Spelunkers, Rock Climbers Locked in Turf War Over Caves

Grant Ortman clips on his harness, slips on his climbing shoes and starts up the rock--but instead of scaling a cliff, he maneuvers up the sloping walls and across the slippery ceiling of a cave.

Ortman’s goal is out toward where the edge of the amphitheater-like cave meets the hot, dry desert air. Thirty minutes later, he triumphantly rappels to the ground of the quiet, refreshingly cool space filled with the aroma of juniper trees thriving outside just a few feet away.

Often drawn to central Oregon by the climbing mecca known as Smith Rock, rock climbers looking for a new challenge and a bit of solitude have turned to the numerous cave-like “lava tubes” created by receding molten magma around 150,000 years ago.

But critics--mostly cavers, or spelunkers--say the climbers are irreparably damaging the rock with the chalk they use to keep their hands dry and the anchors they install in the rock to clip their ropes into.

Restrictions Debated

The result is a clash between the young, adventurous, independent world of rock climbers and the established society of cavers, who have clubs or “grottoes” that date back almost 100 years.

In the middle is the U.S. Forest Service, which has oversight of caves in the Deschutes National Forest and is working on an environmental assessment plan aimed at preventing and repairing damage to nine of the caves and nearby wildlife habitat.

Some of the proposed restrictions in an early draft applied to all visitors: moving parking lots farther away from the caves, making mountain bikes and horses off-limits, banning glass containers, prohibiting the use of generators.

But other proposals were aimed directly at sports climbers--permanently banning the use of hand-drying chalk and removing all existing anchors and bolts, for instance.

While there are only a few other places in the country where rock climbers are using caves to climb, the situation outside Bend reflects a national debate about caves: Are they recreational opportunities or highly fragile ecosystems that need to be protected--sometimes even hidden--from the public?

Climbers Push for Access

No two people are more passionately involved in the debate about the Deschutes National Forest caves than Larry King, who belongs to the Willamette Valley Grotto in Hillsboro, and Larry Brumwell, the owner of Inclimb Rock Gym in Bend.

Brumwell, a tall and thin man who talks a mile a minute, moved to Bend nine years ago to pursue his passion for rock climbing. He was among the first group of rock climbers in the early 1990s to explore the caves and still gets excited as he remembers showing them to world-class athletes awed at the challenges the caves provided.

But that was before the Forest Service instituted a moratorium several years ago on climbers using chalk and replacing or installing new anchors--making many of the routes in the caves impossible to climb.

Now Brumwell is the point man for climbers looking to organize and oppose any permanent restrictions that might be included in the final environmental assessment.

Brumwell said there are dozens of caves in the area, but climbers want access to only three: Skeleton, a small cave about a quarter-mile deep in which agile climbers move about without ropes or bolts; Charcoal, which is currently closed to all visitors to protect bat habitat and for archeological reasons; and Hidden Forest, a breathtaking natural amphitheater.

“We’re not allowed to put in anchor bolts, but they’ll put in stairs for the general public,” Brumwell says, pointing to a set of metal stairs into Skeleton Cave. “That staircase allows the masses in here.

“We just want to take a different path. We want to climb on the ceiling of the cave, not walk on the bottom.”

Brumwell points out that the average visitor cannot tell the difference between climber’s chalk and the natural calcification of mineral deposits in the cave, and while admitting there are always a few bad apples, said most climbers are respectful of the caves.

He has volunteered to make his gym a central location for registering climbers and informing them of the rules. And he’s willing to bring his gym’s junior climbing team out to the caves to do regular cleanups.

He expresses a lot of anger at cavers like King, who he feels are trying to portray rock climbers as vandals--and keep them from caves for merely territorial reasons. He says the small, shallow caves in central Oregon have little value to cavers hoping to discover bizarre formations like stalagmites.

“Basically it comes down to battle with past users. What we do is as valuable as cavers. They’re saying it’s not because they were here 60 years ago,” Brumwell said. “A true caver would not drive to central Oregon to see this tube--but a climber would.”

That’s exactly what worries King.

King, who holds positions with the National Speleological Society and the Willamette Valley Grotto, did volunteer work for the Forest Service staff during compilation of the environmental assessment.

He spent 36 days at the caves watching visitors and writing down their activities. He blames the rock climbers for making the caves popular enough to lead to other uses--weddings, people bringing in dogs, diapers being left behind.

He accuses climbers of using battery-powered hammer drills to install 158 bolts in just one cave, moving rocks to create flat spots to start their ascent, pulling out vegetation, destroying signs and climbing on a faint prehistoric pictograph despite signs asking them not to.

“They’ve turned this cave into an indoor climbing gym,” King says with disgust. “Cavers have such a stricter interpretation of the ‘leave no trace’ ethic.”

King said the caves are fragile ecosystems. The temperature inside remains a constant 45 degrees or so. Native grasses, trees, butterflies, birds and bats thrive within the caves and just outside them.

King said he’s more interested in the caves’ values for education and science than recreation, and the bolts and ropes left behind by climbers are a visual distraction.

“When we go into caves we want to have the impression we were the first one there,” he said. “We want to leave it in as natural condition as possible.”

Although he said it’s not a “caver vs. climber” issue, King can get virulent when discussing the practices and techniques of rock climbers.

“They used to be one of Oregon’s best-kept secrets before rock climbers got ahold of them. Now it’s a climbing gym,” he said. “Anybody can visit these caves--but no one has the right to damage them.”

For now, the moratorium on chalk and bolts remains in place.

The Forest Service has gathered public opinion on its proposed environmental assessment and expects to release its final version this month, according to Les Moscoso, recreation planner for the Forest Service.

Alternatives the agency is considering include taking no action, pulling out the existing anchors and bolts, or allowing climbers access to the routes that are already being used in Hidden Forest Cave, Moscoso said.

A permanent environmental assessment will allow the Forest Service to issue citations to cave visitors who break the rules, he said.

“These caves have been used for years by the public and Native Americans. They’ve also been abused on and off for a long time,” Moscoso said. “So with use increasing and Bend growing, we need to get something more official done out there and address some things before it gets too out of hand and too difficult to manage.”

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On the Net:

National Speleological Society: https://www.caves.org/

Deschutes National Forest:

https://www.fs.fed.us/r6/deschutes/