Donation Update

One of the most rewarding aspects of running this site is the ability to give back to the climbing community.  Thanks to the support of ads on the site, we have been able to donate $100 to the RRGCC, $200 toward the purchase of Yellow Bluff, $75 to the Access Fund and $100 to Friends Of Muir Valley.  All tiny drops in the bucket to be sure, but every little bit helps.  Remember, 100% of ad revenue is donated to climbing access issues.

A few weeks back, our local climbing gym held a dyno comp that also doubled as a fundraiser for the RRGCC.  Since most kids are broke, ClimbingNarc.com ended up “sponsoring” several people in the event.  In order to keep the numbers clean, I rounded the donation amount up to $100.  This brings the total amount of money donated to climbing causes to $675 in just over two years of operating this website.  Again, nothing major but every little bit helps.

Thus far, the majority of the access causes we have donated to have been predominantly areas we visit like the Red River Gorge.  If you know of an access cause in your area that could use a hundred bucks every once in a while, please let us know.

On a related note, there was an interesting discussion on 8a.nu recently about access issues and media’s responsibility to support such causes.  8a announced at the last minute that they were going to use the last page of the 2008 8a.nu yearbook to focus on access issues.  This is a good thing of course, but as usual 8a founder Jens Larsen couldn’t help but say something inflammatory.  Larsen got off a nice blast during the course of the discussion when he said:

Compared to other magazines we are much better setting the environment and Access in focus.

Several people took proper exception to this by pointing out the vast sums of money and attention donated by climbing magazines and gear manufacturers to access causes.  One only has to look at the ongoing Anchor Replacement Initiative for a great example of media and gear entities making a real difference.  Ads for the Access Fund are prominently featured in just about every magazine you pick up in the U.S.  Compared to 1 page at the back of a yearly book that has limited market saturation, climbing magazines are way out in front.

Like any climbing media entity, a site like 8a.nu has a potentially negative impact on access issues as Mick Ryan rightly points out:

As a climbing media – internet, guidebook, magazine – you first have to admit to yourself that what you do will increase impacts at cliffs and that you will attract people to cliffs who may behave badly and threaten access.

8a does do a nice job of posting some access alerts on their news page, but the scope of their database is really much larger than a few well known areas having problems.  My hope is that in the future 8a will continue to utilize their impressive online presence to focus on access issues in a meaningful and constructive way.  The last page of the yearbook is a good start, but I think 8a could (and should) be doing more.