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Ongoing debate: How do rock climbers balance safety with Leave No Trace principles?

: [POST-BROADCAST CLARIFICATION: In this story, we say that fixed climbing anchors violate the Wilderness Act. But not all federal agencies that administer Wilderness areas agree on that. In this case, the National Park Service says the anchors violate the act, but the US Forest Service disagrees.]

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Rock climbers have a long history of bucking the system. Now they're arguing with some conservationists and the federal government over some proposed climbing regulations in the wilderness. Hanna Merzbach from the Mountain West News Bureau has this report.

HANNA MERZBACH, BYLINE: It's a blue-sky summer afternoon in Grand Teton National Park. Shannon and Garrick Hart are preparing to climb up a jagged rock face. They make their way up a series of cracks and ledges, stopping on a narrow shelf about 800 feet off the ground. Here, Garrick, a mountain guide, points out a fixed anchor - a cluster of metal rings, bolts drilled into the granite and chains hanging off them.

GARRICK HART: They kind of blend into the rock. You can't really see them till you're within, like, 10 feet of them.

MERZBACH: They've reached the top of the face, but you can't safely hike down, so Garrick threads a rope through those silver bolts.

G HART: And then I'm going to toss this rope down, so that we can rappel down it. Rope.

MERZBACH: Next, his wife, Shannon, uses a metal device that kind of looks like a belt buckle to attach her harness to the rope. It allows her to slide down about 150 feet to the next rappel station.

SHANNON HART: And I just sit back on the rope, let my feet out wide and walk down.

MERZBACH: Fixed anchors have been installed in wilderness areas for decades, but last fall, the National Park and Forest services proposed removing them. They technically violate the Wilderness Act. People are supposed to leave the wilderness in the same condition they found it. The Park Service's Cynthia Hernandez says more than 12,000 people have sent in comments about the proposed enforcement, the majority against it.

CYNTHIA HERNANDEZ: We are just looking to create a system that provides a consistent and predictable approach from park to park.

MERZBACH: The federal agencies say climbing should still be allowed in the wilderness, but drilling holes into rock does damage natural resources. Hernandez says the new guidance would allow land managers to keep anchors they determine are critical for safety, but Franz Camenzind would like to see them removed from wilderness.

FRANZ CAMENZIND: Do we put bridges over rivers in the wilderness that we would otherwise not be able to cross, perhaps?

MERZBACH: A retired leader of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, he thinks some things people should just leave untouched. Many climbers say, even if some anchors are removed, people will still scale rock walls and just leave their own gear behind or try and climb down without it. Camenzind says he doesn't want people to get hurt.

CAMENZIND: But if you think you're in a position or you might get injured, maybe you shouldn't be there. Maybe you should just say, this face, this climb, this mountain shouldn't be climbed.

ANDREW LAMB: There's no point in preserving it in a pristine condition if we can't go enjoy it.

MERZBACH: Climber Andrew Lamb says he's not totally opposed to the draft regulations, but he's worried land managers could be anti-climbing.

LAMB: I can see the trail, and I can see the horse footprints that we already allow in wilderness areas. It would be hard for me to be, like, really hard-line about one type of impact over another.

MERZBACH: The National Park Service is currently analyzing the public comments. There's no specific timeline for a decision.

For NPR News, I'm Hannah Merzbach, in Jackson, Wyo.

(SOUNDBITE OF WILLIAM TYLER'S "HIGHWAY ANXIETY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Hanna Merzbach