The blog post from National Geographic details the overall popularity that rock climbing has gained in the past decade with staggering news about rock climbing such as “Free Solo” and Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Such reports have called people to explore rock climbing as a whole, new people that have no previous knowledge of nature or the sport itself, compromising rock climbing locations and sport climbing.
Why should be concerned about people who wanted to practice rock climbing? two straightforward reasons: Sport Climbing is a sport that requires attention with where the gear goes and how it works, and the number of people that climb at natural locations such as bouldering, water solo or sport climbing leaving waste chalk on the rocks polluting the environment.
According to Jackie Snow, the waste of chalk is affecting spirituality important areas for indigenous people who were willing to share part of their land with climbers.
This is proof of climbers affecting private, properties and natural resources.
and let’s not forget the fact that some climbers or people trying for the first time as well, being beginners, don’t have full respect for climbing locations leaving garbage or food waste.
From a personal perspective what the National Geographic post tried to denote is crucial, I consider myself a new generation climber and even I could spot the surge of new people trying this wonderful sport; which makes me realize most of the factors that Jackie snow tries to highlight. And from time to time witness the significant amount of chalk wast at climbing locations that cannot get erased for the total of climbers who have spent time into the rock and not been able to wash even with the help of rain.
In conclusion, I believe that every new climber must know these things for a fact. Because every time people climb any rock, we are already damaging a little part of it, and if it’s too many several times a greater challenge could present for climbing locations that could not allow climbers and nature to coexist. There are already climbing locations in Mexico that are not allowing people to climb owing to the fact of the significant waste they leave behind in their climbing sessions.
