Shortoff closure lifted
All of the climbing routes on Shortoff are now open. The US Forest Service has lifted the seasonal closure for peregrine falcon nesting. Closures at Looking Glass, Whitesides, Big Lost cove and NC Wall remain in effect.
Seasonal closure lifted at Moore's Wall: North End of open for climbing
The seasonal closure at Moore's Wall for the nesting of peregrine falcons has been lifted. As of Saturday, May 1, 2010, the closure signs were removed from the climbers' kiosk and the the North End trail. The park ranger removing the trail sign stated that the peregrines did not show up this year. Please be aware that there is some deadfall across the trail.
Updated Whitesides Peregrine Closure Info
ASHEVILLE, NC -- In response to a new nesting location of the resident pair of endangered peregrine falcons, Forest Service is changing the annual climbing closure at Whiteside Mountain from the west to the east side of the cliff, effective March 22 thru August 15, 2010. Specifically, the cliff face east of the “Mainline” climbing route is closed to climbing and rappelling this year. When facing the cliff, east is to the right.
2010 Peregrine Closure Notices
Updated Peregrine Falcon closures for U.S. Forest Service properties in North Carolina. Please respect all closures! Disturbing the birds can actually cause them to re-nest and actually extend the closure beyond what it would have been if they were able to successfully nest the first time.
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.