Wow! A New Bill in Congress Aims to Explicitly Protect Wilderness Climbing
1. The problem.
Over the last few years, federal land managers have put a significant amount of their time (and our dollars) into re-interpreting the scope and intentions of the 1964 Wilderness Act in order to limit or prohibit bolted anchors.
This movement first gained steam in Joshua Tree in January 2022, when the National Park Service proposed a new management plan that would define bolts as “prohibited installations” and therefore render them incongruous with the Wilderness Act’s ban on structures and installations. Traditionally, the term “installation” had been applied to things like buildings, cell phone towers, and pipelines. By applying it to climbing hardware, Joshua Tree’s Park Service was intentionally diverging from 60 years of precedent and declaring that bolts, pitons, slings, and other fixed climbing hardware are and have always been illegal in Joshua Tree’s wilderness areas, which constitute some 85% of the park.
This would not just ban new bolts, however; it would also significantly complicate the re-bolting of existing routes in need of maintenance (something that many fear would lead to a rise in anchor failures). It may also involve the manual removal (i.e. chopping) of hundreds of existing routes that the NPS suddenly deems non-compliant with its wilderness mandate. Certain routes and anchors considered especially historically significant might be given exceptions, but this would be up to the Park Service to decide on a case-by-case, bolt-by-bolt basis.
Since then, other parks have been following suit. In June 2022, for instance, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison used similar language when discussing its plan to shift the way it regulated climbing in wilderness. And as Laura Snyder reported in a very thorough article for Access Fund, these disparate efforts are, in fact, part of a more organized initiative by members of the National Park Service and US Forest Service to develop a “new national-level guidance that… would regard bolts as illegal unless federal bureaucrats provide special allowances for individual fixed anchors.”
A quick reminder: all of El Cap is considered wilderness. And if J-Tree’s proposed management rules were accepted there, the Dawn Wall would very possibly be chopped. Zion? The Wind River Range? Longs Peak? The Linville Gorge? Also wilderness.
Last month, Chris Winter, executive director of Access Fund, noted that the legislation would not harm the park service’s ability to protect its wilderness areas. “These agencies already have every tool they need—all the legal authority—to manage climbing. They can remove routes where the resource is jeopardized, they can remove fixed anchors if they are causing impacts, they can even close whole areas to climbing. There is no reason to reinterpret the Wilderness Act.
2. The solution?
In response to this threat, Colorado Representative Joe Neguse (a Democrat) and Utah Representative John Curtis (a Republican) have introduced a new bipartisan bill, the Protect America’s Rock Climbing Act, which is explicitly designed to inject climber-friendly consistency into federal policies about climbing on wilderness land.
The bill is the result of significant effort by Access Fund, which organized a coalition of climbers, pro-climbing legislators, and wilderness policy experts to craft the bill. The bill’s primary aims are to (a) clarify Congress’s belief that climbing as an activity is compatible with Congressionally bestowed wilderness designations, and (b) require federal agencies to allow for public comment periods before taking action that might impact climbing access.
While the bill would explicitly “provide allowances for fixed anchor placement, use, and maintenance in wilderness,” Access Fund told Climbing in an email, it would still give agencies flexibility about how they went about managing those anchors. Agencies could, for instance, require climbers to get permits or take classes before permitting them to add or replace bolts—but they would not be allowed to enact blanket prohibitions on fixed anchors or define them as illegal installations.
3. Do climbers have power now?
As Winter noted in a press release, the whole process has been “a testament to the growing power of the climbing advocacy movement.”
But it’s also a testament to climbing’s increasingly important economic value—something that has allowed Representatives Curtis and Neguse to reach across the aisle and find common ground in support of our sport.
“In Utah, recreation on public lands is a large and ever-growing industry,” said Congressman Curtis. “Ensuring access to these lands is vital not just for our economy, but also to ensure the millions of Americans who enjoy rock climbing can fully explore our nation’s national treasures.”
Congressman Neguse agreed, adding, “Colorado’s natural areas are home to some world-renowned rock climbing locations. By requiring additional agency guidance on climbing management, we are taking steps to protect our climbers and the spaces in which they recreate.”
Will it pass? That may be up to you. Contact your representatives and express your support for the Protect America’s Rock Climbing Act
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