Friend for those wanting to keep things truelly wild, foe for those who want the mountains to be easily accessible playgrounds, leave bolts, contruct new trail etc.

byates wrote:Friend for those wanting to keep things truelly wild,

You should check out their web site. Protecting anyplace wild doesn't even show up as a priority for them. If you dig deep enough, they mention a couple places, but it's certainly not a priority for them.

You should have said "Friend if you want to support another special interest group kissing up to politicians to fight AGW."

Only the Mothers Lodes Chapter need be watched.

I heard a rumor here that the mlc are Nazi's.

Having been the Conservation Chair and few other positions with the Utah Chapter, I do have experience with SC activities, the only issues we did do were protecting wildlands from development and local clean air and water issues. We did have a few fringe folk who wanted do some rather off beat issues but common sense prevailed. I have worked with Sierra club folk from Alaska fighting to protect the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, folks from West Virginia fighting mountain top removal mining. People need to understand how the Sierra Club works, I do not recall how many chapter there are but they are all locally driven by the local volunteers. It is the elected leaders of these chapters who decide what issues each individual chapter will work. If the National leadership determines that there projects are worthy they can also get some funding and national support. I'm certain there are problem chapters but this is not the rule but rather the exception. I catch a lot of attacks about the Mother Lode Chapter on SP but nothing of substance. What horrible things are they doing?

We are talking about the Mothers Lodes Chapter, not the Mother Lode Chapter.

byates wrote:I catch a lot of attacks about the Mother Lode Chapter on SP but nothing of substance. What horrible things are they doing?

Their main focus seems to be trying to encourage compact growth in the heart of one of California's grosser examples of urban/suburban sprawl. Their other focus appears to be as a singles club for left-leaning folks both young and old, straight and gay, mostly white. It appears the cause of their bad reputation on SP comes from sources unhappy with their shift in outings focused on wilderness activities such as rock climbing canyoneering and peak bagging to other pursuits such as "Urban conditioning walk with optional lunch" and the "Auburn calorie burner hike" or the "Brisk morning walk [in] Davis" (I'm not making this up). It's really an old fight within the Sierra Club if you read up on their history. Many of the famous old SC climbers went through similar unhappiness with the club's shift from "protect and explore" to "protect" starting back in the 1950s. If you focus on this gross injustice strongly enough, you can find evil in everything the MLC SC does these days.

Bob Burd wrote:

byates wrote:I catch a lot of attacks about the Mother Lode Chapter on SP but nothing of substance. What horrible things are they doing?

.... other pursuits such as "Urban conditioning walk with optional lunch" and the "Auburn calorie burner hike" or the "Brisk morning walk [in] Davis" (I'm not making this up)....

Now, Bob, a brisk morning walk when all the UC co-eds are off to classes can be very scenic

Dave Dinnell wrote:

Bob Burd wrote:

byates wrote:I catch a lot of attacks about the Mother Lode Chapter on SP but nothing of substance. What horrible things are they doing?

.... other pursuits such as "Urban conditioning walk with optional lunch" and the "Auburn calorie burner hike" or the "Brisk morning walk [in] Davis" (I'm not making this up)....

Now, Bob, a brisk morning walk when all the UC co-eds are off to classes can be very scenic

How very true

I know a few people who do stuff with them that are nice.

However, each and every time I run into a group of them, they are either cranky or have an attitude. Not sure what their deal is???

(Serious now.) I've had some hikes with very nice folks from the CA and NV chapters of Sierra Club. What amazed me is the degree of training one must go through, especially to be able to lead a hike that involves scrambling (at least for some CA chapters). I was told it was a litigation issue. To go on a CA LA or OC hike that involves 3rd class, you must have a harness and helmet. The leaders bring gear and rope, but can only use that equipment in an emergency.

Whenever you have such stringent rules for qualification, you are bound to have some fairly intense people who value rank and rules ... more than average.

In Vegas, we had a rather strange episode with the Sierra Club, particularly a CA-organized group, a few years back. Basically, the CA group wanted to fight the expansion of route us-95 in the northern part of the Vegas. I agreed with the main premise, that urban sprawl should be countered and development planned, but I was clueless what they really felt they would accomplish. While the development was stalled in court by the SC, people simply went head and were stalled on us-95 and surface roads; no development was avoided, but a lot of people in Vegas learned to hate the SC. Most of my friends in the club rank-and-file were woeful that this was all happening, and felt embarrassed. I walked away with the impression that it was just a muscle-flexing exercise for the upper echelon SC lawyers.

Clubs are nice for people who are either not capable or unwilling to do things for themselves. Then there are the folks who need to have some kind of symbolic "position" and / or busy work to give some sense of purpose to their lives. For the average baby boomer who does not attend a church I suppose arranging newsletters and meetings and voting on meaningless "club" organizational stuff serves the same purpose. Others enjoy leading outings with newbies (or perma-newbies ) and get a big kick out of that kind of thing.

But it's also probably true that these silly singles clubs and hiking groups get people out into their local outdoors who might not otherwise go. I know it's true for a lot of people who are now fairly serious hikers and backpackers and climbers.

I was out climbing at Pinnacles yesterday on the east side. It was a warm sunny day and the popular areas were crowded. There were guided groups, small informal groups, and yes, a Sierra Club group. I've known a bunch of them for years. I don't do anything with them anymore, since I have my own network of climbing buddies and don't really need to be part of anything or in charge of anything. And quite honestly most of them fall into the above categories But that said, a few of them came to visit me when I was in the hospital -- they didn't have to do that. I see some of them occasionally at the climbing gym. It's a small world.

Jose is the best troll on this site! Sorry Jose, this one did not explode (yet) like you hoped. Keep up the good work.

The Sierra Club, just like any group, has good people and a few or small vocal minority, who are really annoying. I finally joined last year. I agree with the basic idea of people getting together and having fun in the outdoors, and protecting that place. I often disagree with a select few of the people in the SC and their illogical need to stop all human progress.

MoapaPk wrote:In Vegas, we had a rather strange episode with the Sierra Club, particularly a CA-organized group, a few years back. Basically, the CA group wanted to fight the expansion of route us-95 in the northern part of the Vegas. I agreed with the main premise, that urban sprawl should be countered and development planned, but I was clueless what they really felt they would accomplish. While the development was stalled in court by the SC, people simply went head and were stalled on us-95 and surface roads; no development was avoided, but a lot of people in Vegas learned to hate the SC. Most of my friends in the club rank-and-file were woeful that this was all happening, and felt embarrassed. I walked away with the impression that it was just a muscle-flexing exercise for the upper echelon SC lawyers.

Yes, quite embarrassing. And a complete waste of money, having no realistic goal or positive effects whatsoever.

They protested and delayed the widening of a limited-access highway inside an urban area. So meanwhile, more commuters just sat in 15-mph traffic, wasting more time and fuel.

The Sierra Club has all these issues with growth, to the point that they would protest the improvement of an urban freeway. But has the Sierra Club ever had the balls to officially address the real root of the problem -- family size and the resulting population growth?