On a similar note, Nepal has now created a rule requiring all climbers of all abilities for all peaks in the country to hire a guide as a condition of their climbing permit. This is a continuation of "one size fits all" regulations that address the side effects of mass consumerization and consumption of the outdoors versus the actual root cause, which is of course the mass consumerization and consumption of the outdoors.Mr. Peillex indeed justified his decree [requiring climbers on Mont Blanc to carry specific gear at penalty of fine] by claiming that Mont Blanc is no longer a wild place, but as a destination for crowds of tourists and guides, an “urban space of commerce.” The mayor would have us believe that the meandering contours of Mont Blanc’s upper snowfields and wildflower-strewn buttes are now conterminous with weed-strewn sidewalks and traffic lights.
What his decree accomplishes is the mitigation of risk through behavior modification, not the diminution of hazards on the peak. It is but another version of “protecting us from ourselves.”
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Recently, I spoke with Scott Fitzwilliams, supervisor of the White River National Forest, whose boundaries contain some of Colorado’s deadliest mountains, about what could potentially force the United States to adopt similar measures. Mr. Fitzwilliams didn’t miss a beat: “The lawyers,” he said.
Though right now the USFS/Dept of the Interior is too busy holding a fire sale of public lands to extraction industries (thanks, Ryan Zinke!), it's troubling to imagine these overarching "safety" regulations being applied in this country. (Can you imagine Alex Honnold, after free soloing El Cap, getting a fine from the Yosemite rangers for not wearing a harness?) But, of course, at the local level it will be interesting to see how long the FS tries to keep people out of the Gorge after the fire, or what kind of restrictions they may try to put on trails that are damaged or can't/won't be repaired.
Frankly, given the shared root cause of all these problems (ie, the inexperienced flocking to the wilderness), I'm tempted to push for no trails, no bottled oxygen, no guides, no infrastructure. Remove the crutches of modern civilization and let the difficulties keep the masses at bay. I await the TKO trail-believer rebuttal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/opin ... erous.html