JimmyRay's Posts, all of them Options

[sean]

I have attached a word document with all of Jimmy's posts on this site. They are in reverse chronological order, meaning his last post is first. I tried to reverse it, but in an effort to retain all of the links in the word document as hyperlinks, I was not able to. I also wanted to put it into a word doc so that it could be saved locally.

Peace!

 JimmyRayPosts.doc ( 313K ) Number of downloads: 84

[sean]

If anyone knows Jimmy's family, or thinks they would like to have it, I have his log in information so they can have that piece of memory. I hope this is not in distaste. Please PM me if you feel this to be of any benefit at all to the family.

I have changed his password in the hopes to prevent any hack.

[sirhctrebor]

Thanks for doing this, Sean.

Chris...

[Bryan]

Unfortunately a lot of Jimmys posts were lost here in the Great Hack of ’05. My guess however is that there is a copy of them all someone in Dallas. I had saved my reply to Jimmys first post which contained most of his message- I’ve tried to reconstruct his post as best possible but I think at least one part is missing but I’m not sure:



I tend to keep a low profile, both in the field, and on the board… most of you probably wont know me from Adam…

[text missing?]

In the name of balance, the “powers that be” should be aware that we’d like to know what makes up the “review formula”, and that we’d like to see some measures in place that might help safeguard core traditional values in “spots” too... that these values… over time… will not die a death of a thousand scratches

After reviewing a few of the documents available on the web (e.g., Memorandum of Understanding for the Central Texas Climbing Committee and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Application for Placement of Fixed Protection at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, etc.), I didn’t see anything about what specific criteria went into the evaluation process. Is there a formula? One would assume that certain criteria are met when “approving for recommendation” retro-bolts?

Do these criteria exist in a “published” document, do they exist in someone(s) head, other?

Regardless of where they exist, are any of these criteria objective (i.e., a definitive yes or no answer can be obtained)? For example: From a Resource perspective: Does placing this belay retro-bolt(s) reduce natural resource impacts by eliminating the prior or past precedent of using a tree? From a general Local Ethic perspective: Was the FA consulted?

Conversely, how many of these criteria would be considered subjective (i.e., open to interpretation)?

Are approvals for recommendation per a unanimous, or majority vote? How many make a majority? Have there been split votes in the past?

When application requests are submitted to the regulating entity with the committee’s “recommended stamp of approval”, are the criteria used to deliver said pro-recommendation articulated to the regulating entity? Can these evaluations be articulated to the public as well?

Are any of the criteria-arguments a wash? For example, we’re retro-bolting route So & So because there are a lot of other spicy opportunities to choose from… well, there are a lot of non-spicy opportunities to choose from too… shouldn’t these types of arguments, if they exist, cancel each other out?

Speaking as an end user, I’d like to know why, on what grounds a bolt was added to an existing route. On objective (black & white) criteria, I could “audit” the placement for myself, and recognizing that subjective criteria would be open to interpretation, or “in the eye of the beholder(s)” so to speak, it would still be meaningful to determine if the subjective (gray) pieces of the evaluation process were being evaluated in a consistent manner across the board. If the public was made aware of the “formula” used, and could bank on a consistent policy, then I think it might help alleviate some “death of a thousand” fears.

Climbing is an accepted regulated recreational activity at E-Rock… which is to say that it’s managed… I know it’s not a pretty word, but another synonym for manage is control… Regardless of what word you apply… it (i.e., bureaucracy) becomes more prevalent when dealing with a limited resource, such as E-Rock. As a homer, it’s obvious that new roped-climbing opportunities are the exception - not the rule… basically what we got now… is what we got. Will a few independent FA’s or interesting linkups be mined out here and there? Sure. Will they be representative of other classic/quality routes found in the park? Not so sure? But the reality is that the formations or walls of prominence that would support new roped-climbing opportunities were basically climbed out years ago. All we got is what we got… just another reason why it’s so important to a lot of us to be “respectfully selective” in how we retro-bolt, and why we’d like to be aware of the formula used… why we’d like to see some measures taken to safeguard/preserve the traditional historical precedent that is dear to our hearts.

Question: Is it possible to implement some win-win (i.e., compromise) management policies, or controls that would do just that?

please leave us some wide open spaces