Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area: A Path Forward

By Diane Boyer

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area (RRCNCA) sprawls across 195,819 acres of sandstone cliffs, jagged mountains, and winding arroyos, offering a glimpse into the past through rock art and other cultural resources left by Ancestral Puebloans and Southern Paiute.

For outdoor recreationists, the desert sun and towering sandstone walls are a haven, drawing climbers from around the world—especially during the winter months.

First protected in 1936, the BLM designated 62,000 acres as Red Rock Canyon Recreation Lands in 1967. A number of additional laws were passed throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s expanding the size of the protected landscape until Red Rock Canyon was officially designated as a National Conservation Area in 1990. The Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002 designated the Rainbow Mountain Wilderness and La Madre Mountain Wilderness, which include most of the backcountry climbing in RRCNCA, and further laws were passed as recently as 2014 expanding the RRCNCA to its current boundaries.

The area holds a rich climbing history dating back to the 1970’s. Legendary climbers like Joe Herbst, Joanne and Jorge Urioste, and Lynn Hill, to name a few, paved the way for the future of Red Rocks climbing, putting up routes such as the Rainbow Wall, Levitation 29, Epinephrine, and Crimson Chrysalis. In the following years, bouldering development surged, with standout problems like Fear of a Black Hat (V9), established by Jared McMillen, and Clockwork Orange (V12), put up by Ethan Pringle in the Kraft Boulders area. But behind this landscape of adventure remains the continued need to protect access and ensure climbers have a voice in its future.

The Need for Advocacy

Red Rock Canyon is home to endless climbing routes, hiking trails, and bike rides, attracting over two million visitors annually. It’s unique in that it offers world-class traditional climbing, some of which is in designated Wilderness in remote canyons, while also offering excellent bouldering and sport climbing within a short hike of the parking lot—making it a prime destination for climbers of all skill levels. However, as visitation continues to increase, so do the challenges surrounding sustainable management.

In 2023, the Southern Nevada Climbing Coalition (SNCC), the local climbing advocacy group for RRCNCA, reached out to Access Fund in search of guidance on how to help climbers expand their concept of what it means to be “low impact”. They were also seeking ways to ensure the community’s voices are heard in land management decisions—which has not always been the case in the past. “The only way to make forward progress is to find better ways to connect and collaborate,” says Cory Statt, SNCC president. The outcome was the creation of two new SNCC positions: Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and US Forest Service liaisons.

Annie Ashenfelter, SNCC’s BLM liaison and Access Fund member, plays a pivotal role in ensuring that climbers’ interests are well-represented, attending monthly meetings with the BLM about RRCNCA’s management. This relationship goes beyond meetings. It is a constant stream of communication bringing information from the BLM to SNCC and to Access Fund for dissemination into the greater climbing community.

For example, it was recently discovered that climbers might unknowingly impact an important cultural artifact at the Cannibal Crag due to the position of one of the routes. After a site consultation with Access Fund, BLM and SNCC coordinated a plan of action to protect the artifact. The SNCC relocated the route anchors to reduce the risk of damage, and the BLM is preparing signage to alert climbers in the area.

Outside of partnership on stewardship and policy initiatives, Access Fund has supported SNCC and local climbers by hosting Adopt-a-Crags and providing grants. Access Fund Conservation Teams have also supported the SNCC-hosted Red Rock Rehab, a community-driven event that includes two service days, focused on rebuilding trails, cleaning graffiti from rock walls, and working on mitigating informal trails by making defined approach paths. In past years, volunteers have built 350 feet of new trail, closed and restored 312 feet of social trail, installed ten new steps, and maintained 12,260 feet of existing trail.

This relationship is crucial for Red Rock Canyon. “The BLM and the SNCC collaborate on mutually beneficial programs to further their mutual goals of conservation and recreation, while being good stewards of the land,” states Ashenfelter.

The Climbing Management Plan: A Long-Awaited Goal

One of Access Fund’s top priorities for Red Rock Canyon is supporting successful completion of the long-delayed Climbing Management Plan (CMP). The CMP would encompass guidance on a broad range of factors such as approach trails, new fixed anchor authorization, general bolt maintenance, and many other issues associated with climbing. Access Fund has engaged on several Red Rock CMPs over two decades, but the BLM has not been able to get them over the finish line. As this effort resumes anew, Access Fund is again working with the BLM and SNCC. “The key is to stay engaged the whole time,” says Murdock. He emphasizes that SNCC and Access Fund are actively involved at every stage of the planning process and will not relent until it is completed.

Partnerships to Create Sustainable Climbing Areas

With the recent change in administration, national parks and public lands are facing significant new challenges, including staffing and budget cuts to already-underfunded land management agencies. This has impacted Access Fund directly, with cancellation of a federal grant that could have funded part of its Red Rock Climber Stewards program in 2025 and 2026. But rather than pull back from its efforts, Access Fund is doubling down, seeking new sources of funding to continue the work needed to preserve the delicate landscape at the RRCNCA.

With growth in visitation, Red Rock Canyon’s trails have turned into a maze of informal paths. The meandering washes, rock basins, and sparse vegetation make it easy to lose the main approach and increase the likelihood of more unofficial trails developing.

In 2017, Access Fund received a grant from Google to conduct a comprehensive survey of trails in RRCNCA’s popular climbing areas including First Creek, Ice Box, Juniper, Oak Creek, and Pine Creek Canyons. This survey assessed both designated and social trails, providing baseline data that will aid in long-term monitoring and management. Eventually the climbing community will collaborate with the BLM and RRCNCA to create a sustainable trail plan that prioritizes clearly marked trails to climbing areas, minimizing the impact on local vegetation and fragile desert soils.

These improvements could be implemented faster if a long-term program such as Access Fund’s Climber Stewards were to be launched. They would study visitor use patterns, updating previous data to inform development of a sustainable trail system, which could be built by Access Fund’s Conservation Teams. This would provide critical recreation infrastructure in the most heavily used climbing areas while closing and restoring redundant social trails, preventing further impact and repairing damage from unmitigated social paths.

Andrea Hassler, the Stewardship and Education Director of Access Fund, has advocated for a program modeled after successful initiatives in areas like Indian Creek and the New River Gorge. These teams of dedicated stewards post up at trailheads during the peak climbing season providing on-the-ground education to help minimize environmental impact. The program offers climber coffee, crag chats, visitor use and resource monitoring, and volunteer management. Erik Murdock, Deputy Director of Access Fund stresses the value of on-the-ground stewardship saying, “It can really change the collective consciousness of the climbing community for the people who climb there.”

With the recent reductions in federal agency staff, a stewardship program is an effective way of filling in those gaps.