In considering Yosemite’s new ✨ Wilderness Climbing Permit (WCP) ✨ plan and the issues with crowds that have cropped up on El Capitan, I find myself drawing a parallel to Mount Everest. Suffice to say, no one wants Yosemite or El Cap to turn into the next Everest. Yet Everest and El Cap already have a lot in common.

Both objectives suffer from a concentration of crowding on only two of their myriad routes. El Capitan has over 100 climbs, but the Nose and the Salathé Wall are where you’ll find 99 percent of the people. Likewise, on Everest, it’s just the South Col and North Col routes that are slammed.

Into Thin Air and descriptions of Everest as a fecal snow cone sprinkled with fixed ropes, oxygen canisters, squeezy gels, and dead bodies have done nothing to deter the queue of oxygen-sucking C-suite executives and aspiring motivational speakers from forming in base camp each year. And in Yosemite, the sight of 30 people big-walling up the Nose and just as many free climbers rapping down the Salathé to sport-project the Headwall has made other climbers think, “Hey, maybe I should go up there, too!”

Why is this? At a superficial level, both Everest and El Cap are the kind of bucket list achievements that impress people sitting next to you on an airplane, even if many climbers typically consider these ticks on par with running a marathon, which is to say, a tough achievement but also something that almost anyone can do. Hence, lots of people doing it. These once rarified places have gotten so crowded that you could probably have a richer wilderness experience at your local municipal pool.

Speaking of Wilderness, Yosemite’s Wilderness Climbing Permit plan is a new pilot program asserting that all overnight big-wall climbers must now obtain a permit, in person, 4–15 days in advance of their ascents. This permit only applies to climbers who plan to spend the night on the wall, and doesn’t apply to climbers out for a day, presumably even a “long” one. There’s also no fee and no limits on the number of permits that may be issued.

Yosemite’s justification for enacting the WCP is that they want Park Service rangers to be able to talk to big-wall climbers in person and educate them on Leave No Trace practices prior to their multi-day ascents. They also want to collect data and understand use patterns on El Cap, which could help them better monitor the impacts climbers have.

On its face, the WCP seems reasonable. It’s worth remembering that climbers have historically received special treatment in regards to their ability to “camp”—i.e., sleep on portaledges—in the “Wilderness”—i.e., on El Capitan. All other National Park user groups have always required a permit to camp, and so why should climbers be special just because we happen to sleep on ledges a thousand feet up a cliff?

Besides, is it really such a big deal to get your free permit and shake a ranger’s hand in advance of your ascent?

I guess that all depends on what comes next, and where this leads. Climbers have very good reason to be wary of every new rule that tries to rein in our access to the rock. We’ve seen numerous examples of how rules beget more rules, and can ultimately lead to closures. Is the WCP setting a foundation for an ultimately draconian system that would severely limit our access to El Cap? Though no limits exist on the number of permits that may be issued, you’d be foolish not to realize that a cap on Cap permits is almost certainly on its way.

As reasonable as this pilot program seems at the moment, many climbers are predictably upset. (Tom Evans of the El Cap Report has the best deep dive into this topic that I’ve seen.)

Some of the reasons climbers are pushing back against the WCP include disliking the time constraint of the permit. Climbers are also skeptical of the permit’s justification: that if you want to record the actual number of people who climb El Cap, count the number of people who reach the top, not the number of people who say they want to climb it, since many don’t make it more than a day up the wall. Finally, climbers don’t like the idea of having a face-to-face interaction with rangers each and every time they want to climb, and would prefer an online-based system instead. This might be especially true for Bay-area weekend warriors, for example, who want to sneak in an overnight ascent of El Cap on Saturday, but wouldn’t want to wait around all morning to get a permit in person.

All this makes sense to some degree, though I think that both the justifications for the WCP and the pushback against it are dancing around the main problems on El Cap. In doing so, we are failing to consider real solutions.

First, let’s acknowledge that the only problematic routes on El Cap are the Nose and the Salathé Wall (under which I include the very popular free climbs that branch off it, such as Golden Gate and Free Rider). If basically only two routes are causing all of the problems, does it really make sense to regulate all overnight big-wall climbing in Yosemite?

The other big problem—and the one that rangers are most upset about—concerns the unofficial climber campground established on the summit of El Capitan over the past decade or two. This campground is a result of the fact that more people than ever are trying to free climb El Cap via the Salathé Wall and all its variants. Climbers have been stashing their supplies here, including hundreds of meters of static ropes, water, stoves, sleeping bags and pads, and even food in bear bins. These stashes are technically illegal, though rangers have mostly turned a blind eye to the problem.

That began to change in recent years, beginning with a ranger-led clean up of the summit of El Cap that involved hauling upwards of 15,000 pounds of “trash”—which mostly means many static ropes. Also, rangers have been doing an annual “Nose wipe” since 2006, which removes waste from the ledges and cracks of America’s most famous rock climb.

Twenty to 30 years ago, free climbing El Cap was not only rare, to do so represented the cutting edge of our sport. Free climbing El Cap became possible thanks to the use of sport-climbing tactics: rapping down the wall to top-rope or work the crux pitches before ultimately trying to free the route in a traditional ground-up fashion.

Today, it’s common for some climbers to spend an entire season, or multiple seasons, working their routes. This is all made possible thanks to the fixed-rope infrastructure and the practice of stashing gear on the summit. Again, the parallels here to Everest should give climbers pause.

Given that so many free climbers today are operating at such a high level, I think it’s time for us as a community to rethink whether we should “tolerate” this approach. Just last week, we saw an amazing effort by Amity Warme and Tyler Karow who free climbed Golden Gate ground up. And in working toward his incredible free ascent of the Nose, the teenage Connor Herson often projected the crux pitches by going ground-up with his dad Jim Herson on weekends before heading back to high school on Monday morning (although he also occasionally used the fixed lines to rap in as well). During these sessions of climbing the Nose, Connor often endured (politely) the nuisance of climbing around annoying fixed ropes set by a pro climber, who ended up not even sending the route that season while Connor did.

If a weekend warrior high schooler and a couple of climbers that at least I had never heard of before can do it, so can anyone else. Clearly, free climbing El Cap by going ground up is not only possible, it ought to become more common. This is what “progress” means in climbing—style and tactics improve with the general rise in ability. Top down “El Rapitan” tactics will always have a place in our sport—perhaps especially while pioneering new free climbs—but given all the problems caused by this tactic on the Salathé, should it be time for free climbers to change how they approach their goals on El Capitan?

No fixed ropes on the Salathé would mean fewer to no gear stashes on the summit. It would also mean fewer crowds on the wall. The overall climber impact would be less. The overall experience for climbers might be one of more inconvenience, more work, and ultimately demand more elite abilities—but is any of that bad?

This is the kind of grassroots solution—or at least a partial solution—to an actual problem that we need to be talking about.

One point of pride for climbers is our track record of effectuating changes via grassroots cultural shifts that set new norms of what we tolerate as acceptable behavior. Thirty years ago, climbers used to crap in brown paper bags and throw it off the wall into the talus. Climbers also used to throw their haul bags off the wall instead of carrying them down. These stupid-headed and unsustainable behaviors are now obsolete thanks to how we shifted the culture. We should realize that this grassroots approach to change is preferable to, and likely more effective than, any rule or regulation mandated by authorities.

What else can climbers do? Not leaving trash on the wall should go without saying. Choosing not to crowd climbs could also become a new norm. I know you want to do the Nose, but if you see 30 people on the wall, do you really think it’s wise to become the 31st? A hundred other routes exist on El Cap, probably with no one on them. Maybe do one of those instead.

Peeing into pee bottles and packing out our pee should also become the new norm—not just for El Cap but every multi-pitch. A brown streak of pee on Zodiac is visible from the El Cap meadow. You have to actually pack out the pee, too. Leaving gallon-sized jugs of community piss on ledges is the half-assed climber version of dog walkers who pick up their dog shit, but leave doggie bags on the trail (and don’t worry, they’ll definitely get them on the way down 😉.)

What else? You tell me. Let’s have the conversation now. I’m not sure what “pilot program” means, but it suggests that the WCP is a WIP (work in progress). Can we show rangers that we are serious about addressing the real problems on El Cap by ourselves, without the need for rules, permits, and regulations? If climbers don’t make an effort to change the culture and behavior now, I can promise that we won’t like the new rules made for us.