2010 Peregrine Closure Notices
Dear Rock Climbing Community,
It’s the time of year to welcome back North Carolina’s peregrine falcons. While the peregrine falcon was removed from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s endangered species list in 1999, it remains listed as sensitive by the Regional Forester and endangered by the state of North Carolina. These designations continue to afford the peregrine falcon protection as the Forest Service and partner agencies work to conserve and protect the species.
Seasonal Peregrine closure for North End of Moores Wall
Hanging Rock State Park has announced the 2010 seasonal closure for Moores Wall.
The north end of Moore's Wall is closed to rock climbing due to Peregrine Falcon nesting and is expected to reopen by June 1.
The Hanging Rock Visitor Center will be closed Saturdays and Sundays during January. Trail maps will be available at the front door.
Volunteers are needed February 6 from 9:00-1:00 to help haul buckets of fill dirt to steps on the Hanging Rock Trail. Please call the park office if you can help.
Sauratown
As the Sauratown season approaches, we know many of you are interested in an update on the status of this closure.
Historically, Sauratown climbers have been accessing the cliffs and using a parking lot that belongs to a property owner, who at this time, wishes to not be named publicly. The fire that occurred in 2007 helped raise the issues of liability. Access is currently closed to climbers to mitigate concerns of liability held by the landowner in the event of an accident that occurs while public is on their property. As it is private land, we must respect their wishes.
Pilot Mountain Big Pinnacle
From Marshall Ellis, Mountain Regions Biologist, North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation:
The question of access to the Big Pinnacle at Pilot Mountain gets asked quite often, both by climbers and non-climbers. The Big Pinnacle has been closed to visitor access since the late 1970s when the old staircase finally gave way and was dismantled, and over the intervening years, the division's policy has been to keep that area closed to visitor access. There are a number of reasons for that, both operationally and ecologically. Constructing and maintaining an access and then safeguarding the public once they were on top would inevitably lead to extensive railings, stairs, safety barriers, etc. that would detract significantly from the local views of the Big Pinnacle. All things equal, we've opted to keep that view as natural as possible.
From a climbing perspective, the decision was made early on to limit climbing in the park to the cliffs along the Ledge Springs Trail. As it happens, the Big Pinnacle and the Ledge Springs cliffs share a number of cliff-dwelling species and natural community types, so basically, an ecological trade was made that sacrificed the cliffside species and natural communities along the Ledge Springs cliffs in exchange for preserving those on the Big Pinnacle. We've made similar trade-offs at all of the other climbing parks as well in an attempt to accommodate recreation and resource protection.