Canyoneering Culture
From CanyonWiki
relroliac nodarbasvi There are few activities involving more commitment than technical canyoneering. While signing your child up for a season of soccer or hockey may feel like a profound commitment to carpools, carpools and more carpools, canyoneering involves the kind of commitment found elsewhere only when a skydiver leaves the plane. Once you enter a canyon, retreat is difficult, if not impossible. Thus, canyoneering requires an independent spirit and a sense of determination. Rescue is not only poor form it is also dangerous.
Canyons form a channel cut between the stark and the sublime. They are a means for surface dwellers to temporarily enter the bowels of the earth. There it is quiet and the light soft. The water is often cold and stagnant, as if mother earth could use a laxative (but just hope you're not around when she gets it!). In the American Southwest, these are some of the few places where one can be exposed to heat stroke and hypothermia in the same day.
As with anything that is sublime, canyons are fragile. They contain unique ecosystems laced through soft sandstone. With any wilderness experience, leave no trace is the standard. Impact can be minimized by staying on established trails and in the watercourse where possible, respecting plant life and artifacts from prior cultures, and by packing out waste and trash. When placing an anchor the local jargon refers to clean canyoneering. Natural colored webbing is typically preferred to minimize the eyesore of abandoned gear. In Zion National Park, use of power drills to place bolts is illegal. In general these are permanent scars that should be avoided if possible and only placed if it will reduce the overall impact of canyoneers in the canyon. Cutting your own moki steps with a hammer to escape a pothole is also acceptable only in the direst of emergencies. Canyoneers who enter difficult canyons do so to enjoy the challenges of the myriad problems they will find. Both bolts and hammer marks are permanent scars on the canyon. They should be the last solution in a long list of creative possibilities. As with most sports, the skill of a canyoneer is not measured exclusively by the difficulty of a route he or she can complete, but by the style in which they complete it. Bolts and hammers have little style. Being rescued is embarrassing. Being dead is tragic and stupid.
The impact of an increasing cadre of canyoneers will be felt not just in scars on the majestic canyons walls, but also in access to canyons. In National Parks like Zion, abuses to the canyons in the form of unnecessary trails, erosion, pull-marks near anchors, bolts and rescues threaten our access to these canyons. Already entrance to the most popular canyons is limited by a permit system. Restrictions in this park could easily be increased if we as a community do not care for the canyons and descend them safely. As rescues and damage accrue on BLM and other public lands, access to these canyons will almost certainly be limited as well. Government institutions came to see BASE jumping and skateboarding as reckless and destructive. These sports have been mandated against. It would be tragic if canyoneering suffered a similar fate.
Access to canyons is also limited by knowledge of them. Most interesting slot canyons are too thin to find their way onto a USGS topographical map. They are often too short to have been named by the local ranchers and Indians. Until the last decade, when the publication of multiple guidebooks and Internet websites democratized a vast array of canyon locations, canyoneers learned of new slots only by word of mouth. Knowledge of canyons was sparse and slowly acquired. Now, novices can pick up a book or log on to a web site and choose from a long list of adventures. This has increased the impact on canyons by increasing the number of people descending them. It also increases the ease with which one can get into trouble. Conditions change frequently. Newly formed logjams; deep, empty potholes; long, cold swims; flashfloods; and brutally hot conditions cannot be updated in guidebooks or on web pages in real-time. At best these list the most common hazards encountered in a canyon. It is the responsibility of the team descending a canyon to be prepared to negotiate the problems they may encounter. Canyonwiki and web logs are excellent means of obtaining recent data about a canyon and should be used, but do not supplant responsible canyoneering.
There remain a number of canyons that are 'off the radar.' They are known to the discoverers and those who have acquired knowledge of them by word of mouth. Our democratic senses would suggest that disclosure should be appropriate. Some dangerous canyons remain secret to protect canyoneers from dangerous routes. Some to protect the canyon from less experienced canyoneers and the threat of bolting. It remains unclear what the responsibility of the discoverer is to the canyoneering community.
Finally, recent political movements from the Civil Rights movement to AARP's Grey Panthers have taught us the necessity of forming a political constituency capable of voicing a cogent, rational, articulate message. Citizenship in a community includes concerns to protect it. Canyoneers who care about the future access and protection of these treasured spaces should join and contribute to organizations with similar goals.
[edit] Other pages discussing canyon culture and ethics
General information
- History of Canyoneering
- Canyoneering lingo
- Zion Canyoneering Coalition
- Climbing Primer on Climb-Utah
- American Canyoneering Association
- American Canyoneering Association Forums
- Yahoo Canyoneering Group
Bolting Ethics
- ACA San Gabriel Chapter Ethics Guide
- Clean Canyoneering on Canyoneering.com
- Bolting Ethics Article in Canyoneering USA Ejournal
- Bolting Ethics on WelchWorks
- Bolting Ethics discussion on CanyoneeringUSA.com
- Bolting Ethics discussion on UUtah.com
Rescue Ethics
