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The Wedge
Boulder climber
Santa Rosa & Bishop, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 04:13am PT
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OK...I have been wanting to respond but school and my hemroidectomy operation has not allowed me to sit down for that long..so here it goes.
First I guided in the Sierra for 9 years...I stopped just last year to go back to school. There was multiple years where my boss gave me the Whitney PIMP/Whore award for being up there the most of any other guide or guide service that year.
1st.... thing were different a while back. NFLP was not always grouped with the SFLP trail. Yes, I agree, this suck and is bad for the climber and bad for as impact goes. It will change, Doug Thompson and many other are going to get it changed.....so hang in there.
Gary mentioned that horde of folks walk into Elevations( glad to hear that John and his wife are making some $$$) to buy an ice axe because they heard they need one to get up Whitney.......lot of good that is going to do them considering they dont know how to using it or the difference between self arrest and self belay. Many folk that try to get permits for the SFLP trail but can not because they are all taken. SO then the the USFS employee behind the counter tells them they can get one for the NFLP.....since they are on a limited time frame....they decide to go for it thinking "what the heck...." they guy behind the counter told me I can make it and gave me some directions and it a trail......"right".
So they head up there ice axe dangling from there pack...the pick pointed away from the center of the pack so that it tries to cut everyone that they pass along the "trail"......Then they miss the ledges....bushwhack up the drainage stomping down everything in site....get to LBS decide to build a fire with all this great dead Foxtail pine wood lying around (unknown to them that the wood is older than there whole party put together)
Later on......if they dont die or if we as tax payers decide to save there butts. They go home to tell of this GREAT epic .......story...because everyone likes a good story of how nice it was to camp on the "green grass" next to UBSL and how beautiful it was.....or the MONSTER boulder that came down the mnteers gully.....and how it was a good thing that they had there ice AXE and not a helmet.
Another issue is the folks that reserve a permit and then just take there reservation # and dont bother picking up there permit......the problem here is that they do not get the "TALK" from the USFS employee or the WAG BAGS. THis happens all the time..........and the Poop tube/WAG BAG dispensers are never full at the start of the NF. THIS PISSES ME OFF! I have mentioned it numerous times to the rangers.
These things, along with many other make climber look bad when you group them with JOE BLOW hiker. We are better than them. And it ruins our playground...and we dont like a being told what to do or how to do it.....I hear ya fellows
I believe we as climber are a good clean, ethical, bunch of folks. Except that Fred Becky guy......he still does not believe in WAG BAGS and digs his hole and SHIZ in it...I saw him do it at IBL........WTF BECKY!
Another is are the cairns.....I go either way on this one....If there are cairns it helps people stay on a trail and also help define the correct trail.............but if you are a climber........you should have a good sense of directions and finding trail and gathering info from other climbers. Early on...my first year or two working in the sierra....I use to knock them down all the time........thinking...if you cant find your way up there....well FOCK YOU....you dont deserve to be up there.......I hope it does take you 15 hours to get to IBL. How hard can it be to follow a drainage....esp. the NF it either up or down......but people are CAIRN crazy....they build cairns wherever they go......it like fire rings.....So my last 7 years I built up the cairns....I even help VOLUNTEERED my time (multiple seasons) to hike that tail AGAIN to go and improve the cairns with the Rangers.
That trail counter sucks ADZE. Its also counting deer, bear, climbers going to Beach and day hikers just going to LBSL. What good are stats if they are BS stats...
In my opinion we need two different quotes for the two trail heads.....if they want to lump trailhead together, lump Cottonwood and the SFLP.
Dont have USFS eployee telling Joe Blow that he or she can make it up the mnteers rt.......because its a Rt. It is NOT A TRAIL and you could be held liable.
There should be no permit for day trips up the NF. I and many other loved it back in the day when we could get drunk and on a whim...find a desinated driver and go down and solo a rt in the whitney area. As climber we love the idea of being able to go climbing when we want to go climbing....we dont want to make reservation.....when the time is right....you just know you are going to send! OR make it available online...for a day permit...that you can print out...GREAT IDEA...who ever said it.
Have wag bags at all trail heads. And keep them filled! ITS LA water...have them pay for it. They wont mind.
Oh ya if the ranger( great guys) are going to go post all those "restoration signs" all of the place.......You always seem to put them up late in the season so that they just get knocked down by all the snow during the winter......And the plastic just become litter. I suggest putting them up early in the season and then taking them down before the first snow.....Reduce Reuse Recylce.
My 2 cents -eric owen
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 11:06am PT
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you lads like to get noisy. bottom line, ken, rick likes to do it all solo. he never involves anyone else, and his, ah, impeccable manners seem to turn a lot of fellow climbers away. yea, you love him or you hate him.
read through that fossil falls thread and you'll see what i'm talking about--not rick's manners, which weren't so bad there, but the issues involved and his way of imposing himself and trying to take it all under his wing and then turn his back on the people he should be involving. then he gets verrrrry verrrry quiet when he can't boast about resounding success.
i can almost admire rick for his initiative, but he's not going about it right. fossil falls seems like a minor issue, but i think it's a little gem and worth some effort. the hunt club people are being asses and we should be playing hardball with them. rick doesn't understand that kind of hardball. his military background brings nothing but butt-kissing to the table. if you want to see how hardball is played, sit through a nasty case in district court sometime. if you don't have time for that, rent a DVD of trial and error, which will also include a few eastside laughs.
i'd still like to see something happen for fossil falls. i will offer to get as many longtime friends of the place together as i can from southern california for a meeting with authorities and the landowner. rick is local there, so i'll ask him to organize it on his end, and with some consultation, especially with me.
this is a dare. wipe up the spew and roll up your sleeves.
_
as for wag-bag ideas, have they tried solar toilets? seems like there used to be one on the main south fork hiking trail.
solar toilets are quite popular for remote rest areas in arizona, and troy mayr tried to push one for williamson rock which probably needed one more than anyplace you could imagine--more than 100 climbers deep in a gorge on busy weekends and only a few ledges where you could poop away from the creek. at williamson it was too heavy a decision for the FS to make and they hemmed and hawwed it to death. maybe they knew they'd be closing the place anyway.
_
posting this on the FF thread as well. i'm serious about this stuff. we'll see how serious you guys are.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 11:18am PT
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Ideas?
I know it is kinda hi-tech but it has a track record.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Aug 19, 2010 - 11:21am PT
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When I came down Whitney on the High Sierra Trail last year it occured to me that the human impact is out of hand despite management. I compare that walk to the mid 1980's when I first visited that area.
It is my understanding that the current permit system allows half the traffic that climbed this peak in 1970.
I could go on about impacts on the NF but to cut it short, we need to look at some European style management in this area. Wags ain't workin. The watershed is over saturated with nutrients. We need to put up some infrastructure and management in this area. There should be toilets with a sewage removal system (mules), better organized campgrounds with higher capacity, more friendly and patient rangers to supervise. Perhaps even huts and services.
I oppose keeping out the thousands of people who would like to come. If people want solitude this not and never will be the place to go. This is the highest point in the continental US and it needs to be managed in away that it can be enjoyed and preserved.
Keeping the traffic on the main trail is best. Shunting inexperienced people into the NF is irresponsible. It's no place for people who don't know what they are doing.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Aug 19, 2010 - 11:44am PT
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constantly amazed at the breadth of your knowledge
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 12:55pm PT
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leadership isn't a passive thing, rick. in civvieland people don't have to take orders and you can bet that followers won't beat a path to your door. it isn't the communications you receive, it's the communications you initiate.
a little geography lesson. FF is, relatively speaking, in your backyard, especially if you're an alabama hills regular. it's a 170-mile drive for me. you're not about to drive down here for a meeting on the san gabriels and i wouldn't expect you to.
i don't mind pitching in and i actually tried to make some suggestions on that thread, which you saw fit to ignore. where was that email from you saying, "good ideas, tony, let's get together on this"? if you didn't like some of the ideas, or any of them, you could have said, "well, i don't think that'll work here because xyz". do i have to do this for you?
so much for solars.
they had an interesting system in use at pear lake in sequoia a couple summers ago. the thing makes a humming noise, though you can't hear it beyond 100 yards. it's supposed to be bacterial digestion which will yield "pure" soil which won't have to be packed or helicoptered out.
bump to spider. whitney is a magnet and i think it's great to have one like that, a big but doable challenge for rank beginners. it has been the introduction to mountains for lots of people--big hiking, big climbing, and the sense of joining a special fraternity. i generally stay away just to leave it to others who should experience that.
bullwinkle and poetry. wade is once again sublime. (wiping tears with dirty bandana)
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jeff_m
climber
somewhere fairly insignificant
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Aug 19, 2010 - 01:05pm PT
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Again, a few clarifications, ideas, observations:
You can call the permit office after 4pm (760-873-2483) and get a permit and request that they leave it in the night box. Yes, you will be charged $15 for this, but if the climb and timing are critical, it's a small price to pay. (No, I don't want to get into the "It's our government, our land, it should be free, blah, blah." The money pays for the process and that's okay with me.)
The rangers don't get paid enough for what they have to do and contend with, period. The FS people in the field have my support, sympathy and respect.
A redrawing of the "Whitney Zone" would solve much of the permitting issues. For the NF it should pass just west of Iceberg (or at the start of the Mountaineer's Route) and leave Whitney/Russell col as its north boundary. This would free up access to Russell, Carrillon routes, Thor (The Cleaver, etc.) and could return the permit process to how it was a couple years ago. This would also make it easier for the rangers camped at Iceberg to check permits since it limits the flow. Again, this is all for dayhikes; the overnight permit allotment and process for the NF hasn't changed.
Wag bags? The lesser of evils. I would suggest placing large helo-ready receptacles at Outpost and Trail camp so people throw them away there---much less of a problem/process than dealing with the old solar toilets. That's the real issue: many main trail "adventurers" can't imagine hauling their own waste down the mountain, so they don't. Making them biodegradable would be an obvious next step.
Wedge:
Good post for the most part, but I have yet to see anyone in the Interagency office (or the old station before) "encourage" people to take the MR as an alternative to summit Whitney, especially given the legalities and increased risk; if anything, they tend to emphasize the "dangers" and question your background. Yes, they advocate axe & crampons (overly so, even in August on the main trail when you can even see there's no snow anywhere), but this is more a scare tactic and a CYA----most main trail plodders will cancel their trip than even consider renting an axe, let alone attempting the MR. It's the few Rambos that tend to make headlines. (Also, it should be noted that a majority of the staff have never been anywhere near the summit, let alone up the MR. Mea culpa.)
Tony:
I don't know you, and I don't know Rick/Chief, but rereading this thread it's obvious you have a personal issue with him, separate of this topic. Your first post was confrontational and ad hominem and you've been heavy on the complaints and rants and short on the ideas and solutions. I have no problem with sanctimony when it's backed up with action and forward movement, if not results; being crotchety with nothing to show in this specific area is just foolish. It might be good to take a breather on this issue until you're better informed and have current firsthand knowledge of the area, the people and the process---or better yet, drive north, buy him a beer and work it out face to face and maybe you two could solve the FF problem and earn your bragging rights.
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The Wedge
Boulder climber
Santa Rosa & Bishop, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 01:21pm PT
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Jeff, I agree with you, now that both trails are linked together. The USFS employees do not push as many people to give the NF a try. This may be one advantage of having the two trailheads lumped together ( you get less unprepared folks on the mnteers). But, when it does resort back to two separate quotes...watch out! You will see many more people on the NF that do not belong there.
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ron gomez
Trad climber
fallbrook,ca
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Aug 19, 2010 - 01:24pm PT
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Jeff I second yer opion/view on Tony. I've met The Chief and talked with him and AT LEAST he is out there doing things to TRY to HELP the relationships between agencies and climbers, for that THANK YOU Rick. This Tony is/has gotten old with his spewing(and now I imagine I'll be a subject of his spew..oh well)but I too wish he would lay low on this particular subject. Thanks for your post Jeff and Rick, keep doing what you do for all of us on the east side!
Peace
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 02:15pm PT
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i plead guilty to the initial confrontation, jeff, but i ducked. i get good practice from the pictures wade throws at me.
if you think i'm short on ideas, you're not reading this thread or the fossil falls one. rick probably thinks i have too many ideas and none of them are any good, but that's what discussions are for. i do have experience in public action and probably know the eastside as well as any nonresident regular, as a rockclimber, hiker and backcountry skier. i've been coming up there for 29 years.
what ticks people about rick is his inclination to lay down the law and be bossy:
ZERO TOLERANCE as it should be.
that'll bring a kneejerk "f*#k you" from just about anyone on ST even if they agree with him.
i'm into beer, coffee, and once in awhile even a donut, but i know i'm just not rick's kind of guy and i'll make another dare, for him to rise above that in the interest of issues we both care about. you can join us and break up the clumsy fistfighting. i don't know who you are either, jeff, but if you can only see sanctimony on one side, you've already taken sides.
haha, here comes the spewwww for yewwww, ron. grab an umbrella.
the part i think you're wrong about is relationships between agencies and climbers. except in petty ways, i think they went out the window at josh in the late 80s. i've been in the midst of their williamson rock nonsense down here and i think the forest service has acted in cynical bad faith. let's make that a little bigger, CYNICAL BAD FAITH.
if you want chapter and verse on that, it goes like this. they knew what they were doing would be controversial. in order to keep climbers from squawking, they approached troy mayr, publisher of the guidebook and developer of so many of the wonderful routes, and asked him to form "friends of williamson rock". troy, of course, was flattered. randy vogel chimed in and said climbers should act as a group to be effective. ever since then there hasn't been the slightest criticism or even information about why this was done. i learned more in two hours of googling than ever came out of FoWR. this, btw, has become standard procedure in so many areas. we have a very clever government, good at spindoctoring everything that comes up in the grass roots. rick the chief can't even see this, which is why i find his good-old-boy diplomacy to be downright hazardous.
i stand for the traditional processes of open meetings, open information, fair discussion and input. i have no disrespect for a chief ranger who has to make a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't decision, but only after they've gone through that process. nowadays they avoid the process like the plague. they hate the heat but they love the kitchen.
no, i don't know any east side rangers personally. no one should have to. they administer to a large general public and they should be greasing the lines of communication. i think most of them are in shellshock bunker mode. don't ask me to call them heroes.
the fossil falls case is a prime example of office creatures mismanaging an outdoor resource. the place was developed a few years ago for greater public use (read, a campground you now have to pay to use, an overnight BLM specialty), and apparently there is no warning about the property issue. one can assume they had no idea.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Aug 19, 2010 - 02:48pm PT
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 03:33pm PT
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i'd like to know about that, fattrad.
rick, you'll be a lot easier to follow when you stop talking in acronyms. i just get this feeling that PP is what you're full of.
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krahmes
Social climber
Stumptown
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Aug 19, 2010 - 05:04pm PT
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Move the trailhead to bottom of the first long switch back at 6000’ and blow up the road. The summer cabin crowd can access their cabins by ass. Doug is screwed anyway when they make the Portal a NP. If the riff raff still comes; single lane 395 from Coso Jct to the top of the Sherwin grade. That should thin the herd in more ways than one. This plan should save money on road construction (screw you Granite Construction and your never ending road construction) and we won’t need but one Wilderness rangers.
I hope Fattrad takes this plan to his super strong congressman.
As per the advice asked for by the original poster: Stay off the main trail, be stealthy, avoid people, and don’t post on the f-ing internet asking how to break rules. Fake ID might help cuz you have that please tool me vibe.
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jfailing
Trad climber
A trailer park in the Sierras
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Aug 19, 2010 - 05:18pm PT
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Ha! Krahmes, I knew I could count on you to come up with some sort of end-all solution.
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Slice
Boulder climber
Valley
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Aug 19, 2010 - 05:47pm PT
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Tony shut the f*#k up already! What a total waste of how many pages by this tony wangbait?
The Chief, keep up the decent work and trying to do the good deeds up and around there. Please do not listen to the ignorance that the likes that tony and his buddies share. Ran into Ranger Dave yesterday afternoon at the center and man did he look over worked. What a cool cat he is and it shows by all his hard work on the NFLP trail. I personally brought down seven left behind waggers from the Iceberg area. Saw more but had no room. Asked some other people to help carry out and they flat out said "f*#k that!" What a bunch of none caring pigs they were. All were climbers and many had this bs attitude that it was the rangers responsibility to clean up the area and that the permit system was hard enough to deal with let alone having to dump into and then bring down their wags and any others that were left behind. Ranger Dave and I talked about this exact issue and how sick people are becoming. He agreed but didn't comment much more on it. I could tell he had his opinions but there were too many people around within an ears shot.
Keep up the hard work Ranger Dave if you read this. Thanks for all your beta and help as well.
Tony, shut the f*#k up.
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rincon
Trad climber
SoCal
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Aug 19, 2010 - 06:49pm PT
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Lol.
Slice = The Chief
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 07:37pm PT
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yea, i was beginning to suspect that too. you can recognize certain people by the vocabulary and new trollers never have pics in their file. and it's amazing, the size of the local volunteer poop brigade. who needs helicopters?
i think it'd be nice to get ranger dave involved here. i wonder how he feels about his good friend telling people to stay away from public issues on public land.
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Aug 19, 2010 - 08:26pm PT
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I was asking where did this heinous wag-bag come from?
Ya too much information but its a story of a Montanan with an idea at the right time and with the know how and now the guy is making tons and employing
many locals. A real American success story.
http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=3815
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Aug 19, 2010 - 09:13pm PT
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CC,
Cool story on the dude in Montana. I worked with fungus to bioremediate explosives (TNT) contaminated soil with researchers at UT State. White Rot Fungus, the stuff that degrades lignin in wood, turn over a downed branch in the forest, you have all seen the white. Very powerful stuff. So that is a cool idea.
Besides, fungus fits into the tone of this conversation quite well....
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 11:30pm PT
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Interesting.
Hate to poke me head above the foxhole. It is so difficult to gain consensus in the climbing community, and it is difficult to get land managers to change. Anyone willing to step into that line of fire better be very educated (so they don't screw it up more)and deserves some thanks. It is completely impossible to put forward a position that makes all climbers happy and is likely to succeed. In my mind, folks that take their valuable time and energy to pick up trash, work on trails, and advocate for climbers are bigger heroes to me than the person who nabbed some FAs and has moved on. They get no thanks and a lot of grief. There isn't a need to keep score - I'll thank anyone who has picked up one bag, respected one reg that really frosted them (thus not giving the land manager more reason to kick me out), and took time away from climbing one sunny day to try and understand what the land manager's perspective. Much in the Sierra and the West may be public lands. We are a very minor part of the public and garner very little sympathy from the general public. In a society that endorses "click it or ticket" campaigns, I am amazed that we can continue to climb on some public and private lands.
Vent all you want privately. Please don't put fuel on the fire that creates punitive regulation. Your friendly north fork climbing ranger, or Sierra bureaucrat that can enforce or create the rules may be reading this.
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