Your help is needed to protect Wilderness at Joshua Tree National Park and Wilderness in California. The National Park Service (NPS) is soliciting initial “scoping” comments on a new climbing plan for Joshua Tree, and needs to be reminded of the importance of protecting designated Wilderness from the installation of climbing bolts and other permanent fixed climbing anchors. Congress designated the Joshua Tree Wilderness in 1976 and, after additions in 1994, the Wilderness now includes 595,000 acres of the total 792,000-acre Joshua Tree National Park in southern California. The NPS is now considering adopting a new Climbing Management Plan for Joshua Tree to regulate climbing and to protect natural resources. Rock climbing in designated Wilderness is an allowable recreational activity, but many climbers rely on installing bolts or other permanent fixed climbing anchors to assist in climbing challenging rock faces. These permanent fixed climbing anchors deface the rock walls, degrade the area’s wildness, and are prohibited by the 1964 Wilderness Act. Thanks to the comments that many of you submitted in June of 2021, the NPS now agrees that permanent fixed climbing anchors are indeed installations that are prohibited by the Wilderness Act. But many climbers disagree, and will push the NPS to allow even more fixed anchors at the Joshua Tree Wilderness. Your help is needed by Feb. 27 to support the NPS recognition that fixed climbing anchors should not be allowed in the wilderness portions of Joshua Tree National Park. Please go to the NPS planning website listed below, and submit your comments on the proposed climbing management plan. Feel free to copy and paste our suggested responses from below, but use your own words where possible. parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?documentID=117603 |
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Dear National Park Service Staff, I support the NPS determination that fixed climbing anchors are installations under the Wilderness Act. The NPS should prohibit the installation of all new fixed anchors in the wilderness portions of Joshua Tree National Park, as well as the use of electric drills for placing such anchors in Wilderness. Only removable anchors should be used for climbing in Wilderness. Nothing requires that all rock faces in Wilderness must be climbable; if climbers can’t climb a wilderness rock face without defacing it with permanent fixed anchors, then they shouldn’t try to climb that face. |
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