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Subaru promotes a multi-stage team challenge "extreme sport" relay race each year, known as the Subaru Primal Quest challenge. Past events have taken place near Telluride, Colorado, and Lake Tahoe, California. The 2004 Subaru Primal Quest Challenge race took place in Washington, and included a "high ropes" "climbing" element on the west face of Exfoliation Dome, also known as Blueberry Hill, near Darrington, Washington. In this event, race contestants ascended approximately 1500 feet up fixed ropes on a class two approach route known as the Granite Sidewalk, and then 200 feet up further fixed ropes on a slab apron below the main wall. On that main wall, they used jumars to ascend about 600 feet of fixed ropes and they then made their descent by rappel.
Over forty-five teams of four participated in this race. The rigging staff alone (those who set the ropes for this event), numbered over twenty. In addition there were guides, photographers, race officials, members of the media and who knows who else. There is no way an event of this magnitude could be held without leaving a heavy footprint on the land, and in this case that fooprint was imposed on a feature that was relatively free of obvious human impact despite an active thirty-five year climbing history. In order to facilitate this event, event staff cut new trails and built tent platforms and staging areas, and they installed dozens of fixed ropes on the approach and on the main wall. Race contestants left significant amounts of untreated human waste in the area. Immediately after the event, several local climbers were up in arms over the impact of the 2004 Subaru Primal Quest event, and some set out to make their point through raising immediate complaints with the Forest Service and posting caustic messages on a discussion board maintained by Subaru.
It should be noted that event staff worked very hard to clean up the area after the event, and they did a fairly good job of removing most of the bolts that they installed for the event rigging. Their clean-up was not perfect, but the Dome will largely return to its pre-event state and climbing will continue just as it ever has, but climbers who might formerly have drank the water running down the Granite Sidewalk without treating it might want to re-think this practice.
Darrington is a long-established climbing area, and the Blueberry Hill side of Exfoliation Dome has been a popular climbing destination for thirty years, but the area has always had a wilderness feel to it. It will continue to feel that way. However, we are concerned about the manner in which this event was permitted without much consultation with or consideration for local area climbers and without any apparent input from such groups as the Access Fund or the Washington Climbers Coalition. Large group events and commercial ventures like Subaru Primal Quest may be valid uses for public lands, but the interests of individual recreational users must be protected when such events are planned and permitted and we believe that local climbers' organizations, or the Access Fund, should be involved in or at least contacted about any planning or permit process. The contractors who set up the event on Exfoliation Dome said they were completely unaware that this was a popular climbing destination despite the fact that it has been featured in guidebooks since 1976, and they expressed surprise when climbers showed up on a sunny Saturday following their event. Had they consulted with local climbers, they would at least have been informed that the Dome was a significant climbing area and we might have seen some aspects of the event staging handled differently.
Subaru Primal Quest has come and gone from Darrington, but this event will take place somewhere else next year and other large events take place on public lands around Washington every year. These events include commercial ventures like this one but also organizational gatherings like the former Access Fund rendezvous that used to take place annually, or competitive events like a kayak "rodeo." The Washington Climbers Coalition encourages climbers to get involved where they have concerns about these matters and we'd like to help not only with complaints about events that we may disapprove of, but also with fostering a working relationship with the agencies involved so that we can have input in event planning and permitting as these matters may affect our interests. Kayak clubs and mountain bike groups, to name a few, are way ahead of us in this regard.
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