On Beauty and Adventure
Roger Arhart - Nov 20, 2001

In reading the discussions of maintaining the pristine character of canyons I think many of us, myself included, confuse perception of beauty with perception of adventure. And I think that confusion results in too much stridency at times for no trace policies that may endanger people. Please bear with me while I explain my thesis.

I come to canyons from a trekking background, not a climbing background. As a trekker I know I confuse perceptions of adventure and beauty. When I trek the Wind Rivers I seek the no-trail country. I am usually successful in going for some days without seeing other people. When I am walking through country with no trail, no cairns, no tree blazes, no ground imprint, in short, navigating on my own, I may say to myself or companions words like this: "Wow! Isn't this country beautiful? No sign of any previous human passage"! Another time I am walking through similar country on a wispy trail, and I may say: "This country is not as beautiful as that last country. Too much sign of human passage." I'm fooling myself. Both countries are equally beautiful. In the second case my sense of adventure has been offended because I am following a trail instead of groping my own way, and I misdiagnose my negative feeling as caused by a degradation of the beauty of the country. I understand this in myself only recently, from reading and listening to the discussions of maintaining canyon pristine character.

Undescended Canyon in Zion Beautiful? Adventurous?

In talking about maintaining the pristine character of canyons I think we make the same mistake as the trekker. We confuse perception of beauty and perception of adventure and tend to lump them together under beauty. This leads to strident arguments because preservation of beauty seems a lofty high-moral-ground motive. Next to preservation of beauty, preservation of adventure seems embarrassingly selfish and subjective. Of course the popular opinion is that perception of beauty is subjective. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is both right and wrong. Indeed, perception of beauty requires a human beholder, but what is remarkable about perception of beauty is not the subjective variability that the old saying implies, but rather the near unanimity of what very diverse people perceive as beautiful. That is, if they don't confuse beauty and adventure.

Consider a piece of canyon many of us know, the Cathedral in Pine Creek in Zion. The anchor for the rap into the Cathedral is, if I recall correctly, two bolts and chain on the left, about head high, on the wall of the pour spout. This is a very solid, very domesticated anchor. Now, is this spot less beautiful because of that anchor? When I am honest and separate my perceptions of beauty and adventure I admit the place is still unbelievably beautiful, and the bolts have no effect on that. We could probably do without that bolt station and use flood debris back behind us, about 20 feet back and over a pool. And we would probably have a chancy rope pull, which is a safety event. I maintain that the Cathedral rap, the Cathedral itself, and the pour spot wherein the bolts reside are not less beautiful than in their virgin state. They are definitely less adventurous. This is a domesticated rap station, and the whole of Pine Creek is quite domesticated, but Pine Creek is still an indescribably beautiful canyon. The bolts and anchors and webbing in Pine Creek imperceptibly diminish the beauty of that canyon.

In my trekking world I zealously practice and advocate minimum impacts in passage and camping. Big fire pits, stripped trees, and horse pulverized trails genuinely degrade beauty, but some of my low impact appeals I now recognize as coming from the adventure side of perception, not the beauty side. Last summer I discovered cairns on a Wind River pass I have done many times, an untrailed, seemingly untraveled pass up to then. And now someone had put up cairns. Well, I peevishly knocked a few over and then stopped, as I reminded myself that the country was really just as beautiful. Just my sense of adventure had been offended.

In the trekking world the minimum impact approach rarely affects safety. In the canyon world, on the other hand, minimum impact methods of descent often diminish safety. Impact and safety correlate. Bolt everything in sight, domesticate it, and generally it's safer. No trace passage correlates with less safety and more adventure. Education and skill allow us to operate closer to the no trace edge with only a small degradation of safety, but the basic correlation remains.

I find the major effect of domestication is in bringing more people into the domesticated canyon. The word gets out that it's easy, safe, and fun, and more people visit it. The hike-around trails in popular canyons that have vegetation get quite prominent. But the beauty impact seems minor when I correctly identify perceptions of beauty and adventure. Taking a well worn and advertised hike-around trail is certainly less adventurous than having to figure it out myself. Even the most heavily traveled, most domesticated canyons in Zion, like Pine, Behunin, Mystery, are still nearly as beautiful as before people started going into them. But they are not high adventure anymore in their present domesticated configurations.

Left Fork, North Creek, July 2001

I used to do the Left Fork in Zion back in 1979. It was high adventure in those days. We made it a two day trip, and camped right where the Subway opens up. We had an uncertain route down Russel Gulch, an uncertain final descent into the bottom of Russel Gulch, and most of all, an uncertain route up to the plateau to get back to the road. Now it's done by 50 people a day, grandmas and kids, on well marked trails. And the remarkable thing is, except for some spots of trail erosion, it is still as beautiful today as 1979.

I am not advocating domestication of all canyons. Nor do I invalidate the motive of preservation of adventure. I advocate some middle ground that recognizes these points:

1) Perceptions of adventure and beauty are different and should not be confused
2) Pristine character of canyons correlates with higher risk
3) Domestication of canyons lowers risk
4) Domestication raises visitation
5) Domestication seldom degrades beauty
6) Domestication degrades adventure

We should recognize our arguments for pristine character as aimed mostly at preservation of adventure, not beauty. Preservation of adventure is a valid motive, and we should not be embarrassed by it. It's just not the high moral ground of beauty preservation. Preservation of adventure can be discussed with less stridency because it is not a moral issue. Simply stated, canyons will run the gamut from fully domesticated to pristine. And canyoneers and governmental agencies will make the decisions for individual canyons on how much domestication to permit. It will be tough deciding, and getting consensus, but it will be easier if we understand our own motives.

More Discussion - take it to The Canyons Group.