Episode #56- Erik Murdock

[Music] Hey everyone, welcome to the latest installment of the Climate Advocate Podcast episode number 56. A conversation with Eric Murdock, access funds VP of Policy and Government Affairs and their current interim executive director. I welcomed Eric back to the show for the first time since his first appearance back in January of 2020 when we talked about the top five threats the public lands. We circled up this time to talk about yet again major threats, but this time one major threat in particular to climbing more specifically. And that is the potential prohibition of fixed anchors and wilderness. Eric was the obvious choice as I get to speak on this topic and get us all more acquainted with what's going on with the federal agencies that are drafting up their policies on how they see fixed anchors being managed in wilderness. We kicked things off with the background on climbing in wilderness and a timeline of policies, guidance and orders that have been put in place dating back to 1964 when the wilderness act was passed during the Johnson administration. The big question being asked right now is why? Why a prohibition on fixed anchors now? But Eric is quick to remind us that this didn't just get sprung on us all of a sudden necessarily. And it has been an issue that the access fund has been working on basically since the organization's inception back in 1991. So it's been a 30 plus year battle to find a common ground on a national of a policy regarding managing the hardware that allows us climbers to have an unconfined and primitive experience in wilderness. In November of this year, 2023, the National Park Service and the US Forest Service both release their respective management guidance on how they might manage fixed anchors in the future. This guidance will have serious implications on the future climbing in wilderness if it gets implemented. Fortunately, we have an opportunity to provide our comments on the guidance. A comment period is now open until January 16 for both agencies. You got to submit comment for each agency separately. This is a huge opportunity to let them know how management of fixed anchors can be approached in a pragmatic way that does not burden the agencies and still allows us to climb these routes in these spectacular places in a safe and sustainable way. So once more, please leave your feedback for them at the links in your show notes before January 16. With all that, though, there is legislation working its way through Congress that could help alleviate some of our concerns and that's the Protect America's Rock Cleming Act or the Park Act for short. This will help establish a national of a policy that will protect wilderness climbing and allow for the responsible placement and replacement of fixed anchors in wilderness. A lot of questions, perhaps unsurprisingly, have been born out of this matter and we thought needed to get addressed to help clear some things up that might have been unclear before. So let me know what you think about this one. I hope to bring you all some more episodes on nerdy policy stuff. So we can all have a better handle on what's impacting access to our beloved climbing resources. So let's get into it here. Please enjoy my conversation with access funds, VP of policy and government affairs and their current interim executive director, Eric Murdock. Enjoy. Before we get into the episode, I'd like to give thanks and show some love for the sponsors and supporters of the show. Black Diamond, a Data Sterex, Alpine Star Coffee and Plotona Audio. Thank you all for the continued support of the climbing advocate podcast and dedication to the climbing community. I had you on, gosh, I didn't even look back to see, but I think it was episode 15, which was like 42 episodes ago, meaning like three or four years ago, you know an early one. And that conversation was, it was about like the top five or top 10 threats to public lands or something I forget. I didn't look back just to remember exactly, but it was something along those lines. So here we are circling back three, four years later, talking about another threat to climbing specifically not just public lands, but climbing specifically and that's fixed anchors and wilderness, which has been a, I mean, it's been a hot topic for I think for a long time and something the access fund has been. Had a pulse on for a long time and been involved with for a long time. So the stuff is really hitting the fan. So they say so I'm psyched to have heavy on this morning Eric and provide some expertise for us. As you mentioned before we jumped on you've gotten a lot of questions. I've gotten a lot of questions. There's some ambiguity floating around out there. So I think we could take the next hour to maybe smooth some of this out and get some questions answered. So yeah, with that. Yeah, I mean, how's it going? Hey, what's what's what's going on with you? I want to get a little update on what's going on with you. Well, thanks for having me. We're recording right now, right? Oh, we're going. We're in it. We're in. Yeah, so this is the big focus right now. It's sort of what the access fund has been working on, like you said, for really 30 years. It's interesting that when you recollect on the conversations that you and I have had. I've also been been thinking about conversations, for example, that I've had with Armando Menacal, the founder of the access fund. And you might know this, but the access fund we moved our office. We had we moved our office several months ago. And in doing so, we digitized boxes and boxes boxes of archived documents. And it reminded me of some of the issues and some of the tactics and some of the strategies that were implemented in the early 90s. And when we were going through those documents and a lot of those were written by Armando or Armando is referenced. It's really the same, the same discussions, you know, and that is. And that should wilderness designated wilderness in the United States, regard fixed anchors and a lot of the arguments. And really the work that was done back in the early 90s was was incredible. And they did the same thing, talked to congressional members, rallied climbers. Of course, there was a lot fewer climbers, but, but the work really has been the same. So, so it reminds me that this, this issue has been something that access fund has been deeply involved in for 31 years. So, so generally, I think the way the way the the issue is is is described early on is sort of our fixed anchors allowable or are they prohibited installations in designated wilderness. It's really as simple as that, but in actuality, the issue is not simple because there's a lot of context and climbing has been something that's been conducted in, you know, in the United States for over 100 years. And wilderness areas get designated on top of climbing areas and climbers who are senators like center, mark you, we can talk about that later created wilderness and created wilderness with the intent of celebrating climbing. So, a lot of of sort of gray area and there are a lot of reasons why climbing is special and and and should and climbing has deep seated roots in the wilderness movement and and at wilderness areas. So, it's not as simple as just saying that a helicopter is not allowable in the in the wilderness. This is this is a much more complicated issue and yeah, let's dive into it. Yeah, that's a lot of gray area. So, we were together in Arkansas, a few week, I don't know, over a month ago now for the access funds annual conference and there was a bolting re bolting clinic on that Saturday at the conference the second day. And you kicked us off with a really awesome history and background of just wilderness climbing and fixed hardware and anchors in wilderness. And I think you really had everyone's attention during that, you know, 10, 15 minutes here up there. Can we kick that off? Can we kick our conversation off with that? And if you remember everything you said, but it was, it was just really good. It was so thorough Eric and I was really really impressed with what you had to say. So, can we start off with that? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we can talk about that. That was a great conference in Arkansas. And that really opened my. I'm continually reminded how extensive climbing is in this country and have different communities have sort of taken climbing and and and adapted it to their own, you know, the geology and the climbing resources in the area and their own style. And it was really fun to see the Arkansas style because it's very cool. It's really cool there. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, you know, a lot of people were really interested in the history because rightfully so they want to understand how did we get to this point? That's the natural question. That's the smart question. When we meet with, with, you know, climbing advocates and congressional members, they ask that question. and how did we get here? And in fact, that's the question that was asked in a committee here in just a couple of weeks ago. - Yeah. - A couple of congress people said like, what is going on over here? So, I mean, really, when we go back to 30 years ago, we see the beginnings of this issue. The beginnings really started very close to where I did a lot of my early climbing and that's in the superstition mountains. Just east of Phoenix, Arizona. There was an issue where a photographer noticed a bunch of bolts in this place called Zonerland and it is designated wildernesses on the Peralta Trail. On the way to Weaver's Needle, if anyone's been out to Weaver's Needle, it's this wild volcanic feature in the wilderness. And Zonerland is this sport climbing area on volcanic tough, similar to Queen Creek, the Oak Flat Clawment Area. And the photographer reported to the Forest Service, hey, there's some climbing roots that look like they shouldn't be there. And that was the beginning. And the Forest Service there had to figure out what do we do with these things? Are they allowed? Are they not allowed? Are they abandoned property? Are they damages to the natural resources? Are they illegal installations? And that's really where it all got started. Then in 1999, the Forest Service got serious about this. And they initiated a process called a negotiated rulemaking. That was actually conducted after Senator Gordon from Washington, wrote an appropriations writer that said that the Forest Service had to do some more meaningful formal rulemaking if they want to start like shutting down climbing areas. And I think that spirit of that is really important because I think what the Congress was saying then is, climbing has been an American pastime and important to America's recreation legacy for so long. If an agency is going to do a 180 and say, fixed anchors are allowed and not allowed, then really it should involve the American public. There should be a lot of consideration. There should be stakeholders involved. We need to hear from wilderness advocates. We need to hear from climbing advocates. We need to hear from other people who have stake in wilderness before we make any big decisions. So they held this thing called the negotiated rulemaking process, which is where you get a bunch of stakeholders together and they discuss the issue and they try to reach consensus. Well, that negotiated rulemaking lasted. It went into 2000 from 1999 to 2000 and the group, which had a broad based representation of stakeholders did not reach consensus. And there was really one group that could not concede that fixed anchors should be considered allowable. And that group was actually called the wilderness watch. And there's still the ones who are really pressing the agencies to consider fixed anchors as prohibited. All the other groups agreed that some amount of fixed anchors is appropriate in wilderness because climbing is such a wilderness dependent activity and getting out and exploring in the wilderness and having these wild adventures and getting up and down mountains safely is really critical to the purposes of the wilderness act, which include recreational purposes, historical purposes, ecological purposes, scenic purposes. And a few others and really climbing fits squarely within the wheelhouse of the wilderness act. So that is a conundrum and the wilderness act clearly states that primitive and unconfined recreation like climbing should be allowed. So the force service failed on that negotiated rulemaking and without a consensus, they were sort of left without the path forward to create the first national level policy for managing fixed anchors. So that transcript is still around and the other agencies like the BLM and the park service who both manage wilderness. And by the way, we know four agencies manage wilderness. So it's the park service, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife and those three agencies are on the Department of Interior side. And then on the Department of Agriculture side, we have the US Forest Service. So all four agencies have to noodle over how to manage climbing and I think all the agencies kind of were thankful that the Forest Service went through that process 'cause it just got sort of the feedback from stakeholders and they benefited from this hardy discussion about what climbing and fixed anchors mean in wilderness. Well, in 2007, the Bureau of Land Management issued sort of the first national level guidance. It came in the form of an instruction memo so it wasn't the high level policy but it spoke to how to manage fixed anchors and BLM wilderness. And we know probably the most famous BLM wilderness climbing areas is Red Rock, National Conservation Area, outside of Vegas. And of course, it's super popular and there's so many incredible roots in that wilderness. And by the way, that wilderness was designated in this century, it's not a wilderness designated in the 1900s, this is from the early 2000s. But the BLM issued some guidance and basically said that BLM districts may require authorization for fixed anchors. So they may not, but they may decide that they need some sort of implement some sort of authorization if you want to place a fixed anchor, you would perhaps have to make a request to a land manager for authorization or permit to do that. But you don't necessarily have to. And really that makes sense for some BLM wilderness areas as we all know, some of these places are so far out there and get so little traffic, it really wouldn't be enforceable or practical to require that. In 2012, they formalized those policies. So the BLM was kind of the first agency to set out and actually make some very concrete assertions on how they regard climbing and wilderness. In 2013, the park service followed that and they established their national level fixed anchor policy in the format of a director's order. That's a pretty high level policy in the park service, not the highest, but the park service has director's orders on a wide variety of subject matter, for example, partnerships and resource management. And there's directors orders that provide like general high level guidance to steer all of the park units. Each park can make its own decisions by the superintendent, but the directors orders really provide the high level guidance. And in 2013, directors order 41 was signed by Park Service Director John Jarvis and it stated that fixed anchor authorization must be was required. So that's a little bit of a departure from the BLM policy, which says that the BLM districts may require authorization. This is the park service required authorization, but they were clear that fixed anchor authorization could be programmatic. So that means that fixed anchors could be authorized across an entire park or the fixed anchor authorization could be case by case. And that would be our one place put up a route or put in some fixed anchor. And I need specific authorization or permit for that. So some examples are, use 70 national park has programmatic authorization. So the leadership there evaluated climbing and said climbers are being responsible. As long as they don't use power drills and use fixed anchors judiciously in the spirit of wilderness, then fixed anchors are allowed. Same thing at Rocky National Park. I should add, and I should have stated, at the onset of this discussion, what a fixed anchor is. And it's important for us all to realize that fixed anchors are anything left behind to a send or decent vertical terrain. So that includes slings, pitons, fix nuts, and bolts. And the person who invented the definition of fixed anchor was once again our Madu Medicol, the founder of the access fund, who was a civil rights attorney, and a climber and was really interested in bringing the climbing community together. That's the basis for the access fund, is bringing all sectors of the climbing community, whether you're a boulder or a big wall climber, a sport climber, a trite climber, everyone had skin in the game. And that's why our Madu invented the term fixed anchors because it included a sling around a tree to get you off a big mountain in Alaska, but it also included bolts. on a climb that was mostly protected by bolts. So Armando really strategically developed this definition to make sure that all climbers had skin in the game. Everyone uses fixed anchors. There's very, very few roots or areas where there's zero fixed anchors to get up or down a climbing route. And in fact, I actually spoke with them earlier this week about this issue. And he didn't, he hadn't sort of thought that maybe fixed anchors would also be important to other groups and that his definition was so good, he would apply to other, to other recreation groups. And it turns out that it does, you know, it really connects with backcountry skiers who sometimes have to wrap into quars. And you know, like I live in, in Estes Park, New Rocky Mountain National Park. And that's common practice. Some paddlers need to lower their boats into the water. Even hunters and anglers sometimes have to use fixed anchors to lower game out of complex terrain. So those are just some examples. Obviously Canyon ears are wrapping into Canyon's cavers. So this definition was really broad and connected a lot of, and turned out to connect a lot of different communities. - Yeah. - So let's go back to the park service. So the park service issue director sort of 41 in 2013. And since then, different parks have been sort of implementing this policy in different ways. They had a lot of latitude to implement it in different ways. I gave two examples of programmatic, the Rocky Mountain National Park and the Semini National Park. But then there's also examples of case-by-case, like Sequoia Kings Canyon, where you have to apply, you actually have to pay 20 bucks for a special use permit and then the park will evaluate your request for a fixed anchor. So that would be an example of a case-by-case. Now, all of these examples should be prefaced by the fact that fixed anchors are not considered illegal or prohibited. They are just considered things that need to be managed to retain the integrity of wilderness character. And in fact, in director's order 41, this high-level policy, it doesn't say that fixed anchors are prohibited installations and it says that this fancy little tool called the minimum requirement analysis, which is really just a tool that you use to make exceptions for prohibited things or illegal things, like if you wanted a chainsaw or a helicopter to be used in wilderness for fighting fires, you would do an MRA. It's director's order 41 specifically calls out the MRA process and says that that should be used for administrative uses like search and rescue. So if the park wants to use fixed anchors themselves to get someone off LCAP or to save someone in Joshua Treeback Country, they have to do the MRA. But I think it was really explicit that MRA is specifically assigned to administrative uses and not assigned to recreational uses. And to you know, 41 does not sort of regard fixed anchors in any way as prohibited activities. - That's a really good distinction. The administrative use versus the recreational use for the MRAs. - I think that that was really intentional. And I had a close connection with the head of wilderness at the time, his name was Gary O.A. and I'd actually worked from when I was working in the Forest Service Regional Office in California back at the turn of the century. And we had a lot of discussions about this. And DO41, director's order 41 was very intentional. And I think that when you really dig into why it was crafted that way. And specifically this topic that we're talking about now, you know, why did they specifically mention MRA just for search and rescue and not for recreational use? I think that was the intention of that was to clarify that fixed anchors are not prohibited because MRA is used for prohibited uses. So that was 2013. We still remember don't have any national policy for the Forest Service. And it's interesting that the Forest Service manages more climbing than any agency or body or public private landowner in the United States. The Forest Service actually manages almost 30% of all climbs in wilderness. Now a subset, a small subset of that is actually in designated wilderness. But there's a lot of climbs in designated wilderness. And I would argue that many of the world's best climbs are actually in designated wilderness. So there's a lot at stake here. And then I would end with this is, you know, why does the Forest Service not have any national guidance? Well, it's not because they haven't tried because over the past 20 years or so since the Gosheed rulemaking, they've actually attempted to create different Forest Service manuals. So they're a version of high level policy in order to develop some guidance and every time for a variety of different reasons they've sort of shelved those efforts. So the Forest Service really, when you think about it, has squandered millions of dollars trying to develop national level climbing policy and has never been successful. So now's the time. And we've actually been urging them to do so. And the reason why it's so important for the Forest Service to have national level policy is because the Forest Service is revising all of its Forest plans across the country since 2012, 2012 was when the Forest Service passed this law that said, hey, here's this new rule on how we revise our Forest plans and all these Forest plans that have climbed, all these Forests that have climbing areas in them are going to have to dress climbing. And it's really important that we have some national policy that gives some sideboards to the Forest supervisors and the leadership of these Forests so that they know how to develop this policy. Right now, the Forests plans that have been coming out since that 2012 planning rule all sort of punt and say, we're going to wait for national level guidance and they don't address climbing in any real detail. So some examples of that would be like Piscanantahela and in North Carolina, which gives some general guidance, but really pounce the issue down to when the Forest Service can actually fulfill their commitment to establishing some national level process. All right, well, grab yourself a drink there. Sorry, if I went too deep. Oh, no, that was excellent. Excellent background, excellent history and timeline. So let's fast forward to 20. So you mentioned there was a hearing on the Explore Act a couple of weeks ago. That's what you referred to a little bit ago. And Sasha to Julian was there to testify on behalf of the climbing community and talk about this very issue. And she was asked by a member of Congress like, why? Why is this happening? Why now? What's the impetus for this? And she provided her testimony. And then I believe the gentleman that was there from the Park Service spoke up. Or was it the Forest Service? I can't remember which forest service. Yeah. He mentioned something else that I didn't know. And was there something that they were directed to do a couple of years ago? Is it in 2021? Part of the on this bill? Could you shed some light on that? Yeah. And then hopefully we can go back and talk about what is the Explore Act and what is the Park Act? But basically, I think that your question is, the Congress is listening to this testimony. And Sasha did a great job. I was talking about how she climbs in wilderness, and how she started climbing. And she was saying some really inspirational things about what climbing means and how longstanding climbing is in the United States and wilderness. And what it caused the committee members, the folks who were running the hearing, to do was to think, then why is this happening? We have this climbing community that's so committed to wilderness and the environment, and they're doing these inspirational things. Why would we be banning or prohibiting one of the fundamental tools that allows for this very wilderness dependent and appropriate activity? And they kick the question over to Chris French from the Forest Service. And he says, well, you know, there was an appropriations rider that said that the Forest Service had to come up with regulations. Now, that is true. There was an appropriations rider and kind of followed this last 30 or 20 years of work really on this, where the Congress has been asking the Forest Service-- the climbing community has been asking the Forest Service. The Forest Service has been attempting to establish climbing guidance. So it was interesting that he picked up on the last mandate for the Forest Service. But really, he could have answered that in a couple different ways. That was certainly truthful and honest. And Chris French from the Forest Service is a really good guy and an honest character. And really does, I think, support the climbing community. But he said that there's a requirement to create these rules. But really, - Really, the question was not, "Why are you making a national level rule for climbing?" Because the Forest Service has been trying to do that for 20 years, starting in 1999. The question was, "Why are you prohibiting fixed anchors?" And that question wasn't answered. It was not, "Why are you creating national level guidance?" It's why you're doing a crappy job and prohibiting fixed anchors in your guidance. And that didn't get answered. So I think that was an interesting distinction. And he could have answered it in a couple different ways, but obviously that would have been a tough one to answer. Why are you doing this guidance or establishing guidance that's kind of taking us on the wrong path? - Yeah, yeah. So that guidance came out almost a month ago, like to the day. It was like November 16th, I think, today's December 15th. So Park Service and the Forest Service, both released their separate guidances. They're not one and the same that each have their own respective guidance. And the Forest Service, not only do they address, I mean, they're required to address the wilderness component. They also address fixed hardware outside of wilderness, which is really interesting. - Yeah, I mean, I was expecting to see that because the Forest Service specifically, not the Forest Service, really needs to, most of their climbing is outside of wilderness. And they're just grappling with the growth of climbers and they might as well address climbing management in general inside and outside of wilderness. So I wasn't that surprised by it. I was not surprised, however, by what the guidance said. So essentially, this is a tough, not to correct. This is a hard assignment for the Forest Service. How you gonna manage thousands and thousands of climbing areas, many tens of thousands of climbing routes that you don't know where they are, that you've allowed, that you've even promoted and provided parking and managed trails and how are you going to address this activity that has been largely unmanaged for many, many years. And what they came up with was sort of basing their management models. And now we're just, as to make it clear, we've switched to talking about non-willerness. - Yes. - So it's really important to, this is where it gets complicated because now we're talking about non-willerness. So they were really clear to say, look, well, outside of wilderness, power drills are appropriate tools because it's often they result in just a better vault and a safer vault and a longer lasting vault, better hole to put a stainless steel bolt in. And they really based their management model on this idea of climbing opportunities. And they wrote this kind of like slightly odd definition for climbing opportunity, which essentially is based on existing climbing. And they said, well, you can put up roots on existing climbing areas, where we already have climbs, where we already have started into that impact curve that we create, that all recreation creates, when we start introducing recreation to a landscape, you see a lot of impact at the beginning and then it sort of flattens out. And I think that was sort of the logic behind that. And then in areas where we don't have established climbs already, you would need to get authorization. So the Forest Service would have to actually go and look at that new cliff that was pristine and didn't have any climbs on it already established. And they would do an analysis and determine whether climbing should be allowed there. You know, of course, the problem is we don't know if a climb, if a cliff has been climbed out or not, I don't know if in 1951 someone didn't climb some crack in the middle of a cliff or we don't report everything. I don't know if someone didn't boulder the sides and do a traverse. It's just an interesting attempt at managing climbing and non-wilderness. But I think that the logic makes some sense but the actual practical nature of that proposal is not really something that could be implemented or enforced. So it's a problematic proposal for a lot of different reasons to sort of center climbing management, non-wilderness around the concept of established climbing opportunities. But it's interesting. It's interesting. Interesting. I mean, when you first hear that you might think, well, no more opportunities for new cliff development. We're just stuck with what we got, which is a lot. We have a lot of climbing in the country, it's already established. But I don't know. It does sound like it goes beyond that because we would require a visitation for a service staff and an analysis before anything would go in. Yeah, I mean, the pessimist would say, right, this would prohibit establishing new roots on forced service non-wilderness. And the optimist would say, well, the forced service could potentially go out and evaluate crags and give those crags, though, okay. The other problem that we didn't mention is that these policies don't come with any money. And the policies are very clear. And they say, you know, when resources and allow you know, and funding resources, staff resources, and funding allows will get to these things, but then wilderness and out. So that's a little bit of a scary proposition because as we know that the forced service and really all federal agencies are underfunded and strapped and have, don't have enough staff to manage. So do we really think that these agencies are gonna take time out of their important days? Daily tasks to evaluate and give and honest and thorough evaluation of new crags. I'm just not sure that's gonna happen. The other thing to consider is, you know, you're saying there are a lot of roots on forced service land and that's true, but you know, when we started this conversation, we were talking about the last time you and I spent time together in Arkansas, it's like, that's a good example. There, climbing is being developed. Doesn't have as long of a history as say in Colorado or in New Hampshire, you know. There are a lot of opportunities for establishing new crags on forced service land actually, on in Western Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas. And I think it's important to remember that this is an incredible activity exploring and finding new paths up vertical terrain and there's certainly more potential in this country. It should be a real shame to switch off the opportunity to have that experience. I mean, personally, some of my most memorable experiences are actually exploring forced service land near where I lived for a long time in Tucson, Arizona and really connecting with nature and establishing new roots. So for me personally, there's a deep appreciation for that sort of, for that activity. And I think the climbing community also really appreciates it because not the large percentage of the climbing community doesn't do that, but it's really important in order to provide new opportunities to spread out use and to provide inspiration. So, you know, there's a lot of problems with that non-willowness proposal. Yeah, no, I agree. I'm not like a root developer myself, but some people really are. And that's how they get their jolies out of climbing, like just going to the sport crag and doing some hard roots or whatever. You know, it's all fun and stuff, but people really, especially if you've been climbing for a long time, they're getting more out of it, just going to explore new zones and putting up new roots and stuff. That's how they really enjoy the sport these days. And that's what's cool about climbing, it's just your interest evolves over time, right? And having the opportunity for some folks is imperative. So, yeah, thanks for that non-wolderness discussion there. - Could I have one thing to the non-wolderness discussion before we jump back into wilderness? And that's just that, you know, climbers need to understand also that there's a lot of us right now and some level of regulation is appropriate. And we don't want to negatively impact culture resources or traditional values or natural resources like raptors or, you know, sensitive species of flora and fauna. And in places where, you know, there are raptors, for example, climbers have been really good about accepting and complying with temporary seasonal closures. So this is not to say that climbers should run a muck and damage the resources. This is saying that, and climbers are willing to accept that saying that, you know, we need a workable policy that maybe is not that based on this really vague, you know, on impractical issues. practical idea of was the climbing area established or not. So I think it's really important to make it clear that, I think we have buy-in from a lot of the climate, from most of the climbing community that we need to be sensitive and that these other aspects of the landscape, like raptors and culture resources, they're part of the climbing experience. They enrich the climbing experience. And climbers for, you know, a century have been sort of like really appreciative for all of the aspects of the climbing landscape, not just the climbing itself. So I think that that's important when to mention, when climbers are commenting on proposals or even just talking with other people about, you know, what are the values of the climbing community and how do we see climbing being managed in the future in order to make sure that the environment is is is is conserved. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and that's been my takeaway too, is we've been largely good stewards, largely good proponents is for the overall environment and when it comes to raptor closures and stuff, we seem to adhere by them, we're of course not perfect and nail it 100%. But as we segue back into the wilderness conversation, climbers have also been proponents for wilderness to over the years. And, you know, if we get restricted here in some capacity, it's going to make it tougher, I think, for this community to get behind new wilderness designations. What do you think about that? Yeah, I agree with that, you know, and I think, right, we are going to be regulated or restricted in wilderness. And, you know, one of the things about recreation in this century that differs from, you know, like the 60s, you know, the wilderness act was passed in 1964. So there's just a lot more climbers, but there's a lot more people in general going into the back country, going on to public lands. So we have to be more considerate to other users, which is just more people sort of vying for, you know, access to the same piece of real estate. But the climbing community has been historically incredible advocates for wilderness. And it really starts way back in the 1950s when people were thinking about this concept of wilderness. And, you know, we have a great leader in the climbing community, David Brower, who led the Sierra Club, and actually was affiliated with the American Alpine Club and the Access Fund. Some people don't know that, and I found some documents when we were digging through our boxes. But, yeah, from David Brower, he was on a special advisory committee to the Access Fund. So that was really exciting to learn that David Brower had such a close relationship with the Access Fund. But these were people who were pushing for wilderness, but were also climbers. And in fact, David Brower established roots and used to extankers. He was later asked that when Camp 4 was designated a national historic landmark. And he was asked that question, what about fixed anchors? And he's like, you know, we got to be worried about more important things than this. He was like, this is ridiculous. I'm fighting for wilderness and the conservation. And you're asking me about fixed anchors. This is a minor. But, yeah, historically, the climbing community has supported wilderness. And we've endorsed and supported wilderness designations. And that's why this issue right now, the proposed prohibition of fixed anchors and wilderness stings so much. I think if we fast forward to today, from going from David Brower support in the late '50s and then helping pass the wilderness act in 1964. And he was like doing the same thing we're doing, going into Congress and talking about climbing and sharing pictures and getting congressional members pumped up and connected with what climbing is. It's exactly what Sasha did two weeks ago. We have a long history of doing that. But a great piece was written by Senator Mark Udall, an op-ed, where he talks about his experience with climbing and his experience with introducing wilderness bills. And I thought that was really interesting and inspiring to read what his perspective was. Now, Senator Mark Udall is an interesting character. He used to be an outward bound instructor. And he's a great climber. I mean, really committed lifelong climber. And he told me a story about-- and he wrote about it in his op-ed also about him in the mid '70s climbing the diamond with his brother. And they're up on the diamond. And they didn't know whether they'd be able to pull it off in a day or two, and they got benited. And they're hanging from fixed anchors from a little poor legend. And that's where he had a moment to think about, what is this place? Rocky Mountain National Park was already established. It was a national park, but it was not a wilderness. And he thought a lot about how this place should have advanced protection, like wilderness protection. And should be a place where recreation and adventure and conservation and other aspects of wilderness characters should really be held up and supported. And it's interesting. Many years later, he becomes a congressman, actually, for the District 2 in Colorado. Now it's Congressman Negus, an interestingly congressman Negus, co-sponsored the Protecting Americas Rock Climbing Act. So the representatives for the sort of front range of Colorado, which also includes Rocky Mountain National Park, have been stalwart supporters of climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park, because they really understand how inspiring it is, and how important it is to the District. But when Congressman Mark Udall became Senator Mark Udall, that's when he introduced the Bill, the wilderness bill, to create wilderness in Rocky Mountain National Park. And now it's in, I think it's 98% and the upper 90% of Rocky Mountain National Park is wilderness. And I think it was really powerful that he wrote not that he wrote not that and is willing to go on the record and say, when I introduced the Bill to make Rocky Mountain National Park wilderness, I had no intention of restricting or prohibiting fixed anchors. In fact, these are things that are important for people to experience wilderness in the way that I did, in the way I sort of imagined people experiencing the wilderness. At the same time, in the early 2000s, then Congressman Polis, who was the Congressman for that district, he introduced the House version. Now of course, Congressman Polis is the governor of Colorado. And he wrote about, I think eight months ago, a letter to the Department of Interior and to the Department of Agriculture. And he said the same, a similar thing. He said, look, when I introduced the Bill on the House side for Rocky Mountain National Park, I did not want to restrict fixed anchors or prohibit fixed anchors. I wanted to make sure that people could climb. And that's one of the reasons why I introduced the Bill. The reason why this is so important is not just that these leaders are speaking on behalf of climbers and really supporting climbing in wilderness, but it's important because it gives us some insight into congressional intent. These are democratically elected leaders, legislators, in the Congress, who are saying, this is what wilderness means to us and this is what congressional intent is. So it's very useful to keep that in mind when we're thinking about this agency proposal to prohibit fixed anchors, because we can say, that's not what Congress intended when they created wilderness areas. And we know this because congressional members are speaking out. So right now we're in this interesting situation, I think, where we have the will of the climbing community, the American public and the legislature, the Congress, and it's not in alignment with what a few bureaucrats in Washington DC are saying. So I think that's really important. And then if we extend that even further and we talked to our friends who are climbing rangers, saying the black Kenyan, the Gunnison, or at Rocky National Park, or you sent me a national park, and we talked to them off the record and we say, what do you think about this? Mostly they don't want this prohibition. So it's really building the story of Congress doesn't want this line officers, climbing rangers and rangers don't really want this to climbing communities and want this, but some bureaucrats in DC are pushing this policy. - Yeah, there's so much support behind this from different parties and elected officials and historic elected officials and it seems to be falling on deaf ears a little bit. - It's especially inspiring 'cause I spoke about former elected officials, Udall and well now Governor Polis, but also current ones, like I mentioned, Congressman Aguse. We have Congressman Curtis in Utah, who's a full threaded supporter of climbing and wilderness, but Senator Hickenlooper of Colorado, I'd say. has really proven to be a big champion. And he's not only supported the climbing community, he's been meeting with us. We just gave him an award a couple of weeks ago. We had a great meeting with him in his office. And he's all in and he really understands. He's such a balanced sort of diplomatic leader. And he really understands the need to do what you originally said, and I didn't really speak to that question of, how do we keep the community together, the great community together, so that we can support real conservation, real wilderness in the future. And I think Senator Hickenlooper, maybe more than anyone else really understands that it's important to not only allow people to have these wild experiences and wilderness, but also it's important to make sure that the recreation community and the conservation community stays in lockstep in support of conservation initiatives so that we can support climate change initiatives, wilderness initiatives, advanced land designations, like monuments and parks and things like that. We do not want to tear apart this incredible coalition that's been built over the last decade or 15 years, that's really resulted in some of the most profound pieces of conservation legislation over the last 20 or 30 years. Yeah, well, since we're on the topic of Congress a bit, let's talk about the Park Act, Protect America's Rock Climate Act and how that fits into the fold here and what that might do if we can get that passed. Yeah, so some people have been asking this sort of chicken and egg question. They're like, did the park service and forest service issue these proposals a couple of weeks ago because of the legislation that's out there? It's a good question. But in fact, when we go back and we look at, where did this problem start most recently? We can look to Joshua Tree National Park and Black Canyon and the Gunnison. And what happened was, is that a few of the bureaucrats in DC pushed Joshua Tree and Black Canyon and Gunnison to implement or to propose rather, because they haven't implemented it yet, to propose a prohibition of fixed anchors in those wilderness areas and to propose using the MRA process to provide exceptions for some fixed anchors where they decide it's appropriate. So after those proposals came out and we thought that was really sort of devious to propose this policy that has national level implications that obviously affects all national parks and public lands to propose these things in a couple national parks instead of at the national level we thought was really problematic. And we knew that these sorts of proposals have a tendency to sort of migrate into other public lands. So when we saw those proposals and we recognized this thing has got legs, that's when we started talking with members of Congress about the issue and telling them, look, this is a really problematic. This is going to affect local economies. It's going to affect the future of conservation. It's impacting appropriate recreation activities and wilderness that goes against congressional intent. And Congress was all on board and they're like, yeah, we totally agree. So these are congressional members like Senator Barasso and Wyoming, Senator Manchin and West Virginia, Senator Hickenlooper in Colorado, Congressman Curtis, like I mentioned in Utah and Congressman Nidus in Colorado, these are the leaders, the legislators who really had a lot of skin in the game because they have a lot of climbing in their districts and states and they decided we're going to introduce some legislation to fix this, to reset the agency proposals so that they do not prohibit fixed anchors. So that is how the Park Act, which is a House of Representatives Bill, and that's the Protecting America's Rock climbing act, that's how it was born. And Congressman Curtis and Congressman Nidus wrote this legislation and introduced it to the House of Representatives. And it said that all agencies that manage wilderness are required to establish guidance, national level guidance and that that guidance is required to be built on, the fundamental premise that fixed anchors are appropriate in wilderness. Actually, the first draft of the bill said something a little bit different. And that is that fixed anchors are not prohibited in wilderness. And some people thought that that was a little bit too strong. I think that that's just right. But that got amended to appropriate. And people thought that was certainly had this exact same intent and clearly displayed that Congress believes that fixed anchors are appropriate and not prohibited in wilderness. And then on the Senate side, there was already a bill moving through Congress. And that speaks to that question you asked about the hearing when the Forest Service was at part doing this. Well, there was a bill in Congress. And that was actually six or seven years old. And that bill just said, hey, the Forest Service has got to establish national level guidance. That's what that bill just said. And that was in an old recreation package from a previous Congress. And that bill on the Senate side got amended by an amendment that was introduced by Senator Hickenlooper, which expanded that mandate from just the Forest Service to all agencies that manage wilderness. So it included the Park Service. And it included that same language. It said, hey, by the way, you not only have to come out with guidance, but the guidance has to acknowledge that fixed anchors are appropriate in wilderness, both the placement, use, and maintenance of fixed anchors is appropriate in wilderness. So after that, we had House of Representatives bill and a Senate bill and we were off to the races. And then eventually, those bills or became part of these recreation packages. And as we know, there's a lot of shenanigans in Congress right now. It's really difficult to pass a single bill. So things get packaged up. So in the Senate, there's a package of recreation bills that deals with all sorts of recreation policies. And that bill is called the America's Outdoor Recreation Act. And it's passed through Senate committees, with unanimous consent. So that means no one, not a single senator, as opposed to it. And then on the House side, the wreck package, and this gets to the Explore Act, also passed through its first hearing unanimously. And it's waiting for its next hearing in January. So the Park Act is embedded in this greater recreation package in the House called the Explore Act. And we're waiting for the Explore Act to now move through committee. And then that's the furthest climbing legislation has ever gotten in the history of the United States. And then we hope that this is going to get passed and signed into law by the President. But we still have this problem because the agencies are playing this game where they believe that these proposals that we first discussed are actually in alignment with the bills. And so you can ask why that? Yeah, you're laughing because it's silly. So how do you justify a prohibition of fixed anchors with a law that could say fixed anchors are appropriate? And the game is that some bureaucrats are saying, yeah, fixed anchors are prohibited. But we have a little exception process to make them allowable, therefore they're appropriate. But when would you ever say that with any prohibited thing, activity and wilderness? You would never say that about helicopters, helicopters are prohibited. But they're actually OK. And we have ways to allow them. You just wouldn't talk about prohibited activities in that way. And fixed anchors should not be lumped into those categories. So that's the conundrum we're in right now. OK. Real quick, we've talked about the Forest Service and Park Service a lot. We have not really talked about the BLM. And they didn't come out with any guidance in this because they already came out with something like 15, 16 years ago. That's why they're not a part of this conversation. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good question. You know, we don't really know why they're not part of the conversation. But they have policy. And their policy actually does talk about installations, but does not talk about MRA. So I think they're just waiting to see what happens. I don't think they need to step out on this. But we all need to remember that if these policies get passed for the Forest Service and the Park Service, they will be likely assumed by the BLM and Fish Wall life. So it's a great question. What's going on with the BLM? And I think they're just standing by and seeing what's going to happen. OK, cool. Good to know. Oh, man, lots of congressional talk and nuances of how this stuff works. It's a lot. So I hope everyone can comprehend all that rewind the episode. If you need to, please do. Please absorb everything Eric's giving you right now. Let's take a couple of questions I got from some friends. And maybe if you had some specific questions, you've been getting hit with. We can feel those too. But we've talked about the MRA a bit. So let's just get a real good definition of what the minimum requirements analysis is. And a friend of mine said something of the effect that the Woterness Act calls for minimal human imprint. So our fixed anchors minimal. I was like, oh, this would be a perfect question to kind of get a good-- a good way to wrap it up. after head around what an MRA is, what that process is. So can we address the MRA stuff some more? - The MRA is actually mentioned in the Wilderness Act, and the MRA, the minimum requirements analysis, is a process through which the administration, the administrators of a wilderness can provide exceptions for prohibited activities. It's as simple as that. It's a way to allow prohibited things, illegal things. And that process asks one fundamental question, simple. Is this thing, this prohibited thing, required for the administration of the wilderness? So when we look at like a helicopter for wildfire, you would ask that question. We have a wildfire in the wilderness. Is this helicopter required for the administration of the wilderness? So that's the question that would be asked of fixed anchors of a bolt or a sling around a tree, which you can imagine how different park superintendents and four supervisors would interpret that question. Is this bolt really required for the administration of the world? So it's a pretty high standard. So that's the MRA. But I think more importantly, your question asks, well, the wilderness act says X, and that sets us off into this world of MRA. And what the wilderness act says is that in section 4C is, and that's the section that lists all the prohibitions in wilderness. And it says that installations, structures, mechanical transport, and that's why mountain bikes are prohibited, and motorized equipment, and that's why power drills are prohibited. It says those are the general buckets of things that are prohibited. So the way we should be thinking about this is, why are people now considering fixed anchors as prohibited installations whenever the past 60 years they have not? So that's the real question. Is should fixed anchors be lumped into this installation category? And what were the founders of the wilderness act thinking when they wrote that section? What were the types of installations? Were those installations fences or garbage dumps and signs? They were obviously not thinking about fixed anchors. So is there a limiting principle that says, obviously, a piece of lint that falls out of your pocket onto the ground is not an installation, but according to the park service, now it would be, right? Anything, and they changed their definition recently, actually, so they moved the goalposts. And now the definition is anything left behind that's human made. So a little-- you don't want to leave lint in the wilderness, but that would be considered under this logic, a prohibited installation. And you could, I guess, be cited for that. So that's the background on how some people are considering bureaucrats in DC are considering fixed anchors as it relates to the wilderness act, and then how they would consider fixed anchors to be either appropriate or not appropriate using this exception tool called the minimum requirement analysis. Awesome. Thank you. I'm so glad that we talked about permanent installation because I wanted to touch on some of the technical terms in the wilderness act. And yeah, you listed out examples of what could be considered a permanent installation originally back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, whatever. And when I think of permanent installations, I'm thinking of just what you said-- fences, boat, docks, maintenance sheds, roads, whatever, not these little things that aren't even visible by the naked eye, usually, unless you're right up against the cliff. Well, the other conundrum is that these little things, these fixed anchors, they facilitate many of the things that the wilderness act promotes. So there's where we're in this really interesting space is that these things allow for primitive and unconfined recreation. These things allow for self-reliance. These things allow for recreational purposes. So it's not cut and dry. Yeah, 100%. So what's going to happen to existing roots? Well, the bolts and other fixed hardware be removed. Another question I was asked. So we're talking wilderness now specifically. I know we delved into non-wilderness, but that's just the Forest Service proposal. So let's put that aside. And let's just think about the proposals, the wilderness proposals from the Forest Service and the Park Service. Existing roots would be allowed to be used in both of those proposals. However, the existing roots, any fixed anchors on those roots, would be considered prohibited. So we would be allowed to climb these roots, but the fixed anchors themselves would be prohibited. And when the agencies have the resources and the funding to do an MRA, that's when they would go through the process and ask that question. Is this root really required for the administration of the wilderness? And we might get an answer that says, no, we don't need 22 roots on this crag, two or enough, or whatever, logic some four supervisor or superintendents who has no idea about climbing would use. So existing roots, many, many placed before the wilderness was designated. So think back to that story about Senator Yudol. The Rocky Mountain National Park wilderness was designated in 2009. The vast majority of roots on the diamond were established-- 99% of the roots on diamond were established before 2009. So this would impact existing roots-- not just roots that exist today, but roots that existed before wilderness was designated in a location-- and even roots that were established before the wilderness act was passed. So we're talking about roots that were put up in the '50s or the early '60s, like at Black Canyon and Gunson, and LCAP. But those roots would be evaluated and could be removed. The interesting nuance, I think, with this whole question of existing roots is, all right, the agencies would wait until they have the resources and the money. But what would activate the potential removal of an existing root could be the request for fixed anchor replacement? So if a person said, hey, I need to replace this one ball at a belay, 15 pitches up LCAP, that would activate an MRA because the MRA is required for existing roots, future roots, and fixed anchor maintenance. So a well-meaning climber could ask for approval to replace a fixed anchor on an existing root. The agency could go in and do the MRA analysis, and then respond, I can't give you the permit to replace the root. And this root is not in alignment with my concept of wilderness character, and we're going to remove the root. So that is a huge problem and an obstruction to safe climbing. So that's one of the perhaps unintended consequences of these policies that not just creates a threat to existing climbing roots in America's climbing legacy. But more importantly, this is a huge safety issue. This policy has massive safety implications. And when I think about my kid going out and climbing in the future, I'm thinking about, is she going to be able to use safe fixed anchors? And is she going to be able to experience the wilderness in the same way that the folks in the 1970s experienced it? And I'm really afraid for the safety of future climbers based on this ill-conceived proposal. So the MRA is focused on already prohibited uses, like you said, helicopters, power drills, chain saws. And then those might get exempted based on the MRA analysis and process. It's like now bolts in fixed hardware are now guilty and proven until proven innocent is like this new interpretation. That's a great way to put it, Pete. And I think the other way to put it is is that the standard is flipped on its head. So today, because this proposal is not implemented yet, today, big stankers are allowable and legal until they're proven to negatively impact raptors or negatively impact cultural resources. This new proposal flips it on its head and says, all fixed anchors are prohibited until we can make an administrative exception based on the question, is this required for the administration of the wilderness? So it completely flips the management paradigm on its head. One of the questions-- what are the questions that you've been getting asked? Any other one-on-one or basic things you want to share with us before we start wrapping up? Yeah, I think the big question is, what do people do now? Where do we go from here? Yeah, what's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? So we've got these bills in Congress, and we've got the situation where we have a proposal that was issued at the same time that the bills are moving through Congress. And the agencies are saying, we like our proposal. We think this is an alignment with Congressional intent, which is. clearly not, clearly not. So there's a couple different options. Maybe the Congress will decide to tighten up the bills and make it so that their intent is more clear. And that's a possibility, or maybe they just pass the bills as is and keep pressing the agencies to revise their proposals. So we have this, this, this, we have things to do in Congress. And it's really important for the climbing community to keep encouraging their congressional representatives to support these bills, to move the wreck package forward, to try to get a bill to be passed into law, which is, as we know, very difficult in itself, let alone something like this. So that's on the, in the Congress. What can people do with respect to these proposals? Well, the most important thing that people can do is to submit comments. So you can go to the Access Fund website, and you go to the little drop-down work says, "Act, act now." And then you'll see there's an actual alert, and it provides you a briefing of the issue, some suggested talking points. And really, this is a pretty complicated comment process because you got to actually go into the for service comment portal, submit your comments, then you have to go into the park service comment portal, and submit your comments. It's happening during holiday season. It's pretty messed up that all this is happening, you know, during holiday season when, when people are busy, and we really need climbers to think about this carefully and assemble their comments in a way that's really productive and saying, "No, you shouldn't prohibit these things. You should actually manage them in a different way." But we're asking people to submit comments. So go to the Access Fund website, fill out, you know, the comments and use the Access Fund Action Alert to help guide you. That's really important right now because we are in a comment period. This is not a done deal, and that's the most important thing that the climbing community can do is weigh in on this, and make sure that the agencies understand these nuances that they may have not considered. This is going to create massive safety issues with respect to both fixed anchor maintenance. This is going to have serious implications with regard to America's climbing legacy, and I don't want to see, you know, the possibility of important roots in wilderness being erased. And the third thing is people need to think about the future exploration of wilderness and the incredible opportunities that we have to have adventures in the wilderness and use judicious fixed anchors to get off a cliff in the middle of nowhere, and that's something I think that's really unique to the Americas, to America's wilderness and America's climbing experience. So I think it's important also to maybe latch on to that talking point and provide your personal experience with that issue. So there's a lot of things that the climbing community can comment on, and the most important thing is submit comments, go to the access fund site, fill out the action alert, and be part of the solution. Yeah, all right. This is not a NEPA process. I mean, did they have to require, do they even have to open this to comment, or can they, like, this is kind of a nice opportunity for us that wasn't necessarily, you know, required by a law? It is interesting that on the fourth service side, they actually were required to open it up for cons, but in the, the park service was not required. It's interesting that this policy is not like it's not a director's order. This is actually a reference menu, the park service. It's a, it's a lower level guidance for how to implement climbing policy. So they're not required to accommodate, an opportunity for public comment. So give them some props for opening it up, you know, the park service wants to hear from you. I believe that the park service intends to do the best they can, they support climbing. They are, they're just making some bad decisions and maybe don't understand the unintended consequences. So that's a great point, you know, we were lucky that they were generous enough to provide us with opportunities for comment. I wish it wasn't over the holiday season, but at least there are opportunities for the climbing community way and to call out some of the features of these proposals that are really problematic for our community. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, seize that opportunity, take advantage. The comment period's opened up until January 16th. So we do have a couple of weeks into the new year after the holidays to get your comments in. So I'm going to be, I'm going to be pushing that pretty hard. I'm going to formulate something very coherent to submit myself and hope everyone does as well. Yeah, just one thing to add to that. We had a bunch of organizations and climbers submit requests for an extension on the comment period. We'd like it to go beyond the holiday season. So we'll keep everyone, so everyone planned for January 16th, but there is a possibility that it could get extended 30 days or so or a couple weeks. So we'll keep you in the loop, but please try to get them in before January 16th. Thanks for submitting comments, Pete. And I hope other people follow your lead. Yeah, you bet. All right, Eric. Thanks so much, man. I love talking to you. You're just a wealth of knowledge and I appreciate everything you can disseminate upon us and get us kind of moving in the right direction. Thanks so much for chatting this morning. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for thanks for talking about this important issue and hey, have a good holiday season. Let's go chat with you. Yeah. Likewise. All right. Thanks everyone for tuning in. I really hope you all enjoy this show as much as I enjoy making it. It's a lot of fun putting this together each month for you all to tune in and listen to. So thanks so much for listening. Before you depart, I want to run a few things by you. I started the show at a bolster of the efforts that these advocates do a year after year and of course to support the Mission Vaxis Fund. So I'd like to ask you to either donate or better yet become a member of Axis Fund. Your support and membership goes a long way to help them with their mission of conserving, stewarding and advocating for climbing. There are varying levels that you begin that you can become a member at, but you can get started for as low as 20 bucks a year. And after that, you can reap all kinds of awesome benefits with first getting a free t-shirt and getting amazing discounts on some of the best climbing products out there. It's all listed on Axis Fund's website, Axisfund.org. So check it out. If you're a rock climber, please consider becoming a member of Axis Fund. Second, if you want to do me a huge solid, please subscribe to the show and leave a glowing review and comment on Apple Podcasts. After that, jump on those social media channels and share it with your friends. It goes a long, long way and I'd greatly appreciate if you helped me out with that one. So thanks again for listening. I really appreciate it. I'll catch you all next time.