The What, Who & How: 2
And their effect on practices, community and instruction
The previous post (The What, Who & How: 1) examined these questions:
What canyon are you doing?
Who are you going with?
How are you doing the canyon?
The way we handle these questions impacts our group safety while canyoneering.
But to what extent are you fully in control of how you answer these questions?
For newcomers to the sport, they get first surprised, then puzzled, when they find out that certain communities find ways to influence the answers to the "What" and "Who", by imposing the "How": The "How" is greatly determined by the development state of the anchors in the selected canyon. Does the canyon have beta? Is it bolted? Natural or man-made anchors?
Who is in charge of determining How a canyon is equipped for canyoning/canyoneering?
Short answer: Nobody in particular.
Longer answer: People with a particular interest in that canyon, or canyons in the area.
Usually the progression of developing a canyon route in a functional environment looks something like:
Explorers descend that canyon for the first time, and establish the first set of anchors, and collect beta.
Before publishing beta, the same team or local associations or clubs that take stewardship of the canyon, update anchors with safety, conservation and longevity in mind.
Commercial guides guiding the canyon may establish anchors to accommodate their best (or bad) practices.
Dysfunctional?
But in a dysfunctional community, sometimes these 3 groups’ interest and beliefs collide on what the state and access of a canyon should be. This is where some believe that marginal first decent anchors should remain forever, and cut and chop subsequent bolts from local clubs or commercial guides. Or commercial guides overbolt routes resulting in degrading the character of the canyon, and sometimes as time passes by scarring the rock in ways that create rope entrapment riks.
All these colliding efforts end up dictating the "How": How you do the canyon
Consequences:
Underdeveloped and overvisited routes result in higher risks and more mitigation measures, and often natural and character degradation of the canyon.
Canyoneering instruction becomes convoluted with a number of anchor types, practices, and risk mitigation measures.
Canyoneers acquire a distorted sense of what constitutes a good practice as they travel to different canyoneering areas.
Canyons end up badly bolted and scarred
Domino effect
The "How" is largely dictated by anchoring choices. The anchors available have a domino effect on the rigging choices, and the rigging choices have a domino effect on the required skills of the person on rope descending that canyon.
The invisible hand
Take a look at the canyoneering anchors in your area and community. Are they producing rope grooves or damaging the canyon when rigging or pulling down ropes? Are they ageing and in need of replacement? Are they damaging trees? Do they require special risk mitigation skills to be used? Does your community exhibit gatekeeping attitudes? What is your community's interpretation of Leave No Trace? Do bolts appear and disappear without any warning? How are you coping with all these issues?
Develop an awareness of the "How" in your community, and realize that this "How", may not be the norm in other areas.