The Monolith Bolting Fiasco(tm) allowed me to reminisce about the days of old, when there was no Friends of Pinnacles.
Sometime during the last century, the local Pinnacles activists got abuzz when 'outsiders' began rap bolting the hell out of the place. First there was this well-to-do protagonist who had just bounced back from overseas. There, he sampled the ethics and styles of a top-down climbing culture, and he liked what he saw. He "opened" several routes at the Pinnacles in top-down fashion, and many bolts landed in questionable placements (not to mention [but I seem to be mentioning it] that run-out rap routes are kinda wrong).
About the same time, there was an energetic freak from the Monterey area who figured he could make a name for himself by bolting a bunch of stuff that he couldn't climb, yet claim the ascents in his self-published guidebook (boy, I wish I was smart enough to buy a copy of that, it'd make a nice whacky treasure--maybe Clint has one). TD and I tried to work on one of his 5.13 routes, a TR off some rap anchors on Machete. Funny, every hold we touched broke, and we decided that he merely chalked some holds on rappel before claiming, and naming, the route as his.
Around this time a certain highly-regarded duo from The Valley graced our backyard, and began throwing in routes by starting at the top. Not to name names, I'll just mention that the routes had cool words in their names, like "Death" and "Lava."
It was the accumulation of these actions that lead a group of folks to meet at a pizza parlor for an exchange of words with the Valley Boys. This was cool, though, because shortly after that our group began to meet in earnest. We rubbed elbows with the National Park Service and fancied ourselves to be important. The group was sizable, perhaps 10, 12 folks showed up on a regular basis. We published newsletters, got a logo, and made progress. Yes, this was the beginning of The Friends of Pinnacles, now honorably referred to as FOP.
Heck, if memory serves (and it occasionally does), we had the likes of the Famous Jack Holmgren (bold enough to never use hooks on his test-pieces), David Rubine, Clint Cummins, and Brooks White. There were others too, I guess I could dig out the notes (but I think I might have given them to Bruce Hildenbrand, our current FOP President).
Brooks produced a website:
http://pinnacles.org, and we continued to liaison with the Park Service.
Since the good ol' days, when there was actually things to discuss (like heathens who bolt without regard), there hasn't been much on the plate for FOP. These days we continue to work with the Park Service, and we ensure the website has the current raptor monitoring information. The Park Server contacts us for events and we reach out to assemble folks to staff a table, or perhaps do trail work.
So that's a short history of FOP. Everybody on this forum should become a member--it's free, it doesn't cost anything, and we don't bug you. But it shows that you support our Mission Statement, which is thus:
We are a not for profit organization dedicated to working directly with the National Park Service to preserve rock climbing and the environment at Pinnacles National Monument.Hmmm, not a bad thing.
Lastly, these memories are my own and are subject to the wrath of time. If you have corrections, or more information on this history, please feel free to correct or add at will.
Cheers,
:- k
