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Was at military wall today, there was a group of people from Massachusetts being guided by RockMetro... They rolled in with 3 van loads of kids (close to 20, maybe more) and decided to put ropes up on almost everything from Reliquary to In the Light. It was a circus... They then went on to let everyone take turns hang-dogging every route, ALL DAY LONG! Is this cool? or am I just a winy bitch?

cliftongifford wrote:Was at military wall today, there was a group of people from Massachusetts being guided by RockMetro... They rolled in with 3 van loads of kids (close to 20, maybe more) and decided to put ropes up on almost everything from Reliquary to In the Light. It was a circus... They then went on to let everyone take turns hang-dogging every route, ALL DAY LONG! Is this cool? or am I just a winy bitch?

Did they let u belay? Cause then it would be cool...

were you there first? if i saw those vans in the lot I would have gone elsewhere. I saw them all hiking out and it was a big crew. if you were there first you should have laid claim to a few routes and not let them on them. btw, the routes on the left side of Military are really good and see little traffic even on busy days. shoulda gone over there.

is it legal to guide on FS land?

were they top roping thru the anchors..

if these two questions are answered, then you may just be whiney..no one has any more"right" to a route thatn the next guy/gal...courtesy sure, but you ain't all that sweet, ya know....

I saw the vans as I passed by today leaving from the Northern Region, and thought it had to be a madhouse. I was surprised they were not at Muir Valley at Bruise Bros. wall.

pigsteak wrote:... is it legal to guide on FS land?

It is legal if you have a permit from the USFS, "If you are using a paid guide for activities occurring on National Forest lands, the guide is usually required to have a special use permit. Please ask the guide or contact the closest Forest Service office to learn if your guide has a Forest Service permit or for information on obtaining a permit." Thes permits have restrictions on what crags you can go to and group size. Though I don't know the exact details I'm pretty sure Military is not one of the crags where you are allowed to guide and suspect that a group size of 12 would not be Kosher.

is it legal to guide on FS land?

Technically you're supposed to have a special use permit to engage in for-profit guiding on Forest Service land (36 CFR 251.50). I'm sure this rule is violated all the time and I doubt many of us care a if a guide takes a couple people out without the proper permit. I have no idea whether the group today had a permit. If they didn't, rolling three vans deep to a popular crag sounds like a good way to piss people off, get a hefty fine, and bring closer scrutiny to guiding activities in the national forest.

pawilkes wrote:were you there first? if i saw those vans in the lot I would have gone elsewhere. I saw them all hiking out and it was a big crew. if you were there first you should have laid claim to a few routes and not let them on them. btw, the routes on the left side of Military are really good and see little traffic even on busy days. shoulda gone over there.

We were there first, but started all the way on the right side at All Things Considered and worked our way left.

I also saw something similar happen at Chica Bonita one day last year, a huge crowd of guided folks (in vans from a climbing center) from Michigan just waltzed in and started throwing their shit down right on top of ours to get us to leave... It worked. And I'm pretty sure your not allowed to guide in the PMRP.

If there's not a limit on the number of people you can guide in the FS with a permit... there needs to be one.

20 people? nope, not cool. that's what climbing gyms are for.

Face it folks, this is the way of the future. More and more people are going to show up in groups like this . I thought we were going to have a climbing management plan? Wait, thats part of the LAC. Which I've been told has stalled because of the NFS. Well, My suggestion to you is don't complain on here, call the DBNF office in winchester. The phone number is 859-745-3100. Tell them that a rediculous amount of people are showing up with out of state guiding services and you want something done to quell the abuse.