Who wins when you alienate everyone?

That rhetorical question summed up another session in the debate on whether rock climbing anchors will be allowed in wilderness. It was July 19, 2000, in a Denver motel conference room. And it was the third day of meetings for the Fixed Anchors in Wilderness Negotiated Rulemaking Committee. The participants thankfully just call it "Neg-Reg," resisting the unpronounceable official shorthand FAWNRC.

In June 1998, the Forest Service legal office had stunned the outdoor recreation world with the ruling that climbing anchors were prohibited under the 1964 Wilderness Act. The agency lawyers' logic was straightforward: the Act prohibits motorized vehicles, roads, and other "installations" in Wilderness (the capital W denotes officially designated wilderness areas). Climbing anchors are nylon slings and metal pitons and bolts used for a century to secure climbers to rock faces and then anchor their ropes to rappel off climbs; since climbing anchors are affixed to rock and left behind they are "installations."

The ensuing eruption forced the Forest Service to shelve the decision and put the future of climbing anchors to a public participation process. It chose negotiated rulemaking. At the July Neg-Reg session, after an hour's debate, it looked like the previous work had been for nought. The apparent agreements of the first two days of negotiations had to be set aside. The group could not get past the initial order of business: accepting the minutes of previous meeting. The process, based on reaching consensus, was going backwards.

Perhaps that was to be expected. Nineteen men and one woman sat at the negotiation tables. There were the predicable participants, those with organizational "stakes" in Wilderness, such as the Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, and National Parks and Conservation Association and those from climbing or recreation associations, such as national and regional climbing groups, mountain guides, outdoor educators, and industry.

There were the outnumbered opponents of climbing anchors, two individuals and two organizations. Wilderness Watch is the work of George Nickas, who has fought horse packer caches and other "installations" in Wilderness. Wild Wilderness is a cyber organization, an advocacy website updated and maintained around-the-clock by Scott Silver. There were even some "negotiators" with no apparent stake. For example, the National Speological Society was at the table, since they too depended on fixed anchors and, as its rep stated, cavers get the deepest into wilderness. There was the Friends of the Boundary Waters with no relation to climbing or anchors, but there because it opposed both. And finally there were those who were not at the negotiating table.

Absent were the Forest Service lawyers and other officials responsible for the past and ultimate decision. The real decision-maker, Jerry Stokes, the Forest Service's chief wilderness officer, sat in the back, observing and never speaking. The National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, which have to interpret the same language of the Wilderness Act and share management of the National Wilderness Preservation System, also had only observer status and no say. Any finally there I was, the one with the longest history with the issue and only one "elected" by popular demand, but still denied the privilege of participation.

In 1990, the Forest Service had confronted the climbing anchor issue in just the same way, and I was part of the consensus of agency officials and conservation and climbing organizations that had concluded that fixed anchors were a legitimate and historic use in Wilderness. After all, when the Wilderness Act was adopted, the only climbing anchors in existence were bolts, pitons, and slings. Now I was representing the American Safe Climbing Association, a group of climbers who replace deteriorated fixed anchors on classic climbs. When the Forest Service left the Association off the Neg-Reg committee, over 1,300 climbers wrote to object.

The Forest Service held to the exclusion and even obstinately added four individuals who had nominated themselves: the well-known author Jon Krakauer, a college professor with free summer time, an interested former land manager, and a lawyer. As the fourth day was concluding, the only consensus among the negotiators would have been on the operative descriptors of the Neg-Reg process: irony, misconnections, and frustrations.

The list of participants reflects the underlying paradox: this debate is solely among defenders of wilderness. Where are the wise use groups? The loggers and miners or their supporters in Congress? And what about the others currently fighting wilderness, the snowmobile ORV-jet ski crowd, ski areas, or even mountain bikers? They were there in spirit, invoked frequently to buttress the principal, if not the only, objection to climbing anchors voiced in the Neg-Reg: if climbers selfishly and arrogantly exempt themselves from the Wilderness Act, then the snowmobile-ORV groups will line up for their exceptions.

The climbing groups, and even the conservation organizations that are largely backing the climbers, wanted to discuss the real impact of bolts, pitons, and slings on wilderness character and values. The wilderness purists refuse to be drawn in. Impact, or the lack of impact, was irrelevant. Anchors must be kept out of wilderness because they will lead to bikes, ORVs, and jet-skis. But those who were there at the beginning, fought for the Wilderness Act and now defend it against assaults, just didn't get it. Even the wise use groups or Western members of Congress do not argue that a piece of nylon or a few inches of metal justifies their right to drive a dirt bike or snowmobile in Wilderness.

Near the end of the session, the fourth day of negotiations, when even the upbeat facilitator, Philip Harter, questioned whether to continue the dialog, one person after another tried to nail down George Nickas on whether a climber could ever be allowed to leave a sling to descend a climb in Wilderness. Beleaguered but certain in his convictions, Nickas answered quietly, "Yeah, that's right... climbers shouldn't be allowed to make that decision."

John Krakauer summed up the opposing perceptions: "You are denying wilderness experiences to a large group who are passionate about wilderness for a very idealistic, abstract reason."

Another negotiating session will be attempted on August 30th and 31st in Denver.