This piece explores the potential positive and negative implications of two new pieces of legislation regarding the use of fixed hardware in outdoor climbing. These implications relate to safety, accessibility of climbing, community impacts, and environmental impacts.
“Happy girl” is an apt name for the first route I ever climbed outdoors. With sweaty fingers clinging onto sunkissed sandstone, I climbed far above the treeline to find cloud wisps stretching down to hold hands with the treetops. I’m reminded of this moment as I ask Dan Earhart and Alyson Chun, the power duo that leads the Stanford Outdoor Climbing Education program, about the beginnings of their own climbing journeys. Alyson reminisces about how after climbing at Pinnacles National Park for the first time, she was hooked. Now, she climbs outdoors so often that she has memorized how the smells of her local climbing areas change with each season. Dan laughs as he remembers wearing his ASIC sneakers instead of shoes meant for climbing the first time he climbed outdoors in northern Pennsylvania, not realizing that a decade later, he would be a climbing educator. However, with the looming potential of two new pieces of legislation on the horizon, some climbers wonder if experiences like these and their beloved sport may be altered forever.
Climbing area “Tourist Trap” in Pinnacles National Park, taken from Outdoor Project
The two pieces of legislation come from the US Forest Service and the National Park Service, and they both propose updated guidelines and regulations regarding fixed hardware - i.e. the small metal bolts drilled into rock faces that rock climbers use to climb in outdoor terrain. Beyond allowing climbers to safely scale rock faces and rappel down, fixed hardware also contributes to the accessibility of outdoors climbing. Alyson recounts that, for her, “having access to bolted climbs and fixed anchors was a great gateway into getting outdoors and developing confidence.” Climbing without fixed hardware typically requires expensive equipment and advanced climbing knowledge or hiring a guide, which puts up barriers for first-time climbers. Many climbers have read these two pieces of legislation as thinly veiled “bolting bans” that will ultimately remove all fixed hardware and exacerbate issues of climbing safety and accessibility.
Picture of fixed hardware, taken from Lee Cujes
However, some of these fears may be unfounded. While it is plausible that these legislations may limit some climbing activity, Alyson describes the possibility of all fixed hardware in the US being prohibited as “very very extreme.” In fact, some of the standardization of the types of fixed hardware used, an ArcGIS map of the fixed hardware, and database of when they have last been updated may actually help increase climber safety. More deeply, the resistance climbers typically exhibit to any form of legislation may be a product of the long history climbing communities have of at times mistreating the land that they are using. Alyson draws on the example of Devil’s Tower, a climbing spot upon a place of reverence for indigenous groups such as the Lakota and Cheyenne people in the Black Hills: “there's literally one month a year where indigenous people [ask], ‘please don't climb on this tower right now,’ and climbers climb there anyway.” The proposed laws aim to work with indigenous groups in determining where fixed hardware belongs, which Dan and Alyson both deem as “necessary” in making climbing outdoors an ethical sport.
While some legislation may be necessary, the current form of proposed legislation may have less-than-desirable impacts upon climbing communities. The National Park Service legislation will require all pieces of fixed hardware to undergo a safety assessment. But, parks have tens of thousands of pieces of fixed hardware, and since smaller parks remain understaffed and underfunded, it is unclear where these assessments will come from and whether or not climbing and/or the use of fixed hardware will be banned in these areas until all
assessments are processed. If fixed hardware is removed or climbing is even temporarily shut down in smaller parks or local climbing areas, climbers would either need to travel, often fly, to larger parks, or have expensive equipment and advanced climbing knowledge for a chance to climb. Evident from a trip to most local climbing gyms in the US, climbing remains largely
dominated by those who are white, male, and economically privileged, an imbalance that is often worse in outdoor climbing settings. Thus, those with enough experience to keep climbing outdoors without fixed hardware would likely not be a diverse group, and with less access to fixed hardware to encourage beginner outdoor climbers, there is not much hope for this narrative to change.
Beyond affecting the climbing community, these laws may have devastating second-order effects on broader communities.The New River Gorge is a world-class climbing area in West Virginia close to where Dan grew up, and here, climbing tourism contributes 12.1 million dollars annually to a region of just three counties. Even a slight decrease in climbing due to new legislation could be catastrophic for livelihoods in these communities, and neither legislation proposes any form of support. Additionally, if fixed hardware is removed or climbing is limited in certain areas, climbing locales with remnant fixed hardware may become overrun with climbers. As Dan puts it, “the environmental impacts of that would be terrible, because people would be making new trails and it wouldn't be good for the climbs themselves.”
It is further uncertain how these laws may impact environmental appreciation and advocacy. By the nature of their sport, many outdoor climbers tend to develop strong relationships with nature. Feelings of environmental love are palpable as Alyson describes the smell of eucalyptus after rain on her drives to her local climbing areas. This appreciation for nature can also translate into environmental advocacy. After coal mining in Pennsylvania put the location where Dan first climbed at risk and ultimately led to its closure, Dan explains how it became a “huge passion of mine to make my voice heard.” If these pieces of legislation lead to fewer people being able to start climbing outdoors, will less people build these relationships to the environment and gain a desire to advocate for it?
There seems to be a fundamental disconnect between climbers and organizations working on wilderness protection. Differing outlooks regarding how climbing, legislation, and nature are and should be related are something that climbing communities can help bridge. At the very least, climbers can respond to the comment periods of these two pieces of legislation to make their voices heard. Perhaps climbers can also use these legislations as an impetus to think more critically about their interactions with the environment, especially about how these interactions can have far-reaching effects beyond just their climbing communities. Despite what these legislations may result in, as Dan affirms, “it's a good time for climbers to reflect on how we've been behaving as a culture of climbers, and maybe put some checks in place.”
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Nish Sinha is a PhD student studying Electrical Engineering. Her research focuses on using a class of materials called wide bandgap semiconductors to design community-minded electrical devices that can better support a renewable energy powered future. When she’s not procrastinating in the lab, you can find her rock climbing or eating mac and cheese.
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