who went to NPS meeting last night on guiding?

[Beck]

i didn't see many familiar faces from cc.com at last nights meeting about Mount Rainier guiding plan.

 

this was a chance to tell the park service your opinions about private climbing versus guides,

 

it was a very interesting meeting...

 

gator was there, peter simonson, big lou and peter too, murph was there i think, and a bunch of guides and you know, climbers.

 

i spoke up for us dirtbags on three occasions about preserving private climbers access to rainier and addressed the issues of wilderness and why the park is now going to allow much more guiding in the park but a little less on the upper mountain. and mixing it up a little

[sobo]

Beck said:

...gator was there, peter simonson, big lou and peter too, murph was there i think, and a bunch of guides and you know, climbers.

 

i spoke up for us dirtbags on three occasions about preserving private climbers access to rainier and addressed the issues of wilderness and why the park is now going to allow much more guiding in the park but a little less on the upper mountain. and mixing it up a little

 

I went to the meeting when it was here in Yakima a coupla weeks ago. I spoke my piece about us "unguided infidel dirtbags" and the "guided and guiding elite". Even after all that, Big Lou came up to me afterward and mentioned that he was thankful for "our" perspective about how some of his folks seem like arses out there sometimes. Pete sez he's working on improving their guides' attitudes.

 

...sobo

 

PS: Don't you mean "eric" simonson...?

[Rodchester]

who went to NPS meeting last night on guiding?

 

Me.

 

Kudos to the Park Service so far. We'll see if they get it right in the long term.

 

I have some relationship to the guiding community, however, I do agree with having some commercial free areas. Or at least enforcing a mandaotory guide to client ratio and a lower group size in certain areas.

[Stefan]

I was at the one in Tacoma......I thought the MRN Park Service employees are doing a good job with the mandates set before them.

[Rodchester]

Oh yeah, I saw/spoke with speed demon extrodinaire Chad Kellog at the NPS meeting. I guess he is doing some office work in downtown Seattle for the time being anyway.

[dkemp]

I was there and spoke briefly. sometimes public speaking shuts me down - I dunno if I made any sense at all. Anyway, I lent my support to the preferred option's commercial free areas.

 

Also it bothers me that the commercial services are guarenteed their slots. They say they need them in order to plan - well, guess what? So do independent groups and for that matter community college classes.

 

The community college classes (fewer in number now than in the past I believe) and club classes have to compete for their slots not with commercial ventures but with the independents. I suspect these classes provide an educational and social experience beyond that of commercial guiding.

 

FWIW, I recognize and respect the guide services historical place in climbing in general and specifically at MRNP. I dont advocate eliminating commercial guiding. I do advocate reducing client to guide ratios and commercial free areas. I also think the commercial guides are given unfair preferrential treatment (guaranteed spaces).