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Over the past couple years, and more recently, inaccurate accusations and cheap shots on this forum, by persons whom Liz and I once very much liked and respected highly, have caused us to put on indefinite hold the plans we were developing to put Muir Valley into perpetuity as a climbing venue after our deaths. We will be thinking long and hard about the future of this place. For those of you would love to see MV closed, keep it up - you're making headway.

We have always welcomed constructive criticism, as many of you could attest. We realize that both we personally and Muir Valley have a lot of areas for improvement. But, misstatements, outright lies, and inane comments by people who do not know what is going on or have no grasp of the facts in a widely-read public forum will have their consequences.

For the record, Liz and I have been a 50-50 partnership for 41 years. I stand 100% behind her decision to close Muir to local guide services until further notice.

Rick

This whole thing is turning into a god damn Greek tragedy and everything is going to go to hell leaving the rest of us with nothing else to do but try and analyze the the moral of the story. Reading posts on here now is no better than watching the cattle in Wal-Mart jostle for donuts on sale.

I think it is important to realize that taking this forum too seriously probably a mistake. people post drunk, high and without fear of consequence. If you don't want your feelings hurt by what people say don't read the posts. Just a thought. No one wants to see you close your property to climbing but it seems like you are using that threat as a way to stop all dissent to your policies

Im-Not-There, Don't be sorry. If Muir can be closed on a whim, then the community should think twice about putting any more work / money into muir. If Rick is going to be the "I am taking my ball and going home" type over a little bit of on court contact, then maybe we shouldn't be very supportive. Rick, if you are going to close muir, then do it. But, don't try to hold that over the heads of the climbing community because you can't control everyones wors and actions. Why not just make the "shut down this site, or I will close Muir" post because that seems to be kinda what you want.

Or, why not go ahead and make a land trust or something like that for Muir? Get a board of directors, give yourself exclusive guiding privileges as part of the deal. Then you don't have to worry about the day to day crap that goes on - you can just climb, guide, and enjoy life. There is no doubt that when you first bought muir, it was yours and yours alone. But, in the years since, the community has given thousands of hours and dollars toward the development of Muir, and for you to threaten to shut it down over some words the internet is just lame and an insult to those that have put in a lot of work down there.

I wasn't gonna weigh in on this, but I feel like maybe I should.

A. Its funny to me that people chastise one person for "taking the board too seriously", then they get all up in arms about what that person said. Hipocrisy much?

B. This has obviously gotten out of hand. I was at Miguels on Friday night when a discussion began about this subject. RRO was present, and didn't say a single bad word about the situation. Seems to me that if all the people on this board hadn't had "knee jerk reactions", then it never would have spiraled this far. The main people involved would quite possibly have worked it out for the best. I know alot of us are friends of RRO and TNO, but maybe its time to stop trying to fight the fight for your friends, and just support them when they need it.

C. This is a small community. In a larger city, there wouldn't have been a damn thing that could have been done if someone decided to offer free services. Happens all the time. May not be the most friendly way to do things... but its not uncommon. RRO and TNO handled it correctly. The most of you acted like the world was over. Get out more. Life isn't all roses.

D. Rockclimbing is way more fun than drama. Even in 215 degree weather.

Wes,

Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions. You've offered up some good points, but because you haven't been privy to some of the actual numbers, I'll make a couple clarifications:

1. We would never close Muir on a whim. We have too much invested- blood, sweat, tears, and $. But, some of the flack we've received over the past few years goes way beyond what you characterize as "court contact." And we didn't take up this project to be subjected to continual verbal abuse and untrue, in fact, libelous statements on a very widely-read public forum. None of you would want the emotional stress we've been through in the last couple days. We are hopeful and optimistic that it won't continue. I hope I've learned that if I have something important to announce, for Pete's sake, never post it on this forum!

2. You've made a good point on the dollars and effort that volunteers have given to Muir. Liz and I don't take this lightly and are ENORMOUSLY appreciative of the donations and efforts of a bunch of wonderful people. However, donations (time & money) are more into hundreds of dollars and hours - not thousands, as you suggest. There have been no donations to Muir Valley as Liz and I do not accept these, but we are grateful to the donations made to the Friends of Muir Valley support group. Let's put this in perspective. During 2007 donations to FoMV totaled $970. An accurate estimate of 10,600 climbers visited MV in 2007. That comes out to 9 cents per visitor-day. Of course, each visitor creates far more than 9 cents in expenses, as I'm sure you can imagine. It would take 11 years of $970-per-year donations just to pay for the approach road we just finished. (Naturally, FoMV was not asked to pay for this construction.) So, the bottom line is that far more has been taken from than is given to MV and its owners. And the important point I want to make here is that we are perfectly fine with this imbalance. We planned it would be like this when we went in five years ago. We saw this as our opportunity to give something back to the climbing community. What we didn't expect (albeit naively) was the surprisingly and continual heavy flack we were flying into.

Thanks again, Wes, for expressing your thoughts and suggestions.

Rick

Wes wrote:Im-Not-There, Don't be sorry. If Muir can be closed on a whim, then the community should think twice about putting any more work / money into muir. If Rick is going to be the "I am taking my ball and going home" type over a little bit of on court contact, then maybe we shouldn't be very supportive. Rick, if you are going to close muir, then do it. But, don't try to hold that over the heads of the climbing community because you can't control everyones wors and actions. Why not just make the "shut down this site, or I will close Muir" post because that seems to be kinda what you want.

Or, why not go ahead and make a land trust or something like that for Muir? Get a board of directors, give yourself exclusive guiding privileges as part of the deal. Then you don't have to worry about the day to day crap that goes on - you can just climb, guide, and enjoy life. There is no doubt that when you first bought muir, it was yours and yours alone. But, in the years since, the community has given thousands of hours and dollars toward the development of Muir, and for you to threaten to shut it down over some words the internet is just lame and an insult to those that have put in a lot of work down there.

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I know I have no right, what-so-ever, to weigh in here. Because I am not the Webers or RRO or TNO.
However, I have been one of the few, it seems, to protest and "raise a stink" about the keyboard warriors that frequent this website. There is no one else to blame here but them.
I am one of those 10,000 climbers that visited Muir in the last year, and everytime I pass the donation box I drop all the change I have in it. (That means I have donate more than a muir 10 cents over the past few years). I have also donated my time and worked beside RRO in person to help the climbing community and communial access to the areas we all climb at.
This forum is now at it's lowest I have ever seen it. Calling into question the people who have given the most, whay more than my few cents and hours, and made it better for us all. This is the reason why I have felt the way I have about redriverclimbing forums.
The people who are not involved are always the first to make the biggest problems. If there is a problem in this community, it lies in these forums, the people who frequent and comment the most, and the administrators that allow it.

But I believe in Democracy and Descension. So, live on being the keyboard warriors you are, make some comment about a gumby joke, (or call out my spelling). But I am done responding and commenting on these forums. (I am sure I will see some dumbass say how glad he is to see me go).
I think the best response is to boycott this website, and if we lose the chance to climb in Muir or Matt and Amy are financially burdened anymore than they already are, it is due to this website.

a muir 10 cents

That is a nice pun!

whatahutch wrote: I have been one of the few, it seems, to protest and "raise a stink" about the keyboard warriors that frequent this website.

Ummm.... so does that make you any different, other than you aren't using a keyboard?

This forum is now at it's lowest I have ever seen it.

You must not have been around very long...

If there is a problem in this community, it lies in these forums, the people who frequent and comment the most, and the administrators that allow it.

Also, if there is a place to raise money in a hurry, it lies in this forum. If there is a place to let people know of a safety hazard, it lies in this forum. If there is a place to find your lost wallet and wedding ring, it lies in this forum. If there is a place to rally the troops, it lies in this forum. You have to take the bad with the good.

I am done responding and commenting on these forums.

Pray tell, why did you ever begin?

We do have a good turnover rate. It keeps things fresh.