Setting it straight

My phone was blowing up before I even read the editorial.

Last week, Dana Johnson, of the group Wilderness Watch, published a syndicated piece titled, “Mountains Don’t Need Hardware.” The column strung together a series of falsehoods to argue that the proposed “Protect America’s Rock Climbing Act” was a way for climbers to show that recreation is more important than preserving wilderness and that bolts are a dire threat to wilderness.

Several climber friends read it and were immediately asking me if I would write a response. My reply was that I didn’t have the time. My writing time is precious these days, and I’ve yet to even start on that book that lies in the back of my consciousness, begging me to start the long and winding road. 

Plus, there are professionals to do the job. I’m in the business of climbing storytelling, not policy. My colleagues at the Access Fund and the American Alpine Club get paid to do this work.

But then I kept thinking about it. I made a meme about it, showing the hypocrisy of the piece in a modern way. 

Then I got word the Adventure Journal pulled the editorial from their website. I felt a sense of satisfaction, knowing the weak argument Johnson was making was being uncovered.

Now, I could go line by line and examine the piece and present my argument, but I want to go in a different direction. I want to tell a quick story from my time earlier this year in El Potrero Chico, Mexico, a place that could be described as the Yosemite of Mexico. 

I had just finished replacing some old bolts on a climb and was hanging out at the base of the cliff. A Mexican guy walked up to me and asked me if I was the person who replaced the bolts. I replied yes, and then he told me he was the person who originally put them in, decades ago. I feared the guy was going to get angry, as I’d rearranged the placement of the bolts to make a better experience. Plus, I am an outsider, a gringo in his homeland. Instead, the opposite happened; he thanked me for improving the route, for improving the hardware.

We had a great conversation and exchanged phone numbers. At the end, he looked me in the eye and said, “We’re all on the same team.”

And, that’s how I’d like to conclude this letter-to-the-editor, by suggesting to Wilderness Watch that you are on the same team as the Access Fund. Your goals and vision are similar; the nuance of climbing hardware could be best understood if you connected with climbers and maybe came out to one of the many Access Fund stewardship projects that happen every year.

After all, next year is an election year, and our team has some big battles ahead. 

– Luke Mehall, Durango