Last year's stash at The Lookout, growing at an alarming pace.
Is this the image we want to portray?
It’s hard to believe amid today’s snowfall, but the Spring climbing season is slowly getting started in the Bow Valley. Climbers are venturing out to the crags and getting ready to move their climbing gear from their closet to storage in their crag buckets. Now is a good time to rethink the bucket system which has been standard operating procedure in the Bow Valley for as long as I've climbed here.
For those
unfamiliar with Bow Valley climbing, our approaches are extreme. One to two
hour hikes with 400 to 800 meters of elevation gain and sections of 4th
class climbing are standard. I've
traveled to many places around the world to rock climb and I haven’t seen
anywhere with approaches like the Bow Valley. Nothing even comes close. To
increase the difficulty further, the trails tend to be buried in snow and ice in
the spring and winter.
To help
ease the suffering, climbers tend to stash gear at the crags, typically a rope and
set of draws. Most crags have rats that
will eat climbing gear overnight so rat proof paint buckets are standard. Gear
is also left hanging on the first bolt of some climbs. The unlucky routes that
have their first bolt hijacked tend to fall into obscurity. In the past, only
climbers who regularly visited a crag would leave gear, and usually only at a
single crag. Climbing wasn't as mainstream and stashed gear stayed at an
acceptable limit.
Getting ready for a burn on Leviathan 5.14a in 2009 with the rope nest in the background.
In recent
years, climbing has had an enormous increase in popularity, more so indoors,
but outdoor traffic has seen a noticeable increase as well. Seeing the standard
practice from seasoned climbers, new climbers don’t think twice and promptly visit
the hardware store to pick up a bucket of their own and hike it up the next
day.
We constructed a bucket shelter at Acephale in 2013 to remove buckets crowding the base of the wall as a temporary measure while hoping to phase out buckets completely. Instead, the number of buckets has only grown.
Recent
attitudes towards stashed gear have changed as well. It is now common for those
who don't climb regularly to stash gear, climbers stash gear at multiple crags
throughout the Bow Valley to not commit to a certain place, and some will
leave multiple ropes at the same crag or multiple ropes at different walls
within the same area. Climbers no longer try to keep stashed gear at a minimum and
instead take the opposite extreme, with the goal to hike in and out carrying nothing
but food and water for the day.
I admit
I've been guilty of many of these offenses, most notably at Acephale. At the
time, I was climbing there 6 or 7 days a week, but I've come to realize the
excessive nature and the problems it leads to.
Adding even
more to gear stashes is the fact that people abandon their gear when they are done with it, and the piles of abandoned gear alone is
getting excessive, effectively turning crags into a trash bin. Left unchecked the piles of ropes and buckets will only keep growing.
The gear stash at Planet X. I spent the majority of last summer here and I saw one of these ropes used one time. The owner promptly declared he probably wouldn't be back again until next year and hung his rope back up for storage.
Storing
gear at the crag has the sole advantage of rewarding lazy climbers. Cleaning up
the crags increases the visual appeal, makes a more enjoyable
experience for everyone, creates a better first impression for new climbers to the crag, prolongs the lifespan of gear, leads to more
sustainable climbing in the future, and helps promote the Bow Valley as a world
class climbing destination.
Ask
yourself: Do you want to contribute to the mess or help clean it up? Does
carrying a few extra pounds of gear in and out really affect how you ultimately
enjoy your day? I for one spent all of last season hiking all my gear in and
out of the crag every day, including a 100m rope in and out of Echo Canyon. I see no reason to leave gear at the crag anymore and I
actually feel increased enjoyment out of climbing days now.
The Upper Wall at Acephale, devoid of the bucket stashes and rope nests of old.
