Access Fund

These guys are like, you know, gods to me, okay? But I'm really worried that we're gonna lose climbing.

Anyway, so, uh, I s- told my climbing partner, Chris Snyder, and I said, "Well, I guess we're just gonna have to do this ourselves." So I thought, "Well, maybe the Access Fund knows." So I called up the Access Fund, and I talked to Rick Thompson, and I'll never forget it.

We talked for about an hour on the phone, and I was just telling these guys, at the end of the phone call, he basically said, "Well, good luck."

[laughs]

I'm sitting in my makeshift, uh, bedroom office.

Phone rings back in the day, and I pick it up, and I always identify myself.

And a voice on the other end says, "I'm looking for the Access Fund regional coordinator." I said, "Well, that's me.

I'm the Access Fund regional coordinator for right now." And the gentleman on the other end identified himself as John Meyers.

On a mid-October weekend, I rolled out in my usual Friday evening fashion.

This time I would cruise through the Creek Pasture Campground, looking for a friend who works for the Access Fund, but he wasn't there.

Then, all of a sudden, I saw someone walking towards me.

And I recognized him.

I mean, just think about how far we've come.

And I think that's attributable to NPS leadership and the climbing community and the fact that we, you know... long ago uh the days of the rangers chasing away the climbers um has since passed and now we have a former deputy who has climbed lcap twice who basically got the job because of my climbing background so um it's good to be here it's good to collaborate with you um it's just it shows the type of advocacy people like you have done so i'm not filibustering i just want to come on and acknowledge that uh It's great to be friends with you and a great advocate of Access Fund.

So I think you just asked the all-important question, although I might phrase it slightly different just to match the statutory language.

And the question really is, does this proposed land exchange contribute to and is necessary for the protection, preservation of Yosemite? And of course, to answer that, you would need to know the details of any proposal.

here what makes sense to preserve the history and tradition of the park here while still taking into consideration other recreators and lovers of the park and that can't be done in dc and of course you know i live in dc for 20 years i'm not going to bash the bureaucrats over there i'm one of them um but for something like this when you're trying to balance that adventurous nature with making sure everything just doesn't turn into a climbing gym that's got to be done i think at the local park to park level.

I agree with much of what you just said.

And I think the Access Fund has a position that The individual parks should be allowed to choose how to manage fixed anchors and climbing in a way that supports the local geology, the ethics, the history and many other things.

And I think that that was one of the flaws with the draft.

Yeah, I think it's super important.

You know, in the Access Fund, you know, groups like that are doing amazing work.

And I've worked with the Access Fund with different grants and Waco tanks of educating climbers, you know, because you just don't know, you know, you've climbed in the gym and you don't know that you shouldn't climb after the rain on, you know, certain rock.

And people are just like so psyched and I don't blame them.

I get that psych.

And it's like your last day of vacation, but it rained and it's like so, so sad, but you really can't climb or you're going to hurt yourself, you know, as well as the resource.

So it's been great to work with groups like the Access Fund as well and, you know, get these educational programs out there.

And then also that trickled into our time here in Rocky because there's issues with pad stashing and things like that.

Yeah, so we're a coalition of 10 national organizations.

And the way that we came together was that back in the day, all these organizations like Access Fund and EMBA, International Mountain Bicycling Association, the Wildlands Alliance, they were all doing amazing work on behalf of their communities, you know, looking at the world from the perspective of mountain biking or climbing or backcountry skiing and representing the community with authenticity and very effectively kind of, you know, Bridging the gap between these pursuits and these passions and the places and the settings where they take place, right? So the idea of Outdoor Alliance was that there's a through line for all these different pursuits, right? It's different geographies, different topographies, but there's this common ethos in terms of caring for the places.

And that if these different communities could work together, they could probably get more done.

And that was the premise of Outdoor Alliance.

Am I missing any, Nicole? I think, was that...

access

access funds

yeah

Yeah, it's another similarity with the climbing community.

I feel the same way with the Access Fund every day.

So I definitely appreciate what you're saying there.

So let's just get into it and talk about the roadless rule.

And we're seeing real results.

So, yeah, I really appreciate you speaking on that.

If we want to comment, obviously, if you're a climber and you can go to the Access Fund website and we've got an action alert tool, what are some other ways? Does Trout Unlimited have an action alert tool? What are ways we can comment on this? You can

go to tu.org. It's right front and center there.