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Impact of Primal Quest on X-Dome


dberdinka

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Maybe these should be added to the Learn Slab Climing From Experienced Instructors thread.

 

Anyway, maybe the event and team sponsers should be notified about this too since I believe alot of them have Leave No Trace ethic policies.

 

http://cbs.sportsline.com/u/cbs/sports/

http://www.necky.com

http://www.adventuresportsmagazine.com

http://www.ellsworthbikes.com

http://www.montrail.com

http://www.mytopo.com

http://www.highgear.com

http://www.golite.com

http://www.visitsanjuans.com

Nike ACG

Balance Bar (i.e., Cliff Bar)

Holofiber

Reebok Adventure

AROC

North Face

Timberland

Silva

Dirtworld.Com

Gore-Tex

(Bunch of others too)

398772-primalquest1.JPG.86f9ac6f76cb3f7afb07de4f8cb08f12.JPG

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In the overview photo posted by Will, the "main event" took place on the main wall facing the camera, right of center and just right of a swath of lighter rock that sweeps up the face. The jug lines ran from two tiny patches of trees, visible not far off the ground, to a top station just below another tiny patch of trees visible below and right of the summit.

 

Once again, before everybody starts firing off angry letters to Subaru or to the Forest Service or to anybody else, I would hope we can take some time to figure out what we want out of this. The damage is done. Shouldn't we take our time to decide, for example, whether we want to declare war on the rangers over this?

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I think that we need to have a *single* positive contact person with the Darrington district rangers so that we can assure that things were done up there to the letter of the law. It may very well have been, and this still is the result, but that would be life. The thing we don't want to do is ostrasize ourselves as a group that can not handle these issues in a pro manor.

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Well, the first thing I think we'd want is the removal of the bolts (and any egregious shitpiles) at the event planners' expense.

 

We could also ask the FS to allow public comment in advance of such a huge commercial incursion into public lands. Or, at the least, indicate our (as in "us climbers") displeasure at this particular event.

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If climbers or hikers had bolted the Granite Sidewalk, it would be easy to solve the problem after discussing it among ourselves. Since the adventure race is a non-local corporate event, we can't just sit down with them at the bar and ask what the hell they were thinking. There are contracts, laws, and agreements involved, so I agree that we should try to do things the right way when talking with land managers.

 

However, we should be able to express to SPQ that they are not welcome to slam bolts in on a 3rd class approach or shit all over the woods just because they have big corporate sponsors and don't have to live with the mess in their backyards.

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We want to hold people accountable for their actions. We will do this by first raising the issue with them and if this does not result in the appropriate corrective response we will elevate to public awareness as most likely they will want this to not happen.

 

How's that?

 

I think that sounds like a good framework. However first there needs to be some evidence that there was heavy and unnecessary impact to the area. I have heard several first person accounts now of the impact and it sounds BAD. They need to be documented and there needs to be some sort of photographic evidence as well.

 

Lets get that information together first and then present a case should one exist.

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NOLS and Slop make some good suggestions about what we'd like to see here, and I'd urge further reflection on these things. Let me just focus on one point, but I could make similar "arguments" about some of their others.

 

Slop says he'd like to see Primal Quest remove any leftover bolts - at their own expense. This sounds like a "no brainer," but I saw a 1/2 " chopped bolt on the Granite Sidewalk that looked as if it may have been simply been beaten back and forth until it broke. In any event, it had a cone of rock chipped away from the edge of the hole, and the broken bolt end was flush with the rock surface. They broke or chiseled it off and sprinkled powdered granite on it to try to conceal the hole. This is NOT the kind of bolt removal effort I'd like to see. I think I'd rather we clean it up ourselves than ask THEM to do it. And I think I'd rather see it done by volunteers than by somebody who is on anybody's time clock.

 

In thinking about how we want to "hold them accountable," or "prevent future acts," or whatever else, too, we should talk about exactly what these things might look like.

 

Meanwhile, I encourage DBerdinka and GregW and others who want to assess and document the situation.

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You also might want to think about how to articulate the difference between drilling bolts on the climbing routes themselves versus drilling them on the granite sidewalk to a non-climbing audience (esp. since even the climbing audience here most of the time can't agree on the difference).

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Be careful attracting all this attention to that area; you just might get what you ask for. Up until now D'town has remained low key and good relations are established with the forest service. Before attracting all this attention why not wait until we see exactly how bad the damage is. If we can clean it up over a weekend or so, then it's probably best we do it ourselves. I personally know a few people who would be willing to help out, and they don't even post on this board (wisely, I might add).

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Perhaps there should be a meeting of the Washington State Climbers Assocaitation after the damaged has been more properly assested.

 

My biggest concern is for the future, what is done is done. The bolts can be removed but it will never look like it did before. I was not able to find to a schedule of races like that or anything on there web site. But they did say they move to different areas of the country each year hopefully we can find out and notify other climbing communities some how.

 

I am willing to wait and act has a group. However, I'm seriously considering writing there sponsors even without seeing the damage myself. The mere fact that they admitted to sending over 400 people into a wilderness area should be enough. "Dear Montrail, I recently became aware that you sponsor the Subaru Primal Quest adventure race. I myself a Montrail user am disappoint to here this. Did you know they recently sent over 400 people into a wilderness area for an extended period of time, this is not minimum impact. The wilderness areas of this country are sacred to your many of your customers and do not think they should be subject to parade like use. I know that Montrail is a strong John Kerry supporter for his stance on the enviroment. I find this to contrasts with your sponsoring of the Subaru Primal Quest Adventure race. If you continue to support this adventure race you will lose at least one dedicated customer." I would add more after seeing the bolts of course.

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It seems likely (to me) that a formal complaint about a few dozen bolts from a user group that has, collectively, placed many tens, if not hundreds of bolts on the same formation will probably fall on unsympathetic ears. I think a more productive focus would be on those things that have an impact on the ecosystem as a whole; the supposed lack of human waste disposal, trampled vegetation, etc. Add the bolting abortion as a rider rather than making it the focus of the protest.

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My biggest concern is for the future, what is done is done. The bolts can be removed but it will never look like it did before. I was not able to find to a schedule of races like that or anything on there web site. But they did say they move to different areas of the country each year hopefully we can find out and notify other climbing communities some how.

 

I am willing to wait and act has a group. However, I'm seriously considering writing there sponsors even without seeing the damage myself. The mere fact that they admitted to sending over 400 people into a wilderness area should be enough. "Dear Montrail, I recently became aware that you sponsor the Subaru Primal Quest adventure race. I myself a Montrail user am disappoint to here this. Did you know they recently sent over 400 people into a wilderness area for an extended period of time, this is not minimum impact. The wilderness areas of this country are sacred to your many of your customers and do not think they should be subject to parade like use. I know that Montrail is a strong John Kerry supporter for his stance on the enviroment. I find this to contrasts with your sponsoring of the Subaru Primal Quest Adventure race. If you continue to support this adventure race you will lose at least one dedicated customer." I would add more after seeing the bolts of course.

 

Right on, Eric!! thumbs_up.gif

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I believe we DO have a pretty good relationship with them, Marylou. I think our problem lies mostly with Subaru Primal Quest and not with the Forest Service. We can speculate about what the rangers might or should or could have done when CBS and Subaru Primal Quest came along with their proposal, but I don't see how they would or could have consulted with some climbers' group about it - if that is what you are suggesting. I also don't know if we can or ever will be able to expect that they'd say "no" to an event like this, or what level of supervision or oversight they could have provided given their budget.

 

As we learn more about this thing, we may want to propose that such event sponsors be required to complete an environmental assessment or something, and we may have some basis for this. First, I say, let's set to work on evaluating just how much of a mess we really have, and talk about some clean up, and take some time to consider what kind of campaign may help prevent this from happening in the future. Lets focus on these tasks before we start raising hell in the Darrington office or pointing fingers among ourselves, saying "I told you so" or whatever.

 

ScottP touches on a significant point: the impacts they've had are not unlike those of climbers. However, there is a fundamental difference in my view: they've probably had as much impact in two weeks as we might be able to create in several years, and theirs was a hit and run sh*^storm that persumably generated a huge profit for them, but was left for us to clean up.

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