Charles over at Gatineau Park News has posted a transcript of Eric Grenier’s update on the future of climbing on the Eardley Escarpment under the Gatineau Park Ecosystem Conservation Plan. He has also posted the audio from Eric’s update along with the full audio from the meeting.

A tip o’ the hat to Charles for putting it together.

The Ottawa-Gatineau Climbers’ Access Coalition information session on the implications of the Gatineau Park Ecosystem Conservation Plan (GPECP) took place Monday evening. At least 100 people attended the meeting, which was held at the Ottawa Mountain Equipment Co-op store.

Eric Grenier, chair of the Coalition, summarized the current state of affairs and said the immediate problem is getting the National Capital Commission’s attention and convincing them that the dialogue hasn’t finished yet – if anything it’s just starting:

“How do we engage them in that process? I think that the way we have to go about doing that is by employing public influence.” – Eric Grenier

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The Gatineau Park News blog mentioned that the Gatineau Park Protection Committee released the following “press release” (of which I’m only quoting the English version after the jump) concerning their “review” of the full version of the Gatineau Park Ecosystem Conservation Plan document, which they “leaked” on their website:

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Mountain Equipment Co-op’s French blogue has a piece that talks about the climbing restrictions that are going to be the result of the Gatineau Park Ecosystem Conservation Plan (GPECP) that I’ve written about recently. People are encouraged to sign the climber petition and join the Ottawa-Gatineau Climbers’ Access Coalition.

Also, people should come out to the meeting being hosted by the Coalition at the MEC store in Westboro this Monday at 7:15pm.

A tip o’ the hat to Gatineau Park News for blogging about the MEC blogue article.

The Ottawa-Gatineau Climbers’ Access Coalition has announced an information session to discuss the impact of the Gatineau Park Ecosystem Conservation Plan on climbing in Gatineau Park. It’s being held at the MEC Ottawa Store on Monday, April 19th at 7:15pm. If you’re a climber, you need to attend this very important meeting.

In case you haven’t heard about the GPECP and the ramifications for climbing, you should check out my entry about the plan in general and my in-depth look at Appendix 2.

So, I’ve been reading the full version of the Gatineau Park Ecosystem Conservation Plan during the last week or so, along with a number of research articles that it cites. Of particular interest (to me anyway) is Appendix 2, which is titled “Eardley Escarpment description and conservation issues”. This is where the authors of the GPECP lay out why, in their opinion, climbing should be all but banned from Gatineau Park.

It starts off by describing what an escarpment is, in general terms, and then moves on to describing the Eardley Escarpment thusly:

Eardley Escarpment is a cliff lying along a south-south-west line. It is approximately 300 metres high, with an average height of more than 200 metres, and is the dominant topographical element in the Outaouais region. It begins in the City of Gatineau and runs north-eastwards along the Ottawa River for several dozen kilometres, forming a characteristic rock slope alignment.

To the best of my knowledge, the Eardley Escarpment, the aspect of which is approximately southwest, follows a line that’s aligned roughly northwest-southeast. If it ran “north-eastwards along the Ottawa River”, it would actually be oriented almost perpendicular to the Ottawa River.

If you look at the image to the right, you can see the Eardley Escarpment (I’ve marked it with a red line) running most of the way from top left to lower right.

But this isn’t the most problematic part of Appendix 2.

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The National Capital Commission released the Gatineau Park Ecosystem Conservation Plan (PDF version) last week, which they’re calling “an essential reference document for Gatineau Park through 2035”. Basically, the GPECP is a long-term plan for the management of the various ecosystems in Gatineau Park. It describes the current state of and threats to the ecosystems and the steps that they believe must be followed to in order to protect and restore them.

Included in the GPECP are key actions on how they’re going to deal with various issues, including some that directly impact the rock climbing on the Eardley Escarpment. Specifically, they seek to “[c]onfine rock climbing to the two or three most damaged rock walls, where rehabilitation work will not be effective.”

They plan on achieving this by…

• Identifying two or three walls on which rock climbing could take place, based on their impact on the Eardley Escarpment ecosystem, their current level of damage and their popularity (also applies to Eardley Escarpment).
• Changing the boundaries of the integral conservation zone, as set out in the Gatineau Park Master Plan, to accommodate these walls.
• Restoring the environment of former climbing sites that are not selected, including any access trails.

Effectively, this means that the number of routes available to rocks climbers will drop from an estimated 500 route to as few as 40. In other words, a 90% reduction in the number of available routes.

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