Copy and pasted from mtsanjacinto.info

Origional thread can be found here:
http://www.mtsanjacinto.info/viewtopic. ... 8604#18604

"This past Saturday, my buddy and I were gonna do an ascent of snow creek and avoid trespassing through DWA land. Instead we ended up driving home after the spectacle the DWA had put on around their land.
My buddy and I legally parked our vehicle in public land. As we parked a pickup pulled up behind us. Two guys dressed in camo gear with camelpacks and climbing helmets pulled out of the truck. At first we thought they were fellow snow creek climbers, that is until one of them walked in front of our car, took a photo of our license plate and then a photo of our faces and walked back to the truck. Surprised, and a bit angry I walked over to their pick up and asked what they thought they were doing. A man who later identified himself as David Lukens (the manager of the DWA) threatened to turn us in and told us he knew who we were and knew what we were doing. A little puzzled I continued to ask what he was talking about. He said he knew we were with another climbing group going up snow creek, and he mentioned the name of the group leader saying they were out to get him, one way or another. We told David that we were attempting an ascent of snow creek (which we have done numerous times before) and would avoid trespassing DWA land, but were not with the group he had mentioned. Instead, in disbelief, his partner told us they owned the whole North face of San Jacinto and that we should stay out. They sped off.

Angry, we walked away before my buddy and I would have really done something illegal that had nothing to do with trespassing. We decided to drive up the road a bit to Falls Creek Road's gate. Here we encountered a scared climber with a bleeding hand standing by a parked car. We asked about his predicament. He said he was with a group of four other climbers that scattered throughout the desert floor after they were being chased by people in headlamps. The climber had no idea who was chasing them, he was scared out of his mind, and in panic hurt himself getting away from them. He said that he thought he had seen the people detain the two women in his group, and so he ran back to his car hopefully to see if the fourth climber made it out okay. He also mentioned one more group of climbers ahead of them who also scattered.

I was dumbfounded at the sting operation that was going on. Although I did not see one police cruiser or any type of real law enforcement out there. My buddy and I decided to walk the Falls Creek road to the trail junction of the PCT to see if we could get a closer look at what was going on. On the way up, numerous DWA vehicles kept sweeping up and down the road, leaving us alone. We had no good vantage point at the "PCT rock". So we walked back to our car and left.

I can understand (to very little degree) that the DWA has right to keep climbers out of the area, but this whole fiasco they pulled on Saturday was a little too much, and in some degree illegal."

Just letting people know whats up in our area.

-CS

The DWA may have been "technically" right to scare people off its land but the way they handled it was appalling. I'd do some research on exactly where their lands area, then contact local media. Nothing sets things straight like a little embarrassment, but do your hw first.

I see Water District signs all the time in the CA desert, some worded in faux-threatening verbiage that often make less sense than "keep off". What's the deal?

WTF?! Do they know that climbers carry ice axes? I'd be careful or they might piss off the wrong person at some point. Someone might show a little self defense.

firstclimb wrote:New to the area and this site. What is this all about?

The approach for this particular route goes through property owned be a water company. There have been altercations in the past about trespassing climbers en route to climb Snow Creek.

I think the measured and mature response would be to find the rogue agents and shoot them, in the face, with a gun.

True.....but the author of the article up above wasn't part of that group.

Dougb wrote:Hmmm, so you say agents of the DWA falsely imprisoned you? Hmmm false imprisonment is a felony. hmmmm.

It wasn't Climberslacker. He only imported the report from the San Jacinto forum.

does secure water right mean owning the north face?
http://www.dwa.org/about/index.aspx

It's a fragile topic. Basically, the North face of San Jacinto (Snow Creek) is the epic mountaineering route of Southern California. 10,000ft of elevation gain in a single push is almost nowhere to be found in the rest of the contiguous United States. Unfortunately, there is a portion of the climb that encounters DWA land for one square mile (it's more of a flat hike at this point than a climb). There are options to skirt the land, but they require a bit more hiking and bushwacking. I can understand why people undertake the first option. Unfortunately someone posted a potential group climb on snow creek on a popular website, and it looks like the DWA got word of it. So whether on the group or not, it looks like everyone who attempted snow creek on saturday was harassed.

Good question Carbo. What I have heard is that they only have private land rights to only one square mile South of the tiny town of Snow Creek. The actual face is okay to climb.

It was not me who originally posted it, I just wanted people to know. And yes there are ways around the square mile. The author was planning on going around it but was still harassed regardless of intentions. I have yet to climb snow creek but really want to at some point and would like to not have to break the law, or go to jail.

-CS

Carbo, read DaddyLongLeg's post reply here:
http://www.mtsanjacinto.info//viewtopic.php?t=2191

It looks like I might owe an apology to those harassed. I did post a partner request on SP, which in hindsight was silly because this is a sensitive issue with the people who own the land, since in the past people have trespassed on it.

However, my party was going to stick strictly to the legal approach outside of the DWA land. I was not soliciting partners for trespassing. Some people responded to the original thread with disparaging comments about my judgement in posting such a thing on SP, but I stand by my decision to do that, since I was simply asking if people wanted to join me on an awesome, legal hike.

Now what we have to work on is this mistaken response from DWA. I am going to try to get in touch with them and the SJ rangers to point out what I think is the legal approach. Hopefully, once they are informed and the route descriptions on various internet pages are updated, they will not accidentally harass climbers doing nothing wrong. My main motivation for doing this is that I was stuck working all weekend and I want to do SC soon...

If you met the DWA folks or the rangers, please get in touch with me (SP name at caltech.edu--I never remember to check PMs) so we can coordinate the communications with the DWA folks and the rangers.

Thanks -- Hamik