RRC Archives

I appreciate your long posts, Shannon. And I commend your motivation and efforts.

You own a very difficult position, it seems to me. You're someone a lot of people love, hate, appreciate, complain to, praise, insult, .....and all you really want to do is climb.

I may not have time to be active in the RRGCC but I greatly appreciate the coalition for attempting to preserve climbing in the gorge. You are doing good things for climbing.

And for what it's worth....THANKS.

Shannon,
You are doing a fantastic job for the Red.
You have raised the bar on the "get involved" theory and you strongly stand for what you believe in: protecting our climbing.

It would be really nice to see more people placing actions in front of their mouths.

To date, I am still amazed that the very first donation came from someone in Colorado, someone with a true love for the sport, someone who wanted to ensure CLIMBERS would always be able to climb "Bob Marley" as well as other similar areas.

Thankfully, many of our local climbers are contributing to this same cause: The Murray Property. Proof is in the AUCTION STATUS of the www.thered.org

As a climber – just a regular climber – I wanted to say THANKS!

Shannon, I admire you for addressing the serious concerns deeply imbedded in a bunch of uninformed rants. I can't do that so here's my response.

TrueNorth, it's your lack of effort on being informed that makes the RRGCC's job difficult and demoralizing to its volunteers. Virtually every legitimate question you raised has been asked and answered so many times over the past 10 years, it really is a farce to say that the Coalition hasn't made an effort to communicate. It is ironic that you are complaining we don't communicate to you when you aren't even a member. And I'm stunned that it causes you such consternation about simply joining and supporting an organization whose goals and objectives are clear and good intentioned. Should I assume that when you go to the emergency room, you have to interview the doctors before you would allow them to help you?
Do you really have a better plan? Do you think climbers should just climb on private land until it's taken away? I'd be fascinated with your practical solutions to the problems at hand. Make a stand yourself, then take the flack like you expect Shannon to. In the meantime, I'll reserve judgment on whether I should support your capitalist venture.

[quote="flaredcrack"]Anyone else getting a sort of weird vibe from all this climber coaliton activity? The new site and all is great, but I kind of feel like the coalition oversteps their bounds and attempts to speak for everyone. Can't put my finger on it, but I'm not sure how I feel about all this.[quote]

[quote="flaredcrack"]I think the coalition draws more attention to climbing in the Red than needs be.[quote]

I think that flaredcrack is dealing with some of the inherent tradeoffs with any human organization. No organization can accurately or fully represent the views of all the members (and in a situation like this, where only part of the 'stakeholders' get off their asses and participate, it's even harder) Sometimes, we have to compromise and give up a few things in order to get the many things we want.

The simple fact is that climbing is important to all of us, and it doesn't have any sort of traditional protection on public land the way that hunting or equestrian activities have. Given that participation in climbing is growing, many people feel that the best way to deal with the problems that arise is to organize.

In regards to your second point, it is this growing participation in climbing that makes it so important. You may have been climing for more than 15 or 20 years, but odds are you are like me - you were introduced to climbing in a gym and fell in love. 25 years ago there were so few climbers in the Red that they could 'hide in the woodwork' so to speak. Today, though, there are many more climbers. We stomp out informal trails, we put in bolts, we fill up parking lots, we get injured. These are all things that public land managers care about a lot. Their natural first reaction is to just ban climbing - it's easy, it's fairly cheap. We aren't like hunters who can point to 'tradition' or the Constitution for protections (cough, cough). Public land managers are far better able to deal with one organization with a coherent message than a swarm of off-point individuals. An organization is the best way to deal with this. The Access Fund isn't set up to really deal with every local land manager in the US, so it makes sense to have area organizaions - thus we have the RRGCC.

Yes, the Coalition does get pretty close to 'speaking for all of us' because it has to. If you join and participate, then it is far more likely to speak accurately for you.

As long as we're discussing the Murray Purchase vis a vis the FS, I want to bring up (possibly not for the first time) an potential problem.

As an 'old skateboarder' I've seen an unpleasant pattern repeat itself. (You may dislike skaters, but lots of people hate us 'obviously suicidal' climbers.) When a town builds a skate park, no matter how bad or small or pooly located or with limited hours, then everyone else expects the skaters to only skate at that facility. Skateparks are great, but they're as different from real street skating as bouldering is from aid climbing. The ideal is to have 'both and', but the reality is that the authorities see the skatepark as an excuse to give skaters even more crap.

I have the concern that in the long run, land managers in the area will feel that 'it isn't a big problem to ban climbing, because the climbers own their own cliffs for climbing.' I know that that sounds crazy to us, but it is how 'authorities' often think. I know that we are working on a Forest Management Plan that will include climbing, but there are always 'excuses' for why parts of a plan can't be followed. There are a thousand and one reasons that could trigger such an approach: budget cuts, national politics, a spate of rescues, ignorance/hatred on the part of new managers, etc. Again, I know that this sounds irrational from our perspective, but there is a very real risk of this happening

I'm afraid that I don't have a suggestion on how to deal with this in the long run, but I think that we need to be prepared for it somehow.

As one who has met Shannon just recently I can honestly say that my desire to get involved with the RRGCC came from her enthusiasm, dedication and passion for not only climbing, but other climbers as well.

She is rare. Her passion for climbing is so deep that few will be able to understand, let alone share in it. Yet she gives her time (as do other Coalition members) to ensure that everyone can climb... who else is giving a fraction of the effort? I know I'm not! And, I'm not putting anyone down, just asking for more from myself.

I do challenge all climbers to get a little more involved... and to read the material made available, and attend meetings, etc. I plan to get involved much more, starting with educating myself as much as possible. The information IS out there I am finding... I just have to read it!

I applaud her efforts (and the RRGCC's) on taking on this monstrous project! I know it will be a success and look forward to climbing long into the future!

John, I have too much respect for you and Shannon to fight with you or degrade your efforts.

John: Do you really think, you have communicated properly? Is everyone in line, ready to volunteer, donate money? Are they fired up ready to follow the RRGCC leadership? Do you feel it in the room? Can you pass your offering plate and your $ 350,000.00 be there when the sermon is done and the offering is counted. Hell can Shannon, go on and climb?

John Maxwell said, "A man who starts down a trail expecting everyone to follow and no one does, Is not leading, but taking a walk alone."

I'm being serious; do you believe you have the support, the organization, and trained leaders and all the volunteers to pull this off? Do you really feel my concerns are unfounded?

Oh Yeah!
I can feel it too. Many are registrating for the ONLINE BIDDING.
Everyone seems to be "fired up".

That is so great! Thanks everyone.

Dammit, I'm feelin' a bit jonesy myself. I'll jump on the "thanks Shannon" bandwagon. I apparently was not well-informed as I should be, and I appreciate you taking the time to fully answer all of these questions. I should probably attend one of the meetings to get the fuller picture. One bit of advice I would give is that, in the future, you (Shannon) speak on these subjects and don't leave it to "others" who shall not be named. They tend to piss people off.

Shannon, thank you very much for taking the time to address these questions/criticisms. Your posts are not too long. I hope everyone is reading them in their entirety because there is so much to be gained.