complain of over crowding. I have been very guilty of this complaining. But we created this mess and we as a community are indeed responsible for fixing it! All of us old schoolers can keep hiding at our secrete cliffs and avoiding the issue (again something I am guilty of) but that won't fix the issue or help secure access to the very cliffs we are hiding at. There is no absolutely secure access, even if we own it we may someday be force to close it! Many people have not idea close we came to climbing being prohibited in the DBNF during the late 90's. They were at the same point Dr. Bob is at, they had an issue they didn't know how to manage and so the easiest thing for them to do was to prohibit climbing. Thanks to the RRGCC that didn't happen. There is a drive right now to get climbing opened in Kentucky state parks, including Natural Bridge, BUT as state and park officials look at the climbing community and consider allowing climbing, what examples do they have to look at? Will our history at Torrent Falls and other private areas come back to haunt us? Are climbers truly setting an example of responsible land stewardship or are we showing them how entitled we feel we are to climb where ever and when ever we want?

As for the things changing when the kids reach their 40's. Us 40 somethings thought climbing would reach that point where it isn't cool anymore - we thought that would happen right around the year 2000. For every one cool kid over 40 with arthritis leaving climbing, there are two not yet cool kids walking into a climbing gym waiting to take their first belay lesson. This sport show no signs of ever getting small and many many signs of getting larger and larger. My fear is that we will wait too long to come together as a community to work on these problems and then the problems will be too big to fix.

Sorry for the rant...

there is a million miles of cliffline out there. How about we complete the LAC process and then we would have FREE access to it all. THen it wouldn't be over-anything.

I think the only thing we can safely agree on is Joe is a tactless douche.

I may be a tactless douche. BUT, more people than me believe the same way as me BUT they don't want to get dumped on my the regular suspects. Even If I was the only one who said what I said it wouldn't make what I say any less true.