Longtime AAC member, Patagonia founder and pioneer of Clean Climbing efforts Yvon Chouinard is the feature of a recent video made by American Express, highlighting the ways he has taken the first step to launch major conservation efforts. AmEx has partnered with TakePart to launch the Members Project, in which everyday people can take the first and smallest of steps to enact change.

We’re proud to have members like Yvon among our ranks. Check out the video, “Take Charge: Taking the First Step to Protect Nature,” below.

The deadline for electronic comments on Yosemite National Park’s proposed Merced Wild and Scenic River Plan has been extended until midnight on February 9. The previous deadline had been February 4, but the NPS experienced technical difficulties because of high volume, and some climbers’ comments were inadvertently rejected.

A notice at Yosemite’s Merced Plan web page states: “If you tried to send an electronic comment on the Merced River Plan and your email was returned to you as undeliverable, please submit your comment again. We will be accepting comments until midnight, Feb 9, 2010. When you resend your comment, please include a note in the subject line that this is a resent comment.”

Click here to learn more about the Merced Plan, which could affect climbing access and camping in Yosemite National Park. The Access Fund’s automated comment-generator is no longer active, but you can still comment online through the NPS’ Merced Plan site. Please note: This extension applies only to electronic comments.

Two AAC members are among the climber-activists recently honored by the Access Fund with 2009 Sharp End Awards. The awards celebrate individuals and businesses that stand out in their volunteer efforts to preserve access and the climbing environment.

Anthony Love
 received the 2009 Bebie Leadership Award as “America’s outstanding activist for the cause of 
preserving climbing access and the climbing environment.” As president of the Carolina Climbers Coalition, Love helped lead the recent effort to acquire the Rumbling Bald West Side Boulders in North Carolina, and has 
been instrumental in climbing-management planning for Laurel Knob and continued access to the 
privately owned Asheboro Boulders.

Aaron Gibson, co-owner of the Rocktown Climbing Gym and coach of the Oklahoma 
Climbing Team, won a Sharp End Award for his leadership in climbing-management planning and trail projects throughout Oklahoma. Gibson has been an Access Fund regional coordinator since 2004 
and has played an integral role in helping to preserve climbing access at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. He also provided lobbying support for the Access Fund’s meetings with Oklahoma’s congressional 
delegation in Washington, D.C.

Other awards went to Thomas Ling, founder of the Mid-Atlantic Climbers Coalition; Clif Bar & Company; and Brian Sabourin, founder of the new Northeast Ohio Climbers Coalition. Click here to read the full press release from the Access Fund.

The second year of the AAC’s Los Glaciares National Park conservation project, sponsored by Patagonia Inc., wrapped up successfully in early December. Over six weeks in the Patagonian spring, the eight-man Argentinean-American team, led by project coordinator Rolando Garibotti, with help from other volunteers, continuedwork begun in 2008 to restore heavily eroded trails in Los Glaciares, which is home to Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre.

First, however, the American trail experts led a nine-day field-work seminar in late October with 17 park rangers from various national parks across Argentinean Patagonia. Over more than 76 hours in the field, the rangers learned techniques for mitigating and stopping erosion, including steps, drainage, and causeways. Despite some initial difficulties due to the language barrier, the course was a major success, and similar efforts likely will be made in the future.

Once the trail course ended, work resumed on the heavily damaged Laguna de los Tres trail in Los Glaciares. Because of poor weather, work also was done on the lower-elevation trails leading to Rio Blanco camp and up the Cerro Torre valley. About 2,000 man/hours of trail work was completed.

In his report on the 2009 work, Garibotti said the project is having a much broader impact than new water bars and steps. “Our work, including the trail course, is inspiring some land managers to follow a much more deliberate approach toward trail building and maintenance,” he wrote. “One clear example of the above is that since January 2010 the northern area of Los Glaciares National Park has its own trail crew. As an initial experiment, the park decided to commit five salaries for four months (until late April) to the trails. It is the first time in the Patagonian parks that several people are specifically assigned to trail work.”

The Los Glaciares conservation project will continue until 2011. There is much more to this innovative international effort than can be described in a short article, and you can read Garibotti’s full report here. The video below offers a great summary of the first year of the project, in 2008.

The AAC’s Sierra Nevada Section hosted its annual Fall Highball on the East Side over the weekend of November 7-8, and it was a rockin’ good time. A collaboration between the AAC, Friends of the Inyo, the Access Fund, the Eastern Sierra Cimbers’ Coalition, and local land managers from Inyo National Forest, the weekend kicked off with a morning of volunteer work at Peabody Boulders in the Buttermilks. With coffee and breakfast (provided by the Access Fund) to fuel them, volunteers spent a few hours cleaning up trash and protecting vegetation and habitat. “They kicked ass,” said Doug Robinson of the team of 70 volunteers.

On Saturday evening, Robinson gave a slide show to an SRO crowd of about 150, connecting the early days of bouldering on the East Side to modern alpinism in the Sierra. A silent auction and raffle raised more than $2,700 toward the effort to construct a permanent toilet in Buttermilk Country.

After a Sunday-morning informal coffee with local climbers and federal land managers back at the Peabody Boulders, the crowd spread out for a great day on the rock in perfect weather. Huge kudos to AAC member Darren Malloy of Friends of Inyo, whose efforts were vital to this event’s success. You can see a few more photos from the event at the Sierra Nevada Section’s web page.

The AAC and a select group of nonprofits and government agencies are teaming up to host an international conference on managing human waste in wilderness settings. The three-day “Exit Strategies” meeting will be held at the American Mountaineering Center and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado next summer: July 30 to August 1.

The Exit Strategies conference will bring together up to 100 land managers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and students to discuss strategies for dealing effectively with human waste, including existing solutions and innovative proposals alike. Presenters will include land managers and scientists from the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Nepal.

Event chairman Roger Robinson is continuing to solicit sponsors, speakers, and interesting solutions to present at the conference.

In addition to the AAC, the event’s sponsors include the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Public Health Service, Access Fund, Alpine Club of Canada, and Leave No Trace. The AAC has had a long history of cooperation with land managers in developing human-waste solutions. In 2001, an AAC grant helped launch the Clean Mountain Cans program in Denali National Park. The club also has been instrumental in developing carry-it-out waste programs for Indian Creek and Castle Valley in Utah, and in building and maintaining a composting toilet in the popular Ishinca Valley of Peru.

Registration for the Exit Strategies conference is open now. Click here for more details.

The second year of the AAC’s Patagonia Sustainable Trails Project has kicked off with a trail-restoration educational course for 17 Argentinean rangers from eight national parks across Patagonia. The course, held October 24 to November 1, was organized by AAC member Rolando Garibotti, directed by Max Ludington, a National Park Service (NPS) seasonal trail crew leader based out of Jackson Hole, and coordinated by Claudio Chehebar, director of the regional office for all Argentinean Patagonia national parks.

The nine-day course included more than 76 hours of fieldwork in Los Glaciares National Park, home of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. Instructors focused on a number of techniques to help mitigate erosion on heavily damaged trails. This included building drains, water bars, causeways, wood steps, and rock steps. Only materials available in the area (logs and rocks) were used, and special importance was given to the longevity of the “structures” and sustainability of the trails. While the focus of the course was learning, a number of erosion-prevention structures were built along the trail leading to De Agostini base camp, on the approach to Cerro Torre. These included 14 water bars, 45 drains, 50 wood steps, 19 rock steps, 15 meters of causeway, 19 meters of fill, and 6.5 square meters of retention walls.

For this unique American-Argentinean collaboration, the instructors were James Bouknight, Nick Guillespie, Cullen Kirk, and Mark Loseth, all seasonal NPS trail crew leaders. Also helping during the course were Juanjo Landucci and Diego Oyarzun, both from El Chalten. With the exception of Oyarzun, these leaders also participated in the first cycle of the Patagonia Sustainable Trails Project, in late 2008.

Special thanks go to Carlos Zoratti, chief ranger for Seccional Lago Viedma, for all the help provided during the course. Also, special thanks to the El Chalten Chamber of Commerce, which kindly secured free lodging for all the participants in a number of generous local hotels: Albergue Rancho Grande, Cabañas Aires del Fitz, Hotel Inlandsis, Hosteria Senderos and Posada Lunajuin.

Following the course, work has continued on the Laguna de los Tres Trail, the approach to Fitz Roy’s east face. Weather permitting, this work will continue until early December. The projects completed last year have held up very well, despite powerful forces of erosion in the area—in one area, several cubic meters of dirt and rocks had moved off the trail during the winter. A full report on this year’s trail work will appear at this blog in mid-December.

This project has been made possible by a generous grant from Patagonia Inc. A report on the project’s first year can be found at the AAC website. You can watch a short video about the trail work at Patagonia’s Tin Shed web page.

—Rolando Garibotti

The AAC is teaming up with Erratic Rock, Leave No Trace, MSR, and Outdoor Research on a great new initiative to recycle fuel canisters in Chilean Patagonia. The program will be headquartered at Erratic Rock: the Puerto Natales–based hostel, guide service, and all-around base camp for climbers and trekkers in the Torres del Paine.

Tens of thousands of steel fuel canisters are used in Patagonia each season, and most of them end up in the trash. However, the steel can easily be recycled if the canisters are collected, punctured, and crushed.

The AAC is helping to pay for 1,000 posters that will be distributed throughout Patagonia to promote this effort. The organizers hope this initiative may serve as a model for similar recycling efforts in other climbing areas.

This is the second big conservation effort the AAC has helped launch recently in Patagonia. The club is also a cosponsor of the Los Glaciares Trails Project in Argentina. Click here for more info.

Access Pan America is a new organization designed to share ideas and resources for climbing access problems throughout the Western Hemisphere. Co-organized by AAC member and Access Fund founder Armando Menocal, the group held an organizational meeting in August in Squamish, British Columbia.

Activists from seven countries (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and United States) gathered at the Squamish meeting, and the problems discussed ranged from proposed dams near Cochamó, Chile, to gangs hassling climbers in Brazil. The participants agreed that local climbers must solve local problems, but Access Pan America hopes to provide knowledge and other valuable resources to smooth the path.

The AAC is already involved in several initiatives in Latin America that will help ensure long-term climber access. In Peru, the has helped build a composting toilet for climbers and trekkers in the heavily used Ishinca Valley, and the club’s Alpine Conservation Partnership is working on watershed and land-use issues in other alpine areas of Peru. The club worked with the UIAA to lessen the impact of potentially onerous new rules in Huascarán National Park. In Argentinean Patagonia, the AAC and Patagonia Inc. are cosponsoring a multiyear project to build sustainable trails and other climber amenities in Los Glaciares National Park.

Access Pan America’s meeting in Canada was backed with funding and airline tickets from the Petzl Foundation and Mountain Gear, and was hosted by the Squamish Mountain Festival. Climber activists from Colombia, Honduras, and Peru will be joining the group’s steering committee, and Kika Bradford, the founder of Brazil’s first access organization, will serve as a part-time executive director. To learn more about the new organization, visit its web site.

Rolando Garibotti narrates a short video about the Patagonia trails project, cosponsored by Patagonia Inc. and the AAC, at the latest incarnation of the Tin Shed, Patagonia’s superb multimedia collection of climbing, surfing, skiing, and fishing stories. Learn more about this four-year project to build sustainable climber and hiker trails in Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina, at the AAC website.