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Comment by snowwrestler | Hacker News Reader

> With both the National Park Service and Forest Service currently challenging the ban on fixed climbing anchors on public lands, they may become more common in the near future.

This is completely backward; there is currently not a ban on fixed climbing anchors in wilderness areas, and the NPS and Forest Service are attempting to create bans through a backdoor by updating their climbing management guidelines.

There is no way via ferratas are ever going to go into wilderness areas. People can argue whether the occasional fixed rappel anchor is an impermissible “installation” under the Wilderness Act. But everyone agrees that via ferratas are.

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I personally would rather not see these in the wilderness. One of the things that make the little remaining wilderness we have in the US "wild" is the friction to entry. I have some seasoned experience with mountaineering and wilderness stays and what makes it remarkable is the smaller footprint from humans. The more accessible it is the less wild it becomes.

People used to complain about Yosemite having a road built to it, because it'd detract from the natural beauty of the valley and bring in too many "lazy" tourists. To some extent those critics were right, but it's pretty undeniable in hindsight that the cause of the parks system has been better served by having parks like these accessible to the public than it would have been by keeping them pristine and largely unvisited. We still have parks like that too. Gates of the Arctic and Isla royale come to mind as inaccessible, and both are tragically undervisited / unknown as a result. It's not like you can't escape the crowded masses in busy parks either. A half hour hike towards the backcountry will free you from the bustle of crowds at almost all of them.

Yosemite already has a via ferrata: the cable route on Half Dome.

Yes, and it's a huge attraction. For better or for worse?

I think it’s for worse, but NPS obviously disagrees. They seem to have essentially designated most of the Valley a sort of tourist sacrifice zone, what with all the hotels, roads, stores, paved hiking trails, etc.

There was a similar cables route up Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park for decades, but NPS took it out, leaving the Keyhole Route as the easiest (but not easy) remaining way to the summit.

Wasn't that due to lightning strikes on the cables?

Allegedly. I’m skeptical though…

That's not a real via ferrata. Via ferratas in Europe require a helmet, a harness and a double hook lanyard, and being secured to a steel rope at all times.

The balance is that if the park doesn't let enough people in, the people stop supporting the park. America is democratic. Parks are not protected by royal proclamation. If the park is inaccessible then people don't visit. Then they don't care about it. Then one day someone wants to drill for oil in the park, and nobody cares enough to vote that down.

I really don't mind the car-camping crowd. They stay inside their gravel circles and don't impact the real wilderness much. But come time to vote they will always far outnumber the dedicated rock climbers. I want the car campers on my side. If that means giving them their parking spots then so be it.

Re: your democracy comment, note that Trump and Biden have both converted public land reserves and in cases near/impacting national parks into private oil drilling sites. Not to the point of drilling inside national parks yet, but expanding and encroaching. Given the bipartisan efforts to convert public land and the reversals on campaign promises without perceptible consequence, I'm skeptical of relying on the "voting and waiting" strategy to protect our undeveloped lands. You are overstating how democratic this process is.

>> relying on the "voting and waiting" strategy

I don't know where you get that. Parks are old. Older than petty debates between recent presidents. They rely on support from the population over decades, even centuries. This isn't about the ebb and flow of current voting patterns. This is about keeping people on the pro-park side intergenerationally. It is about making sure that people know what a park means, even if they only visited it as a kid decades previous. Current political personalities are irrelevant to that longer perspective.

>Parks are not protected by royal proclamation.

That's exactly how they're protected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lands_protected_by_The...

that is something that can be reversed if the public doesn’t want it enough.

ok, but you can make that point for any law.

Which is exactly the point. To ensure the national parks stay national parks in a democracy like the US it’s necessary for the parks to have widespread public support.

well, no. lack of support should never overturn a law. work needs to occur for removing them.

That work is being done constantly by companies that want access to the land or resources. The only reason it doesn't succeed is that people like parks and use them enough that it's not politically viable.

> We still have parks like that too. Gates of the Arctic and Isla royale come to mind as inaccessible, and both are tragically undervisited / unknown as a result.

Undervisited is a good thing for what remaining wilderness we have.

I'm with Edward Abbey on this one.

The one counterpoint I'd like to make here is tat. Imo it's better to leave minimal high quality, long lived gear than soft goods that deteriorate over time that can make for a dangerous descent and produce a fair bit of garbage.

The stuff I saw pictured looks like rebar bent into rungs, so now you have steel left out that will deteriorate, possibly in an undetectable manner(remember, your anchor point is in the rock face).

Also you are drilling into the rock. So much for leave no trace.

> little remaining wilderness

The US is mostly wilderness. Drive across it sometime staying off the highways.

Within the context of land management and the BLM, "wilderness" is a technical designation.

Here is a map[1] for land designated wilderness.

[1]: https://gbp-blm-egis.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/BLM-EGIS::blm-n...

Alternatively: As of 2016, roughly 36.21% (about one-third of the U.S.) is forested.[0]

A reasonable person will come to my conclusion if they do as I suggest in my comment.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forests_of_the_United_States

Forested is not wilderness. Most forests have lots of roads, power lines running through them, etc. You're just trying to redefine a defined term.

Prior to 1946 there was no wilderness as the BLM didn't exist to define it as such.

Or they don't own the definition.

Congress owns the definition via the Wilderness Act, which are tracts of land with no human presence or impact.

Perhaps that will give you context in this discussion.

As a rock climber, I hope it grows. Tired of seeing these debates and fights with authorities on putting up anchors, which are far less visible than these via ferratas. If these catch on and people like them, I think it will be good for climbers.

I wholeheartedly agree. I used to visit my grandpa's village every year (somewhere in europe) surrounded by beautiful mountains. The nature was accessible by everyone - warranted they'd do a 2 hour drive on rough road, get a hiking map and hike to the top. You'd also have to pack lunch and coffee. Now a new road is build, several hotels including a luxury resort with pools, coffee shops, tourist traps selling "traditional" "local" products etc. It's just terrible. Before, you'd "buy" your way there with effort, now you just pay, and you take your laziness with you all the way to the mountain top where you buy your $10 coffee and instagram snaps. If you want to sidestep the "nature" part of nature just go to a city park.

You can still find traditional unspoiled places in Europe and Alps have plenty of closed off areas. However, more accessible routes are good for old and disabled (e.g. post-COVID effects destroying one's athletic abilities etc.)

The OP means Wilderness (capital W), not wilderness. The former is federally designated as protected from just about any development. The latter is just undeveloped backcountry without the restrictive regulation.

And I tend to agree that the designation should not be loosened.

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