The following is a post from the Mid-Atlantic Climbers' Coalition webpage, regarding access at the Catoctin Mountain Park, which was recently closed to bouldering:
“We are asking that climbers observe these restrictions to aid in our efforts. Demonstrating responsibility as a climbing community at this time will help make our case as we work to open up access in the future.”
“We are asking that climbers observe these restrictions to aid in our efforts. Demonstrating responsibility as a climbing community at this time will help make our case as we work to open up access in the future.”
How is it that these same principles of respect and responsibility do not seem to apply to the private property and crags of Franklin in WV, MACC? You know, where you and your members have been climbing on private property without permission for years and where you continue to walk right past NEW, signed “No TRESPASSING” signs?
Double standard, anyone?
Was any portion of the recent Seneca Rocks Chilifest used to alert and inform climbers regarding this access issue?
How about Bridge (or, as I like to call it, "Let's all go shit in the woods at New River") Day? Any round-table discussions there, between draining brews, updating your Facebook pages and slacklining, after spending your day trying to find parking and convincing yourself that you are actually observing LNT principles?
If so, there is no word of that on any of your websites.
If the Access Fund can't get the job done with the people it has in place, maybe it's time to replace those people with candidates who are both motivated and competent.
And maybe it's time for all those Access Fund members to start admitting that they really don't give a damn.
After all, they pay good money every year to be told what they should care about, and what isn't important.
A local government official has described the Access Fund as always being "a day late and a dollar short" when it comes to dealing with access, both here in West Virginia, and across the country.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that I am not alone in observing that the fine folks at the AF and their affiliates would rather create problems and then generate large events (and newsletter headlines) "solving" them, rather than proactively securing access and dealing with impact before there are any problems.
The same government official did not even know of the existence of the Mid-Atlantic Climbers Coalition.
That bodes particularly well for climbing access in the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks region, as well as speaking volumes about the effectiveness of the local AF representatives and affiliates, don't you think?