![]() ![]() Rangers hope to install kiosks in Tuolumne Meadows and other climbing areas, McGahey said. There was also some “limited seasonal crowding” on popular routes - namely El Cap’s The Nose - especially during peak climbing season in May and October.Įarlier this year, per feedback from climbers, the park shifted from requiring climbers to book their dates in advance and instead opted to let them self-register at a walk-up kiosk in Yosemite Valley. However, the park also found several “unacceptable impacts,” including climbers leaving fixed lines dangling along the walls for “extended periods,” disposing of human waste improperly, and “potential” illegal guiding and unpermitted commercial filming, according to the documents signed this month. Whether the outcomes were attributable to the new permit requirement is “hard to tell,” McGahey said. Also, just one climber died during the pilot period - down from an average of two per year - and rangers performed fewer rescues than normal at just two per year, down from four per year prior. Less abandoned gear and litter were found atop El Capitan and along the wall’s popular climbing routes, which had been an issue. Rangers noted several positive changes during the pilot program, McGahey said. “But there’s a range of impacts, and we realized we need to be able to contact all the climbers to make sure everybody understands the leave-no-trace climbing ethics - and that they’re backed by regulations.” “We want to continue to provide access for climbers in a way that hopefully won’t change their ability to have unconfined access to the wilderness area,” McGahey said. Yosemite has seen a rising number of overnight climbs in recent years - presumably because of climbing’s explosive popularity and the influence of award-winning Yosemite climbing documentaries “Free Solo” (2018) and “The Dawn Wall” (2017) - and all that activity is creating collateral issues that need to be addressed, park officials say. About 3,400 climbers secured permits during the pilot program, in most cases to climb the 3,000-foot-high granite monolith of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, according to park statistics. ![]()
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