Wow I just got a call from Ryan ..... Pyro as he is known on ST. (he got his name after his real campfire got out of control at the base of HD..... prompting a "smokejumping effort" by the NPS and a trip to the judge and a ban from YNP..... but I digress. )
The whole crew went to Echo Cliffs on Sunday, I missed out- was racing.
The NPS, Santa Monica National Park, Pulled the bolts and closed a few of the roots
For most of you who don't know about Echo, it's a nice crag located in the western end of the Santa Monicas. Echo was one of the first Sport Climbing places in SoCal.
Rap Bolting, Chipping, Gluing all went on- without a peep from the local trads because the place was deemed Total Choss by them...... this was way back in the early 90's.
After the initial roots were put up the place remained pretty static because IMHO the good lines, on the best stone, were done. Most of the climbs were pretty hard 5.10's and up with some steller 5.12's on the steep hard stuff.
The initial development caused some friction with the NPS, they were not used to having people around. The trail went through a sensitive plant zone and the NPS didn't like it one bit. We had meetings with them and worked out a good solution and rerouted the trail so it avoided the rare plants.
All was good, for about 17 years.
This all changed about 3 years ago when we noticed "new roots" showing up on any and all possible stone no matter how bad the stone was.
We figgured out that these new climbs were the work of a married couple..... "Gentle Ben and his wife" is what we named them.
I started going out on the weekdays and met up with Gentle Ben. We had some nice little chats, Ben informed me that ECHO didn't have enuf moderate climbs...... sub 5.8....and he was goin to DEVELOP some.
A few other climbers added to the mess. One Erik Wolf and his GF.... "Skippy", stole one of Ben's "lines" that Ben had cleaned of moss, vegetation and trees.
The new roots went in at a furious pace...... Mostly poor lines, with poor bolts, in the wrong place without Any aesthetic qualities at all were the norm. These new climbs required lots of scrubbing, the old ones didn't, of the Moss and Vegetation before the lines were done. Trees were cut down .... "to get em out of the way so we can climb" Ben told me.
Now I am a pretty Laissez Faire sort of guy so I never really pushed the issue with these "climbers".
Well the NPS moved in and pulled the bolts from these roots! Not all of them, but the climbs in the GROTTO are gone. The NPS used the first bolt on them to hang these signs.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum ... d-for-Echo
This is the first time I have sided with the NPS in my life.
So this is what happens when we get so wrapped up in "New Root Fever" that we loose sight of the the Natural Beauty around us and just DESTROY IT.
All in the name of "CLIMBING"
So now climbers and dirtbikers and strip miners are all lumped in together, in the eyes of the NPS.
A sad day.
Guy Keesee