June 6, 2021  |   

NOTICE For all Climbers looking to weigh in on the Park’s Climbing Management Plan, currently in public feedback phase through June 13. YIKES, that’s next week! 

 

Please write to the Park, using your best professional voice :-}, to offer our public lands managers insight into what will serve the long term interests of the climbing and active outdoor community. In particular, there are four points we at Friends Of Joshua Tree are asking you to emphasize – of course in your own words. 

  1. Proper funding, staffing, equipment and sustained maintenance for climbing management programs 
  2. Establish a functional and practical fixed anchor replacement policy in wilderness areas of the Park. Leaving unsafe rusty, inadequate bolts in place increases everyone’s risk. 
  3. Use signage, delineation, and vertical vegetation techniques to welcome more visitors yet lower impact by properly controlling social trails 
  4. Enhance protections of cultural resources through collaboration and communication with the tribes of the region. 

 

Here’s a quick statement below if you don’t have time to write your own piece – you can copy and paste this into the body of your comment. 

 

 

[ When you are ready to send, use THIS LINK to instantly access the comment page for the JTNP CMP Feedback Page ]

 

 

I’m writing to voice my views on the upcoming Climbing Management Plan being worked on by Joshua Tree National Park. As important as a plan for managing climbing in the Park is, it’s most crucial that it be designed and implemented in a sustainable way, integrating lessons from past iterations as well as taking on newer challenges like fixed anchor policy, cultural resource protection, and increased visitation. 

 

To date there simply has been inadequate funding for climbing management when compared with other usages in the Park. Beyond trails programs, RV and equestrian accommodations, a well-funded climbing management plan will pay dividends for virtually all other user groups. Specifically there needs to be more staffing and budget allocation for

  • Safety management (including PSAR and JOSAR)
  • More enforcement (and feedback to climbing community for leveraging changing behaviors in the Park)
  • More engagement (that facilitates trust and changes behaviors in the Park)
  • Processing of bolt permit applications 
  • More communication – leading to more awareness and accountability for both user and Park management. 

 

From the recent listening sessions it is evident that Fixed anchor policies are not interpreted or understood in a consistent way across the Park Service. In Joshua Tree, one of America’s great climbing parks and a global destination for climbers worldwide, this policy and more importantly how it manifests on the ground (and up a ways) is a crucial piece of the CMP that should be clarified. I’d like to see a ‘Wilderness Bolt Maintenance Program’ based on the successful system of rapid permit approval for motorized tools to facilitate bolt replacement in older areas of climbing development in the Park. This program can address noise concerns (via timing and research), rust streak removal, and public and employee safety. I know that applications for bolt placement is already in place and we should build on that. Please make this system clear in the new Plan, as this will help other Parks in the NPS system see a working model for managing fixed anchors in wilderness that balances ‘wilderness character’ with safety management. 

 

Social Trails Mitigation is a crucial element to a new Climbing Management Plan, and is a peculiar problem in the high desert areas of our country. Accessing crags for climbing is a process managed by many agencies across the country; uniquely in Joshua Tree, clarifying trails with delineation, vertical vegetation and signage contribute materially to ecosystem health. The CMP needs to initiate a new and properly funded program that brings environmental restoration to areas with social trail development and periodically maintains the signage and other features that keep people on trail to/from popular crags. 

 

Protecting Cultural Resources is a rising priority in the region, and throughout the country, as indigenous rights and sovereign nation treaty status is examined and amplified with respect to public lands. We in the climbing community are also in step with these developments and recognize that past actions have been hostile and not-in-keeping with stewarding the lands, a central tenet of the climbing community. With this in mind, I’d like to see more energy and resources put into awareness, training, and engagement to facilitate understanding and inclusion as well as protection of important ancestral and sacred resources. 

 

Thank you for taking my comments into consideration and please feel free to include me in future communications regarding this watershed effort. 

 

Yours Truly, 

 

 

[ When you are ready to send, use THIS LINK to instantly access the comment page for the JTNP CMP Feedback Page ]

image from Sand to Stone