A recent editorial called “Mountains in Wilderness Don’t Need Hardware” hit some syndicated op-ed news feed and many failing local newspapers in the West and “online journals” in the outdoor/adventure space, all of whom seem to have at least partly given up on the idea of assigning and commissioning original content, republished this article.

Of course, I thought the article was bad like everyone else. My snarky, glib comment about the head was “Tell me you don’t climb in one headline…” But many folks seemed to be more tweaked by the article than I thought necessary. They called the article “fake news” and “stupid trash” and though I, of course, agree with the sentiment behind these remarks, it continues to strike me that as climbers we really, really need to have a better and more compelling defense about our bolting practices than leveling ad hominem attacks at anyone who raises an eyebrow when they hear about a user group drilling holes in “pristine” Wilderness environments.

I just wrote a 4,000-word article on this topic, trying to recenter our conception of climbing ethics away from the unhelpful and increasingly irrelevant climbing taxonomies of “sport climbing” vs “trad climbing” and instead toward something broadly called the Climbing Experience. I wrote:

“There’s a false ground truth about bolts and bolting that both anti-climbing land managers in the government and climbing advocates and advocacy groups seem to share, which is that bolts are, at best, a necessary evil. This old-school mentality about bolts treats these little inert and inconspicuous hunks of metal as something that should be added only as a last resort, because they’re in conflict with all the things we’re supposed to care about and protect: tradition, wilderness, adventure, sustainability and so on.

I have come to believe that this view is incorrect, and that we need to update our ethical priors so that we can make a more robust, open, and honest defense about our bolting habits—not just to land managers, but also to other members of our own community. This isn’t an argument that everything should have more bolts. Not at all. It’s an argument that asserts that bolts, in general, are a legitimate and useful part of the climbing experience; that bolts have no moral valence beyond what serves the best climbing experience; and that bolts are often far less impactful and more sustainable than other kinds of climbing anchors.”

This essay, however, speaks most directly to climbers, but it may not present the strongest argument against the one advanced by typical non-climbing civilians like Dana Johnson, who wrote the op-ed in question. Johnson, according to her byline, is a policy director for Wilderness Watch, a political action group. She’s not a climber (obviously). But her essay expresses a very common knee-jerk reaction that many non-climbers (and, unfortunately, some climbers, too) feel when confronted with the fact that fixed anchors and hardware are a necessary part of climbing. Bolts are part of rock climbing. Period. Sorry, not sorry.

Strangely, I was happy to see her opinion published, although I think she’s completely wrong, because her position is precisely the kind of argument that we climbers will need to learn how to knock down if we want to protect our climbing access and rights, which, again, must include bolts.

Look, Johnson’s article is infuriating. She’s a policy hack representing a political organization while presenting herself as just a general outdoor lover and tree hugger, and she makes absolutely no effort to charitably explain why bolts are necessary for rock climbing in the mountains. I felt just as much white-hot rage reading it as everyone else. But we must concede that she makes a point that lots and lots of people, most of whom don’t climb and many of whom have no direct experience with Wilderness itself, will find compelling and convincing. Badgering Adventure Journal into taking down this article—which it says it did because, upon second review, the article didn’t “meet its editorial standards” and apparently was only published because the editor was out of office—doesn’t change the fact that almost 40 local newspapers have already printed the piece. Nor does it change the fact that lots of people will find Johnson’s point convincing.

I don’t want to use hyperbolic language, but we strangely find ourselves smack dab in the middle of an existential battle over our right to continue climbing in many, many areas around the country. Right now the Access Fund is boldly making a rather risky play by introducing the Protect America’s Rock Climbing Act into legislation. PARCA could turn out to be one of the best things ever for climbing in America, but there are also reasons to have concerns about it. I expressed some of my concerns to Chris Winter, Access Fund Executive Director, during a recent episode of The RunOut podcast. In short, my concerns are that the bill simply directs federal agencies to come up with a climbing management plan, but makes no demands that climbers retain the open, self-regulated, and discretionary bolting practices that we now enjoy. One could easily imagine how federal land manager could nominally permit all rock-climbing while simultaneously limiting if not outright banning our ability to place, replace, and maintain anchors. That would be an unacceptable outcome, worse than the current status quo, and so this bill worries me. (Of course, I hope I’m wrong and that PARCA ends up being the best thing ever for rock-climbing access in America.)

Climbers need to acknowledge that we have a heavy lift in front of us because we need to not only convince the people who are outright hostile toward climbing in general, but also people like Johnson and her fellow Wilderness lovers who understand the benefits of playing outside, but just don’t get why climbers need bolts. There are a lot of people like her, and in fact, these people probably make up the majority of the outdoor industry.

Among the most frustrating “outdoors people” in the world, in my opinion, are those who live in Manhattan and shop at places like TNF or Patagonia, where they pay full retail price for $65 “dirtbag shorts” or whatever, and then mindlessly give lots of money to groups like Wilderness Watch because they superficially like this idea of protecting some abstract, romantic vision of pristine wilderness that’s located out in some Western State that, if they even ever visit, would only be while staying in a five-star hotel below a ski resort. These people think of themselves as outdoorsmen and women and strong Wilderness advocates, while ironically skiing down trails formed by clear-cutting forests and riding massive gondolas up to the top of mountains. If you’re fine with riding gondolas to the tops of mountains located in Wilderness so you connect with nature, don’t lecture us about bolts.

This abstract conception of “wilderness” forever preserved under the bell jar of strong federal regulations need not be incompatible with responsibly regulated adventure sports like rock climbing, which leverage trails and, yes, bolts. This is not to say that there shouldn’t be some areas of Wilderness that are entirely free of human presence. There should be. But let’s start standing behind the truth that climbing is relatively contained and quite low-impact, and whatever environmental costs are accrued through climbing infrastructure, these costs are absolutely worth the gains in spiritual flourishing and well-being that climbing delivers. A bolt is among the least damaging and impactful things in all of outdoor recreation. They’re small, inconspicuous, inert, and are far more sustainable than the alternative of using lots of brightly colored slings wrapped around trees as anchors and rap stations. Tat kills trees and critters eat the tat. What kind of deranged world would consider this a more sustainable or ethical approach than simply putting in some anchors that will last 50 years and service hundreds or thousands of users?

In general, I think climbers need to do a better job of asserting that we are a low-impact sport, confined to a short approach trail to the base of a crag, where no one but climbers would typically go. Our impact is highly concentrated to a 10-foot berth beneath the crag. And though we use bolts, we strive to place them responsibly and we place them because their use is necessary—and not frivolous. Climbing has been taking place in wilderness decades before the Wilderness Act, and if rock climbing is a legitimate way to enjoy public lands, then responsible bolting as determined by the climbing community itself must be part of the package. Besides, most laypeople wouldn’t notice or see bolts unless those bolts are pointed out to them. Once a baseline infrastructure of established routes and approach trails has been created, if it’s properly done, it will service thousands of climbers over the next hundred years without altering or damaging the ecology in any meaningful way.

Let’s stand up for climbing by asserting that all bolting climbers do is responsible, sustainable, low-impact, and necessary.