This page is a running history of events that CTM has been involved in. It is organized in reverse chronological order to keep the most recent activity at the top. We would like to eventually add past events to keep a public record of CTM's contributions to the climbing history of Austin and Texas, but for now scroll down to see all the events that CTM has been involved in over this past few years.

National Trails Day

The Central Texas Mountaineers participated in the National Trails Day with more work on the stone stairs to the right of Guides Wall at Gus Fruh Park. For this project, 20 volunteers worked 60 volunteer-hours to build these much neeed steps and brush-off the old trail to reduce erosion on the hillside.

There was a post work day picnic at Zilker Park to thank the 350 volunteers that showed up to help develop trails all along the greenbelt.

Workin' on the stone stairs.

Clean Sweep Day

The Central Texas Mountaineers participated in the Keep Austin Beautiful Clean Sweep Day with a clean-up project at the St. David's Georgetown Hospital climbing wall. We had a great turn-out, including several volunteers from the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. For this project, 20 volunteers worked 40 volunteer-hours to clean-up the climbing areas, paint the kiosk, and clear debris deposited by previous flooding. Thanks to REI of Round Rock for their support of the event with the donation of a gift card, given away at the end of the event to one of the volunteers.

The hospital has been very cooperative to allow us to continue to climb on their property and this clean-up was a good-faith effort on our part to continue a good relationship with them. We have investigated the possibility of the Georgetown Parks & Rec Dept. purchasing the land to preserve it as a park, but they are currently not interested in pursuing this purchase. The parks dept. did not rule it out as a possible future acquisition and encouraged us to contact them again periodically as their plans and funding develop.

Note:
You must sign a liability waiver before climbing at the Georgetown Sanctuary.
Please download and sign a waiver and deposit it at the kiosk at the trailhead.

See the newspaper article in The Sun, the Williamson County newspaper.

Our volunteers.

Hauling out debris & trash.

Painting the kiosk. Note: Waivers can be found at the kiosk.

It's My Park Day

The Central Texas Mountaineers participated in the Austin Park Foundation's It's My Park Day once again this year with a trail project at Gus Fruh park. For this project, 13 volunteers worked 56 volunteer-hours to build a stone staircase up the right side of Guide Wall.

Volunteers at Guide Wall in Gus Fruh Park.

Moving some big rocks with ancient Egyptian techniques.

Mt. Bonnell Clean-up

The Central Texas Mountaineers joined Keep Austin Beautiful once again this year to clean-up the cliff sides of Mt. Bonnell. This was the second year that CTM has been involved in this clean-up effort. For this work day, 10 CTM volunteers rappelled down the side of the mountain to collect cans, bottles and other litter tossed by visitors to this scenic overlook. Also, big thanks to the Omega Phi Alpha sorority for the help from 19 of their members. We collected 51 bags of trash and worked a total of 41 volunteer hours. Thanks to KAB for the supplies and the following volunteers for their efforts:

Rappelling down the mountain side to pick up trash.

Our brave volunteers after a hard day's work.

18th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

At the request of Travis County Parks, the RRCC met with Mike Brewster and reviewed possible trail and lookout locations in the main part of Reimers.

John Hogge, Tommy Blackwell, Luke Bowman and Evan Jackson, accompanied Mike Brewster along the existing rim trail from the main parking area in Reimers.

We were able to point out the danger of continuing to have such a rim trail and point out good locations for lookouts that are not above popular climbing area. Mike Brewster took GPS coordinates and photographs.

His information will be forwarded to the planners for use in determining the final locations of trail and lookouts. We fell we have good representation with Mike.

Toward the end of the Hand Beyond wall we noticed recent rock fall had damaged one of the anchors of "Yet Another S. A. Route" and that large rocks were hanging precariously over the climb. With permission from Mike, we trundled the loose rock and then in a regular course of RRCC business we removed the damaged anchor and installed a new one.

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

17th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

Newley approved routes were installed.

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

360 Bridge Clean-up

The Central Texas Mountaineers joined Keep Austin Beautiful again this year to clean-up the cliff side of the 360 bridge. This was the third year that CTM has been involved in this clean-up effort. For this work day, 13 volunteers rappelled down the side of the cliff to collect cans, bottles and other litter tossed by visitors to this scenic overlook. We collected over 50 bags of trash and worked a total of 39 volunteer hours. Thanks to KAB for the supplies and the following volunteers for their efforts:

Cliff view before the clean-up.

CTM volunteers collecting the trash.

A total of 55 bags of trash collected.

The next CTM clean-up day will be at Mt. Bonnell on Saturday, Feb. 28th.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

16th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

CTM Outing to Camp Eagle

Some members of the Central Texas Mountaineers hit the road to check-out Camp Eagle, near Junction, TX. It was a cold weekend, but we did manage to climb one day at the main wall. Many thanks to Scott & Ann for their generous hospitality during our visit there. I'll post some photos soon.

15th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

14th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

Accounting of bolted routes so far:
The North Shore area now has 60 routes, including 27 old routes put up before Reimers became a Travis County park and 33 new routes bolted in 2008 & 2009.
We've used approximately 200 bolts (about 7 bolts per route, including 2 for anchors). Upon checking the inventory of remaining hardware, we probably have enough for 7-10 more routes.

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

13th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

This was trundling day for the remaining climbing walls of Phase 2 & 3. Eric and Ky started at the far end of the wall, while Tommy, Evan, and Gary worked from the start of Phase 2. The two groups eventually met in the middle to ensure that every part of the wall between them was inspected and all loose rock was sent down. The highlight was kicking over a free standing flake, about 6 feet tall and wide at the far end of Phase 3. It only took two people to push this estimated 4 ton rock off of it's perch and down to ground below. All of the trundling for this climbing area is now complete and there were 13 volunteers for this outing, contributing 52 man-hours of work.

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

12th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

11th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

10th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

9th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

8th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

For this trail project, we finalized the main trail past the first wall. There were 5 volunteers for this outing, contributing 15 man-hours of work.

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete, but we will skip the weekend after Thanksgivng for the holiday.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

7th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

A group of volunteers from Texas A&M University at Commerce, TX helped us for this portion of the trail project, including working on the final spur to the first wall as well as improving the first water crossing on the trail. There were 21 volunteers for this outing, contributing 63 man-hours of work.

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete, but we will skip the weekend after Thanksgivng for the holiday.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

6th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

We continued work at the first wall, improving the staging areas and pulling down poison ivy. There were 7 volunteers for this outing, contributing 42 man-hours of work.

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

5th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

For this trail project, volunteers did some trundling near Myrick’s 5.12. They also pulled poison ivy and noted some bolt counts for the guidebook. John Hogge cleaned and tested a route. The 4 volunteers worked a total of 24 man-hours and included:

Applications & Hardware
Mike Brewster approved all six applications.

Hardware has not arrived; it is being sent to the ranger’s station. When it comes in, Mike wants us to supply a list of approved bolters to check out hardware.

Bad Anchors on 2005 era routes
Karl discovered an anchor with a bolt not all the way in, and possibly a single-ring anchor.

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

4th Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

More clean-up at the first climbing wall. The 4 volunteers worked a total of 24 man-hours and included:

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

3rd Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

CTM continued the trail work into the new North Shore area of Reimers, working on the final stretch of trails into the new climbing walls. For this segment, we worked on the water crossing just beyond the goat fence and the first spur trail up to the first climbing wall. At the wall, we trundled loose rock from the top and cleared staging areas at the base of the wall. There were 7 volunteers for this outing, contributing 42 man-hours of work.

Trail projects will continue every Saturday until the work is complete.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

Water crossing after the goat fence.

Spur trail up to the first climbing wall.

Meeting with Travis County Parks

Attending: Dan Perry – Travis County
Crystal Funke- Travis County
John Hogge – RRCC
Tommy Blackwell- RRCC

We met at Satellite 3 offices on Hamilton Pool Rd.

Trail work at North Shore is now scheduled every Saturday until further notice. This work will soon progress from walking trails and trundling to bolting. Recreational access is not open yet; however please review this summary of R2C2’s meeting with Travis County parks for the whole story.

Master Plan Update:

Dan Perry is Mike Brewster's supervisor and Mike could not attend the meeting. Dan presented the plans as they stood at this time.

He explained that the county has requested that frivolous extras, like a half mile long stone wall, be removed from the plan and add in extra parking for the climbers, totaling 80 cars. An expensive rangers' building was downsized and other smart savings were made that do not affect the climbers. Money is being spent more wisely; for instance to attack oak wilt, to stabilize the road down to the fishing area, and to provide climbers a separate bathroom and more parking. The new plan has a lot of overflow (dirt) parking near the normal parking.

The plan is considered to be at 30% of the level of detail to put out bids. They will have the 60% plans soon and after that the 90%. Once they have the 90% plans, they will submit them for bids and 6-8 weeks after that construction will begin. Dan says that could be spring next year.

What we have in the plan now is the climbers access to the canyon with close by parking and flush restrooms. In conjunction with the restrooms is a covered pavilion similar to the group structure at E Rock, that Dan said we can use for the annual Limestoner. It would not be ready for 2009, but maybe by 2010.

Trail Work on the North Shore:

We then expressed our desire to get back to the trail development for the North Shore. We told Dan that we thought the agreement was that we ( RRCC) could have access to the North Shore to develop both horizontal as well as vertical trails.

He said that was the agreement.

We said that we wanted to develop the trail from the " goat fence" to the first climbing wall and then develop the climbs on that wall. When we finished that section, we would them move to the next section, being certain not to create spider web trails, but spine and spur trails.

He said that was acceptable.

They expressed concern about the need to trundle cliffs both at North Shore and within the Reimers ranch for public safety, supporting our desire to finish trundling North Shore. We said we wanted to begin trail work this weekend on Saturday at 9am and continue every Saturday until we have completed the trail work.

Again he agreed.

We also said that we thought the county could provide the hardware for the vertical trails and again he agreed. We will submit hardware that is Powers 5 piece ½ inch by 3 and ¾ inch plated bolts, fixe ½ inch plated hangers, Fixe quick links and Fixe Sport anchors.

Our next Trail day is Oct 4th at 9am at the main parking area!

Please remember that only authorized "trail days" coordinated by the RRCC and the county is what is happening. Recreational access is closed for now; anything else threatens access.

Finally, Dan said they "might" allow us to open for climbing North Shore prior to construction. The way he said it suggested this is a "will allow", and certain changes to the construction plans eliminated concerns Charles Bergh had for letting us in early. He was not prompted for this; he volunteered it. We predict a good chance of public access after phase 1 (first third of the cliff) bolting is far along. Time to load up those bolt bags and charge up the drill batteries!

Climbing Hardware List for Reimers Ranch North Shore Area 10/03/2008 submitted to Travis County Parks Note: It's important that everything is plated steel (not stainless) since mixing metals can cause early corrosion. I've listed cat # as well as web-pages to ensure that you have the exact items. The bolts may be purchased locally from Brannen's 512-458-4011 512-454-7358 fax 2627 Buell Avenue Austin, TX 78757 350 Powers plated steel 5-piece hex head bolts 1/2" X 3-3/4" (13mm X 95mm) - cat # 6932 The remaining hardware may be purchased directly from Fixe Kevin (760) 873-7505 sales@fixehardware.com 250 Fixe plated steel bolt hangers - cat # 013B (http://www.fixeusa.com/hangers-013.htm) 100 Fixe plated steel Draco carabiners - cat # 661 (http://www.fixeusa.com/steel_carabiners_draco.htm) 100 Fixe plated steel long oval screw links - cat # 508-10-AZ-PS (http://www.fixeusa.com/screw_links_long.htm)

Trundled Boulder at Guide's Wall,
Gus Fruh

The precariously hanging boulder on the right side of Guide's Wall at Gus Fruh was reported to be moving a bit. Gary Ellis of CTM joined John Cook and Matt Scales of the Austin Parks and Recreation Department to investigate the boulder's integrity and deemed it dangerous. The rock was dislodged and sent down the wall and that area of the wall was cleared of any remaining loose choss.

2nd Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

The Central Texas Mountaineers continued working on the trial into the new North Shore area of Reimers. We had 27 volunteers for this second stage of the trail project, which covered the second 1/3 of the trail back to the goat fence. This work included building the transition from the bike trail down to the existing game trail for foot traffic back into the new climbing area. Further, we also walked the game trail and marked the trail with rock carins and temporary flags (which will be removed when the trail opens to traffic and is worn in). Finally, we added a few more stairs to the stone staircase up to The Dugout bouldering area. Thanks to John Myrick and Team ARG for providing most of the volunteers for this work day. Volunteers included:

The next trail project for the next stage of this trail work will be in July.
Contact Gary Ellis for more information.

Moving the big rocks for a level trail crossing.

Filling in the stonework with gravel.

Added to the stonework at this spring crossing.

Trail Project at Reimers North Shore

The Central Texas Mountaineers held the first trail project for defining a trial into the new North Shore area of Reimers. We had 19 volunteers for this first stage of the trail project, which covered about 1/3 of the trail from the boat launch trailhead back into the new area. The work included building a stone staircase up to The Dugout bouldering area. The trail then follows the existing bike path, where we reinforced a foot/bike bridge with cedar 2X4s. Another small wooden bridge at a spring crossing was replaced completely with stonework. Thanks to Neil Higa, Tommy Blackwell, Luke Bowman, John Hogge, Karl Vochatzer, Lydia Pyne, Peter, Katherine & Patrick Dyson, Blaine Burris, Shelley Stortz, Eric Quiat, Brent Minchew, Sarah Tanner, Evan Jackson, Dane & Kita Bass, Louie Grahm, and Gary Ellis.

The next trail project for the next stage of this trail work will be Saturday, June 28th and will be hosted by the Austin Youth Climbing Team. All volunteers are welcome to help the climbing team with this next 1/3 of the trail. Contact John Myrick or Gary Ellis for more information.

Start of the trail, with a new stone staircase up to The Dugout.

Filling in the gaps on the bike bridge to accomodate foot traffic.

This bridge was completely replaced with stone work.

19 volunteers of all ages helped out.

American YouthWorks Trail Project & Climbing Day

The Central Texas Mountaineers hosted a cooperational project with American YouthWorks to continue work on the retaining wall on Barton Creek (see below). Students from AYW added a protective berm next to the retaining wall to keep the initial in rush water down Barton Creek from damaging the base of the retaining wall. We spent a few hours hauling and piling rocks to form the berm and then took some time to reflect on the work done. After a pizza lunch, the AYW students then enjoyed some top-rope climbing at Seismic Wall. For many, this was their first experince with climbing and we all had a great time.

It was a successful and rewarding event for all involved and we plan to have another similar event with AYW again in the Fall.

AYW students help with a Barton Creek trail project and then enjoy some climbing afterwards.

CTM Builds a Retaining Wall by Seismic Wall for It's My Park Day

The Central Texas Mountaineers are a member organization under the Austin Parks Foundation and participate in APF's It's My Park Day each year. This year, we built a retaining wall down at Seismic Wall along Barton Creek to help reduce erosion. With a half dozen climbers and a half dozen other APF volunteers, we hauled big and small rocks to layer a solid foundation for the retaining wall, and then filled-in with gravel and dirt. John Cook of Austin Parks and Recreation was instrumental in helping us plan for this project, as well as providing park tools and wheel barrows at the work day.

Building the retaining wall at Seismic Wall.

CTM Joins KAB for Clean Sweep Day at 360 Bridge

CTM joined forces once again this year with Keep Austin Beautiful for our second annual clean-up of the 360 bridge as a KAB Clean Sweep Day project. About a dozen climbers showed up to rappel down the cliff next to the 360 bridge and pick-up bottles, cans, and other trash. We did this last year and we were very surprised to see so much trash on the cliff again this year. With such a great group of volunteers, we managed to clean-up all the trash from the cliffside, while more KAB volunteers picked-up trash along the cliff base.

Afterwards, KAB threw a great party at Waterloo Park, with free food and live music, for all the volunteers who helped clean-up dozens of Austin area parks that day.

Some of the bags full of trash from the 360 bridge cliffside.

CTM Joins KAB to Help Clean-up Mt. Bonnell

Thanks to all who helped out with this clean-up! With over a dozen climbers from CTM and more than a dozen non-climbers from Keep Austin Beautiful pitching in to pick up trash, Mt. Bonnell is now in much better shape than when we found it. We cleaned up all visible trash along the mountain top itself, which is what the City of Austin's Parks and Recreation Department was most concerned with. With that taken care of, a number of volunteers decended down into the woods at the base of the cliff to clean up some of the more visible litter there, as well.

We also received a lot of press coverage from three local television stations, so our efforts were very visible and well-advertised.

• News 8
• Fox 7
• KXAN 36

There's still a lot to do at the base of the mountain, so hopefully we'll get an even bigger turnout next year.

New Wall Celebrates 20th Birthday

On New Year's Day, 1988, the first routes on New Wall were developed. To commemorate this memorable occasion, the Central Texas Mountaineers sponsored a birthday celebration down at New Wall on Jan. 1st, 2008. Some of the original route developers were there, including Greg Brooks, Scott Harris, and Dave Cardosa. We had a birthday cake, free T-shirts, and, as always, lots of fun climbing and camaraderie.

McKinney Falls Trail Project

The Central Texas Mountaineers joined REI Austin, the Friends of McKinney Falls State Park, the Austin Ridge Riders, American YouthWorks, and local volunteers to pitch in for a National Public Lands Day service project at McKinney Falls State Park in Austin, Texas. Projects included: constructing cedar and granite tent pads, trail maintenance, and a kid's trash clean up. Free lunch, live music and a grant presentation ceremony wrapped up the event.

Volunteers building tent pads out at McKinney Falls State Park.

Public Meetings for Reimers Ranch Master Plan

Travis County will hold a series of public meetings at various locations throughout Travis County in early June. See the following flier for the details of the locations, dates, and times. Please plan to attend one of these sessions in person, if you would like to voice concerns about the development direction of the park.

AmeriCorps Reimers Trail Work Day

A group from AmeriCorps Environmental Core, headed by Charlie Parrott, came out to Reimers Ranch on Monday, May 21st 2007 to lend their skills to help with some trail improvements.

"AmeriCorps members serve with more than 2,000 nonprofits, public agencies, and faith-based and community organizations. Since 1994, more than 400,000 men and women have provided needed assistance to millions of Americans across the nation through their AmeriCorps service."

CTM held a series of trail projects in 2006 to improve upon some of the erosion prone areas of the climbing trails and this group of 9 volunteers brought to bear much more exensive trail building experience to replace some of our initial work with better stone constructed stairs and walkways. Thanks to AmeriCorps for helping us make these trail improvements longer lasting for generations of visitors to come. We look forward to working with them again on Barton Creek Greenbelt trail improvements later this year. Also, thanks to Mike Brewster, a ranger of Travis County, for meeting with the AmeriCorps team and guiding them through the park to the various work sites.

A great group of volunteers from AmeriCorps helping out at Reimers Ranch.

Clean Sweep Day

CTM helped Keep Austin Beautiful with a Clean Sweep Day project at the 360 bridge. The cliff at the lookout point above Lake Austin had been strewn with garbage, beer cans and bottles for years. A few CTM members pitched in for this project and rappelled down the cliff with rakes and trash bags to help clean this area. The climbers worked early in the morning and other volunteers collected the trash at the base of the cliff and hauled it away via kayaks, which ferried the bags over to dumpsters at the boat launch on the other side of the lake. The event was a great success, clearing about 35 bags of trash from the cliff area.

Thanks to CTM members Kareem Al-Bassam, Roni Beer, John Dwyer, Eric Patrick and Karl Vochatzer for their help with this event. This could certainly be an annual event for our club and could include other areas such as Mt. Bonnell in the future.

Trash at the cliff prior to the Clean Sweep Day event.

Our fearless volunteers getting ready to descend.

It's My Park Day

CTM and Rock About helped out this year with an Austin Parks Foundation It's My Park Day project down at Sunken Gardens in Zilker Park. Located by the baseball fields along Robert E. Lee Drive, Sunken Gardens was originally built as a rock wall garden around one of the spring heads along Barton Springs. In the last few decades, it has become a popular site among climbers as a forearm-building bouldering exercise wall, with long and difficult traverses. Over the years, however, the site has become overgrown with shrubs and poison ivy, so this project was organized with the intention to clean up the walls and surrounding grounds to trim back the growth. About a dozen volunteers pitched in to help accomplish this during the 4 hour event.

So make a point to head down to Sunken Gardens soon and try out the long traverses on the clean walls - we have taken away your only excuse for not making it all the way around the wall! Thanks to Rick Watson of Rock About for heading up this project for the climbing community, and to Bill Gooch, Neil Higa, and Gary Ellis of CTM for their participation.

Master Plan Review for Reimers Ranch

Travis County held a review session for the master plan for Reimers Ranch Thursday night, April 12th, and invited all of the current Reimers user groups to attend and provide feedback.

• April 24th - Present plan at Commissioner's Court to get approval.
• May 9th & 10th - Public hearings at Commissioners Courtroom (314 W 11th Street) and Bee Cave facility (Southwest Parkway).
• June - Present budget to Commissioner's Court for approval.
• Spring 2008 - Begin construction of parking lots, bathroom facilities, etc.

• Main entrance road will be widened for two lane traffic and re-routed away from Reimers' house.
• Side roads (single lane) to added parking lots will be added and paved.
• Main parking lot will move a little further down the road away from the mouth of Sex Canyon.
• Biker's parking lot will also move further back up the hill.
• Existing parking lots will be closed and re-vegitated.
• Additional parking lots: before boat launch area, two lots near Pouge climbing and bouldering areas.
• Pavillion and bathrooms with running water at main parking lot.

All in all, it looks like we will get everything that we asked for at Reimers from Travis County. We will most likely have access to the new Pouge climbing area, although there may be a closed season for that area to allow for turkey migration to a nearby nesting area. If we do get access, it may be as soon as this summer or fall, well before any of the roads or parking lots are finished. This would simply require a longer hike from the exsisting boat launch parking area in the short term.

The meeting included Charles Bergh, Kurt Neilsen, Dan Perry, Mike Brewster and Wendy Scaperotta of Travis County, representatives of the bird-watching community, the Ridge Riders, and our members of the Reimers Ranch Climbing Committee. Thanks to Tommy Blackwell, Troy Wilson, John Hoge and Gary Ellis for attending this meeting on behalf of the climbing community.

Lobbying with the Access Fund

Jason Keith of the Access Fund visited Austin to help us lobby for funding for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. We visited a number of State Senators' offices, including:

• Terry Zubreck - Senate Finance Committee staff
• Lauren Doss/Senator West
• Noe Barrios/Senator Estes (SB 252 sponsor)
• Zack Evans/Sen. Nelson
• Sarah Bagwell/Sen. Shapiro (SB 252 co-sponsor)
• Michael McMullen/Sen. Janek

From the meeting minutes of a recent session, the outlook is positive:

House Bill 6 Hearing

On Tuesday night, Feb. 20th, 2007, there was a public hearing at the capitol for House Bill 6, which proposes to remove the $32M cap on the current Texas sporting goods tax. The hearing was chaired by Rep. Harvey Hilderbran who gave a brief history of the issue before hearing testimony from the various lobbyists:

In 1993 House Bill 706 was passed, which replaced the cigarette tax with the new sporting goods tax as the prime source of revenue for State pubic parks. This was done primarily to provide a revenue base to appropriately match the mission of use. However, cigarette sales were on the decline anyway so a substitute was needed.

There were about 20 lobbyists in attendance:

• Robert Cook, Executive Director of TPWD
• Several members of the State Parks Advisory Committee
• Hotels/Campgrounds (apparently the 3rd largest industry in the State)
• Texas Coalition for Conservation
• Hunter and angler lobbyists
• many others ...

TPWD indicated that they need about $406M for all the upgrades and acquisitions they want ($60M is necessary for immediate health and safety concerns). State Parks Advisory Committee has detailed studies from 2003 to 2006 and proposed a plan for $85M over ten years. No one opposed the bill.

Jamie McNally attended and signed in as a representative for the Access Fund in favor of the bill. Gary Ellis attended and signed in as a representative of CTM, also in favor.

How does this impact climbing in Texas?
If TPWD doesn't get their needed funding, the State may move some parks over to the Texas Historical Commission (THC) in order to cut costs. If they make places like Hueco Tanks and Enchanted Rock historical landmarks, we could loose climbing access there.

Meeting with Austin Parks and Recreation

Attended: Sarah Macias, John Wright, Gary Ellis
Location: Maintenance shed at Zilker Park

General meet and greet meeting for PARD and CTM, since Sarah's relatively recent change of position to managing the Greenbelt parks. Discussed current role of CTM for PARD with respect to the Greenbelt and climbing. Reviewed the Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) and are still in agreement to its content. We will continue to have access for climbing, provide route maintenance, and assist with bolting applications. We will provide signs about CTM for PARD to place behind the glass of the 7 kiosks marking the trail heads of the Greenbelt. These signs will essentially be for educating the public that CTM is a volunteer organization that oversees climbing activity and route maintenance on the Greenbelt. Also that there is a bolting policy in place and questions, concerns, and applications can be directed to CTM.
Discussed possible cooperation on trail projects and specifically It's My Park Day.

Do Not Bolt Without Permission

Earlier this year we were notified of an incident of bandit bolting on the Greenbelt - a short route was bolted with five bolts and two anchor bolts, just upstream of Urban Assault.
If you have any information about who bolted this, please let us know or have them contact us. This kind of activity is not only illegal, but threatens climbing access for everyone. With that said, we are not looking to bust anyone, but just inform those involved of the established bolting policy and keep this from happening again.

CTM has long-established bolting policies in place with Austin Parks and Recreation and with Travis County Parks for most of the climbing areas throughout Central Texas and these are procedures that we all need to follow in order to maintain not only a standard for climbing saftey, but also to maintain permission to use this public land. Please see our What We Do and Bolting History pages for more information.

In the meantime, we have removed the bolt hangers from this route and will be pulling the bolts from the wall soon.

Location of the illegal route near Urban Assault Wall.

Past CTM Presidents

In an attempt to capture some CTM history before it is lost, we've pinged some of the past CTM presidents that are still around to get a list of who served and when. This will give some basic context for the history of our club which may allow us to fill in more detail into this time line (note that the events are not necessarily the work of the CTM president shown, but the timeline just gives context). We are in need of further info about climbing in and around Austin, so chime in and let us know if you have details about:

• When was the CTCC first formed?
• When were these areas first developed?
  • Gus Fruh
  • Seismic
  • Reimers Ranch
  • Pace Bend
  • Mount Bonnell (when was it closed?)
• Notable climbing accidents.
• When were waivers first introduced at Reimers?
• When did Pseudorock open? When did it close?