ZAC is really branching out

[moab mark]

Dan,

Do you feel there should be no public beta available thru guidebooks or the internet?

Mark

[Iceaxe]

Gosh Crappy..... What are you whining about today? What special attention do you require now?

Since it appears your bus was shorter than the other buses at your school let me reiterate.... I'll try and talk slow so you can keep up..... I provide accurate beta for those that want it, some is free, some is pay-per-view... that is what I do.... I have never claimed anything more.... I am not going to stop providing this service... or plague... depending on your point of view...

So... with that understanding, what can I do for you?

[Brian in SLC]

From day one we've always kept a lid on the locations where we guide... Merely having a desire to know the location so you can hike the route without doing your own legwork is not reason enough.

Great post, Matt, and it gives some of us (at least me) a different POV to think about.

I'm not anti guide per se. I may come across that way sometimes. I mostly run into guides climbing, and, they use resources that were developed by climbers, not guide services. That, and the whole deal with getting a permit to run the Grand Canyon, and heli ski guides here in the Wasatch all leave me a little gun shy when it comes guides and guide services in general.

Its got to be a pretty tough row to hoe. You got canyons to guide, you have to advertise, you want folks to have a great trip, spread the word, etc, but, sooner or later, those locations will leak out. I'll admit to having looked at your site a number of times a few years ago to see what type of canyon opportunities were available in the Moab area. Just looking at the photos told me there were worthy objectives. I never went, but, I did ask around to see if a folks knew about which canyons were good, where, etc. So, even advertising them kinda opens them up for at least some type of scrutiny.

Bummer about not being able to guide in Arches. Makes me wonder how that could have been mitigated, and, whether the general canyoning community could have helped? Its hard to have folks lobby for you keeping a permit if they didn't have a stake in it somehow, or, felt like there was some type of beneficial relationship there. If you weren't sharing beta, then, makes me wonder if folks didn't worry that much about guiding in Arches? Dunno.

I know some of the guide services around here try to get general community service type stuff to maybe try to win over folks that don't use their guide service. Got picked up on the road a few years back by the heli guides' van. Full of clients and a couple of guides. One guide was pretty outgoing and nice (he was probably the reason we got picked up on the road) but the clients and other guide were fairly unpleasant. Anyhoo, they drop us off at the parking lot, and, say, "now remember to tell all your backcountry ski buddies how nice the Powerbirds were for giving you a ride." I just laughed and said, yeah, HELI FREE WASATCH" which didn't get much of a chuckle out of any of them. Oh well, some of us lobby fairly hard against them...

Its a tough situation. Good canyons, limited resourse, everyone wants access (and beta apparently). I can't help but think that limiting guiding in Arches will be a bad thing for canyoning in general. Shades of things to come? I hope not.

Cream tends to float to the surface. Kind of that way with canyons. The good ones get popular. Then it becomes tough to find them uncrowded.

Food for thought...

Thanks again.

-Brian in SLC

[xxnitsuaxx]

I ran into Ed, one of Moab Matt's guides last Friday in Granary Canyon. I was taking 11 people down the canyon and he came up behind me with only 2. I tried to convince them to go ahead of us at the first rappel, as half of my party were complete beginners (including my 56 year old mom, who's a complete badass). The couple he was guiding seemed happy for the break, they refused, and we didn't see them again until the last rappel. The logistics of getting 11 people down a 195 foot rappel with an awkward start gave me plenty of time to talk to the 3 of them. Ed was very patient and professional and I was impressed at how he managed to get the couple, a pair of flatlanders from Indiana, down the canyon by himself. We talked about the development of canyons in the area and I began to get a feel for how frustrated Matt might feel when he gets stuck behind groups like ours. I'm not going to get into the "canyons are public" vs. "we put the legwork into finding them" debate - the sides seem pretty well entrenched. Instead I'm going to ask if the publication of beta hurts the guide services in ways other than complicating things with the land managers. The couple I met from Indiana doesn't seem like the type to ever use a beta site. They could have step by step directions through the canyon and they would still only go with a guide. Meanwhile, my friends and I will never use a guide service, as we have neither the money nor the inclination to do so. It seems to me that if someone is going to get on the interweb and look for beta, that sort of person is unlikely to ever use a guide service to take him through a canyon. Different target markets, ya know? So to the guides out there - do the beta sites harm your business in ways other than complicating things with land managers\clogging up the canyons?

[Iceaxe]

For the record.... I agree that Moab area canyons are a limited resource. And I do feel Matt's pain... but Matt (Desert Highlights ) is also not the only canyon guide in Moab. JHMG is guiding, Cliff's and Canyons is guiding, Zion Adventure Company is seeking permits, Moab Desert Adventures is guiding, and probably a few others I don't know about....

That Matt's permits in Arches were not renewed was a direct result of the other guide services requesting equal access... and had nothing to do with privateer's canyoneering inside the park. If Matt wants to vent his anger at a group over his loss of access it should be directed at his brother guide services....

Next item.... Just about every canyon, slot and butt crack in the Moab area is being used by one guide service or anther.... and all the best stuff is being guided by at least one guide service or anther, sometimes several..... Sometimes I think half the people that live in Moab are guides of one type or anther.... So my question is.... if we are going to protect canyons used by a guide services who's canyons do we protect? if any?

Bottom line..... The pie is only so big and it all comes down to who gets a slice and how big of slice do they get.... So who should be in charge of slicing it up?

[restrac2000]

First off, its pretty obvious this is a contentious issue, as is often involved in equations involving ego, finances, and perceived hard work. Its not likely to ever be solved on an internet forum; not a single one of us has access to the all the details involved, leaving assumption and conjecture to rule the day. Second, we as a community will only see increased competition for limited resources as time goes on. Only canyons far enough from roads may avoid the reality of increased pressure and associated management. But to answer a few specific questions and statements here:

"That Matt's permits in Arches were not renewed was a direct result of the other guide services requesting equal access... and had nothing to do with privateer's canyoneering inside the park."

-- This unequivocally untrue. Maybe since I left Moab in 2006 the demand and interest from guide services in Moab has increased but I doubt it was to a level that alone warranted closure to any guiding. Most other services I have talked to showed little to no interest in guiding the "canyons" in Arches. On the other hand, growth in private use of Arches grew exponentially; this was obvious both in the quantity of encounters, quantity in impact and the quality of resource protection. The only restrictions I saw implemented in Arches during my limited tenure were associated with private use and abuse (a certain, controversial climb of Delicate Arch and ropes left dangling between towers for days on end). I can accept there may have been increased commercial interest in the area since I left, JHMG was desperate for routes and was well known for duplicating those of local guide services. On the other hand, to label the issue solely a commercial problem is a laughable joke. The commercial hand in Moab is ravenous but there are plenty of hungry private pie eaters for blame to go around. Everyone needs to know that at this point that their salivating has an effect on management decisions. Every one of us.

" You got canyons to guide, you have to advertise, you want folks to have a great trip, spread the word, etc, but, sooner or later, those locations will leak out."

-- This sums up alot of the reality of the sport, especially commercial guiding. There is a hunger for new canyons that limits how long a "secret" will last. When you consider how most of us find new routes it is only time before somebody puts the picture together. I can only speak to my experience, but how long a canyon was going to be unknown and viable without competition was a discussion we had before guiding. I gave Pileades at most 2-3 years. I was extremely sad to see it hit the public beta circuit but it was expected. We have accountability in posting photos of the area that gave clues. Guiding can be one link to a place gaining notoriety. I will always have a sense of guilt for that place in this regard; considering the lack of interest in the Moab area I firmly believe the location with have been off the radar for at least a decade had we not chosen to guide it.

That said, the role beta peddlers, guide book authors and educators have is just as important. We provide multiple venues that place a new canyon in the spotlight. Anybody the denies their accountability in this regard lacks the vulnerability, awareness and willingness that is needed to mitigate our impacts. We all may feel we do a lot to limit our impact but we can always do more. All these recreational information sources require local or regional enthusiast to survive; we can define the means and quantity in which that information is distributed but it takes an immense amount of honesty about what we truly want and vulnerability to the choices that diminish those aspects of adventure. Canyoneers are shrinking the realm of the unknown and increasing management, we can't stop this progression. We can control how fast and how much.

Time will tell how quickly ZAC's canyons will go public. That said, considering the # of foot soldiers we have in the field now and the allure of finding a "secret", I would be shocked if they weren't published within 5 years. We can only hope people do it legally and with the least impact possible.