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Show 3 March 2010 Russell Jacobs the stronger climber should be allowed to jump ahead. I think that happens quite often these days. But you're right, some of these, especially in the Wasatch, the more popular routes and I think a lot of people are gravitating to the sport side of things because you don't need a lot of equipment. It's easy to start right away. You only need a pair of shoes, a harness, a rope and ten quick draws. I'll just explain what a quick draw is. A quick draw is nylon webbing that will have a carabiner, a snap link on either end. Because the protection is already fixed by the first party, as you climb up you clip in and that's your protection and then you run the rope through that snap link. And that's, you know, that's easy, where in the past before sport climbing came to be, you had to have your own equipment to safeguard you in case of a fall or the weaknesses on any route. So, yeah, some of these sport routes, you'll find two or three parties waiting to get on them. The more traffic you have, the trail gets a little beat up ... MD: Yeah, that's what I'm saying is it's great, it's a great personal philosophy to have to leave no trace, right, and even if everybody is responsible enough to have that philosophy, the sheer amounts of people is going to leave a trace. RJ: Yes, the trails will be trodden. Here in the Wasatch we have mostly scrub oak that most of the climbs are in the lower reaches of the Wasatch. Scrub oak is what you have to deal with. But that grows pretty fast. MD: But then there's some areas like down south where there's cryptobiotic soil. RJ: That's right. Exactly. Exactly, that people are not exactly aware of yet. Those kinds of soils, exactly, you can't, you've just got to leave them alone. It takes a long time for them to grow and ... 6 |
