OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR PUBUC AFFAIRS

BUIlDING 170

Mark Morris 250 Donohoe Street

ST ANFORD UNIVERSITY STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305

August 29, 1986

East Palo Alto, California 94303

Dear Mark:

Thank you for your welcome letter of August 5th. It is an accurate summary of my meeting the week before with representatives of the local buildering community, and I am happy now to confirm the conditions under which buildering at Stanford may resume on a trial basis.

. As we all agreed, there are a number of reasons for limiting future buildering to just two campus sites -- the back walls of the Art Gallery and certain areas at the front of the old Chemistry building (a map is being prepared and forwarded). While providing our builderers with ample surface to tackle nproblems· and develop skills, this limitation will also accommodate those who feel strongly that climbing in the more heavily trafficked Quad and central campus area is unsafe or unsuitable.

The other conditions we agreed to are:

1) the use of chalk is absolutely prohibited;

2) climbing will not exceed one's own height;

3) the climbing community will assume responsibility for informing its members of these new regulations and for self-regulation thereafter;

4) an individual will be designated to act as the buildering community's contact with the University (you and I will initially fill those respective roles).

The University shares your eagerness to have this new arrangement work. At least at the start, however, buildering will have to be resanctioned on a trial basis. To help in monitoring its success, our Operations and Maintenance staff will remove all existing chalk from campus buildings, starting with the Art Gallery and the old Chemistry area. Once those two sites are cleaned (the Gallery will be first), buildering there may officially resume.

August 28, 1986 Page Two

We expect this work to be done by Monday, September 15, and we will treat the remainder of this calendar year as the first trial interval. During that period, we will rely on you and your colleagues to watch for and use peer influence on climbers who appear outside the approved areas. To help you in that regard, the University will place informational signs at the two sites, along with some more temporary signage in the Quad.

The resanctioning of buildering --and its terms -- will also be publicized in campus publications l and readers will be asked to inform this office if any violations are witnessed. I must reemphasize, however, that University staff will not be responsible for enforcing these regulations; that job rests entirely with the climbing community. I will, of course, alert you right away if problems are drawn to my attention.

All of us at Stanford have been impressed by the persuasive yet sensitive approach your group has taken. That accounts for our confidence in your ability to make the new policy work. Like you, we are optimistic that there will be every reason to extend the privilege when we gather to take stock in December.

cc: Sergeant Del Bandy Brett Barnhardt ~David Coward

Gretchen Dennison Tom Heinrichs Thomas Higgins Donald Kennedy Armando Menocal, III Steven Pollock Michael Ramsey Frank Sarnquist Jennifer Westerlind Bill Zaumen

Sincerely,

~ Stephen Peeps Director of University Relations

ST ANFORD UNIVERSITY STANFORD. CALIFORNIA 94305

OFACE OF THE PRESIDENT

Ms. Gretchen Dennison P.O. Box 8888 Stanford, CA 94305

Mr. William T. Zaumen 912 Clara Drive Palo Alto, CA 94303

Dear Ms. Dennison and Mr. Zaumen:

July 18, 1986

Thank you for your July 8 -Proposal for Allowing Buildering at Stanford.- I wanted to assure you that it had reached me, and that its quality of thought and preparation were very much appreciated.

Your arguments have persuaded a number of us to reconsider the blanket prohibition against buildering, so long as some reasonable -- and genuinely manageable -- middle ground can be established. All other factors aside, I must ask you to understand that your passion for this sport is countered in many cases by those who just as strongly dislike it. Their sentiments have my respect as well.

A solution will require that we re-identify a single, unobtrusive place where buildering can be practiced within guidelines upon which we all agree. I am willing to reexplore that possibility on a trial basis, so long as our builderers understand that cont i nuation of this privilege will depend on effective self-regulation.

As a next step, I will ask Stephen Peeps, Director of University Relations, to get a few of you together with three or four of our key staff to spell out expectations. 11m hoping we can come up with a buildering policy that satisfies just about everyone.

Thanks again for presenting your case so thoughtfully.

cc: Stephen Peeps Brett Bernhardt

v David Coward Tom Heinrichs Thomas Higgins Armando Menocal, III Steven Pollock Frank Sarnquist

Sincerely,

V~~ Donald Kennedy

1 Introduction

.As part of a proposal to allow buildering at Stanford, we believe it is useful to present a perspective on buildering. The following gives an historical overview of buildering, and then procedes to discuss safety and liability is-sues, followed by some thoughts on how to deal with builderers. Finally, miscellaneous issues that we believe may be of concern to the administra-tion are discussed. A concrete proposal for buildering is given in a related document-

yield a realistic simulation of actual climbing. Given the quality of climb-ing at Stanford and the lack of alternatives within a reasonable distance, climbers naturally are attracted. Around 1970, the Stanford Alpine Club published a guide book to climbing at Stanford [8], thereby implying tacit approval of the activity.

In the late 19708 Jim Collins, a talented climber who was an undergrad-uate at Stanford at that time, spent a truly amazing number of hours per day working on climbs-especially door or window problems in the Quad. Mr. Collins gave a series of slide shows about climbing at Stanford and claimed that the first free ascents of some extremely difficult climbs in Col-orado would not have been possible without continual practice at Stanford. Previously, many climbers took the "out of sight, out of mind" approach to buildering-the sensible notion that if you are not hurting anything and if no one in a position of of authority knows what you are doing,S then no one is likely to interfere. Unfortunately (in retrospect), Mr. Collins's example suggested that such an approach was not necessary (i.e., one could builder on a large part of the Stanford campus at any time of the day without at-tracting undue attention), and that you could traverse past windows and doors without attracting undue attention.

3 Safety

Bouldering and buildering are actually far safer than it would appear to be to the casual observer. The basic points, which will be followed with justifications, are as follows:

• Bouldering or buildering at the level of difficulty typical of Stanford is not possible without considerable practice, thereby elliminating the problem of the inexperienced getting into trouble.

• It is possible to jump off safely from heights well beyond what the uninitiated would consider safe.

• Bouldering injuries are rarely serious. We should note that, unlike gymnastics, climbers are rarely inverted, thereby minimizing the risk of head injuries.

8The concern is that someone in a poeition of authority may not object to the activity itself, but rather to extraneous concems such as liability.

2

Based on experience, climbers generally subscribe to the idea that the technically hardest climbs are usually the safest: at the limits of ability, one expects to fall and therefore ensures that the consequences of a fall will not be serious. The recent interest of a few climbers in doing "up" problems" is a consequence of the considerable advancement of climbing standards over the last ten years: the safety margin is higher than one would naively expect. Climbing at Stanford is actually quite difficult-an inexperienced climber will not be able to get far enough to risk serious injuries. Even world-cl88S climbers5 may not succeed on climbs without several attempts because of the intricate and un-obvious sequences of moves that are typical of Stanford buildering.

The maximum height below which one can savely fall off is hard to determine. While describing one of John Gill's bouldering sessions, Richard Goldstone reported that "Gill jumped off from about twenty feet up and landed like a cat in the midst of jagged talus boulders [1, page 90]." Most climbers chose a lower maximum. That they are making reasonable decisions can be seen from clinical data. Dr. Thomas Hunt [5] is doing a study of medical records from the clinic in Yosemite Valley, and this data shows that, of climbing accidents over a period, only have been bouldering accidents. Furthermore, these accidents were relatively minor (e.g., sprains). The lack of serious injuries supports, but does not validate (see below), the hypothesis that bouldering (and similarly buildering) is not particularly hazardess.

This data is interesting if only because virtually all accidents that require medical attention appear in these recor~the nearest altemative medical facilities is well over an hour away by car. By contrast, in the Bay Area, you cannot tell if injuries have been reported or not: a badly sprained ankle, or even a broken ankle can be treated by any of a large number of physicians, and consequently obtaining statistics specific to climbing injuries is next to impossible. This is not the case in Yosemite because the Yosemite Medical Clinic is in effect a monopoly (National Park Service regulations ensure this). Furthermore, Yosemite in an internationally kno~n climbing area,

·This terminology is specific to Stanford buildering. Moat climbs at Stanford are tra.-versea, so the term -Up problem" wu introduced to indicate that a climb actually went to the top of something-the usual cue for bouldering or rock climbing.

61 once showed Peter Croft the traverse on the back of the Ari Gallery, and he did not do it without several attempts. Mr. Croft has recently climbed the North West Face of Half Dome in approximately four hours and has done several long (and difllcult) Yosemite climbs without a rope.

3

I haven't yet looked at this data. Tom Hunt is buay with exams but will be in Yosemite shortly. He quoted some num-bers from memory ovel the phone, but asked me not to attribute them to him until he has a chance to re-view the data. Data should be available shortly.

with significant climbing and bouldering. This is important for evaluating actual risks because the high level of activity in Yosemite. Unfortunately, data on the number of climbers active at anyone time is not available. Virtually every time that I've bouldered near Swan slab, however, I've seen other climbers-at least one mid-day and often 10 or more in the evening.s This level of activity is probably a conservative estimate for half of the year the are few climbers in winter, and no bouldering during continual bad

whether). though we would like to be able to conclude that the data just de-

scribed implies that bouldering is safe, we do not believe that the data is totally convincing. The observation that the same people who do rock climbs also boulder supports the hypothesis (e.g., the boulderers and rock climbers share opinions as to what level of safety is adequate because both groups contain the same people). It is also true, however, that most climbers spend more time rock climbing than bouldering. Hence, we do not have enough data to conclude on statistical grounds that bouldering is safe-the differ-ence in accident rates is hard to estimate because the ratio of hours of expo-sure for bouldering to hours of exposure for rock climbing is not known. On the other hand, many rock climbing accidents are not caused by unexpected falls-bad weather or fatigue' may contribute to an accident.

4 Liability

We believe that the liability issues for buildering are managable. There are actually two issues: climbers injuring themselves and climbers injuring bystanders8 These should be discussed separately.

4.1 Injury to Climbers

In order to maintain access to a variety of climbing areas, the American Alpine Club has studied liability issues, and has found that there is legisla-tion that will protect Stanford University from potential lawsuits resulting from buildering accidents. We have enclosed a legal opinion [7] written by

·The Swan Slab area is one of many. Climbers often use it in the evening, depending on how much time is left at the end of a day of climbing.

TThese may aJao lead to falls: rain makes rocks slippery, and you may not be able to get off a climb just because you are tired. This is not true with bouldering-boulder problems are short, and if you get tired, you just stop and not do another problem.

sWe know of no instances of this actually happening.

4

Armando Menocal, a public interest lawyer who has taught at the Stanford Law School. The gist of it is that to be at risk, Stanford would have to create a hazard and know about it. Furthermore, the risk of injury is slight (for reasons stated above), and climbers traditionally do not sue. H a climber were to sue a land owner for injuries resulting from climbing, that climber would be ostracised from the climbing community: no one would want to climb with someone who might sue if there was an accident.

4.2 Injury to Bystanders

Injury to bystanders is more tricky. Here, if a climber were to fall off and land on someone who was just walking through campus, Stanford might be liable if it could be argued that the Univesity did not give warnings of a hidden hazard [7]. This risk is actually low. During multipitch climbs, a climber often has to climb directly above his partner for some distance and, except for the leader, every one else is firmly tied to an anchor and can't move. Accidents in which climbers actually hit other climbers are rare, even under these circumstances. We believe the risk of liability can be eliminated if climbers avoid climbing high above the ground off near doorways, sidwalks, or~ where they would not be visible-the key legal issue for liability is~ or not one knows of a credible risk.

4.3 Previous Experience

The experience of cities and other universities is also relevant:

• The University of Washington has built a climbing wall in Seattle. This is used by climbers living in the area, regardless of whether or not they are affiliated with the university. We do not know of any problems.9

• There are climbing areas on publicly owned land in Berkeley and near Tiburon (in an open-spaces preserve). We know of no l~~volving climbing accidents, although the climbers living in t areas asked us not make inquiries. There is a concern that an inquiry would be taken by local bureaucrats as an indication that there really is a risk, and that they might start regulating climbing.

°If 8uch a law8uit were to occur, an article would m08t certainly appear in a climbing publication describing the 8uit as an unu8ual and unwanted development.

5

I'm writing tbia on the basis of a phone call~ect to have the document 8hortly

6 Communicating with Climbers

Apparently, there was some suprise when the admjnistration at Stanford discovered that builderers are not organized as a group in any obvious way. It is possible to deal with climbers as a group by a combination of several methods.

• The use of peer pressure directed from ezpert climbers. The Stanford Alpine Club (when it exists) or the American Alpine Club can help get the word ~ the right individuals.

• Articles or notices in climbing magazines. This can help inform climbers who may be visting or passing throught the Bay Area, and who have heard about buildering at Stanford.

• Articles or notices placed in areu where clim6ers are lael, to read them. This is useful for reliability. Without it, climbers generally ask other climbers they meet about local customs.

i • Oite people who climb too high or use chalk. This will get results-bad

news travels fast-but should only be done if the other techniques fail (we would hope that this would be necessary for no more than a few individuals). It is important, however, to make sure that everyone has had a reasonable opportunity to find out what is acceptable to Stanford.

In

A further complication occurs because climbing is socially structured as somewhat of a "meritocracy" in which the opinions of more technically able climbers are usually given more weight. If a mediocre climber (or a non-climber) tries to take an expert to task, the expert may in effect say, "I climb 5.12dl1; who do you think you are?" This seems to work in practice, informal logic not withstanding.

Peer pressure does work, however, if it is exerted by the the technically better climbers,and if there is a "critical mass" of opinion. For example, in the early 19708 [3], considerable pressure was put on the climbing community to switch from the use of pitons to the use of nutsl2 for protectionlS because it had become apparent that pitons were actually damaging cracks. Within little over & year, most climbers had stopped using pitons: anyone who didn't would be subjected to a tirade.

6 Miscellaneous Issues

In a memo, dated March 19, 1986, from Michael Ramsey Perez to Jim Lyons several concerns where brought up. Although the previous discussion has addressed many of these, a still remain:

• EvaluGting Olim6ers A6ilities. Beyond the high level of competence needed to do most Stanford buildering problems, compentence can be easily evaluated by observing how "smooth" a climber is. As with gynmastics, & good climber will generally appear to be relaxed and "in control": if someone is shaking or rapidly reaching for holds, & fall is likely .

• Ohalle Gnd ·Up· Pro6lems. Climbing thirty feet above the ground is not necessary, nor is the use of chalk. These issues can be handled by better communication 14

llThere is a rating system for rock climbs. S.12d (flve-twelve-d) is near the top of the scale.

12M08t rock walla have naturally occurring cracks in them. Nuts are devices that are placed in these cracks and stay in place when pulled in an appropriate directions because of constrictions in the crack.

18I.e., to stop the cUmber in case of a fall.

14. An undergraduate recently told me that he thought chalk was condoned, and viewed as at worse a minor nuisance. A cUmber asking about local customs would aaaume that information by a student was accurate. A few deac:reet signa would be invaluable, even if they just told how to get further information.

7

• Concerns about the Accountability 0/ Off-Campus People. Mr. Perez's memo expressed a concern that "self-regulation only works when peo-ple are accountable to the institution for meeting its expectations. Ofr-campus people don't meet this test." This argument is not di-rectly applicable to builderers because there is a lack of alternatives to climbing at Stanford, and repeated use is important to climbers. Most responsible members of the surrounding communities realize that re-pected use is contingent on meeting expectations. Gilbert and Sulli-van enthusiasts,l& for instance, realize that attending (or participating in) performances given at Stanford dependent upon appropriate be-haviour.

References

[1] Pat Ament. Master 0/ Rock, The Biography 0/ John Gill. Alpine House Publishing, Boulder, Colorado, 1977. distributed by Westview Press, Inc.

[2] David Coward. private communication.

[3] Tom Frost. Preserving the cracksl The American Alpine Journal., 18(1):1-6, 1971. (Published by the American Alpine Club, 113 East 90th Street, New York, NY 10028) This article is actually a collection of quotations, and is conseqently hard to read, but it does contain a large number of references to other articles that may be of interest.

[4] John P. Gill. The art of bouldering. The American Alpine Journal, 17(2):335-357,1969. (Published by the American Alpine Club, 113 East 90th Street, New York, NY 10028).

[5] Tom Hunt. to be supplied.

[6] Chistopher A. G. Jones. Climbing in North America, pages 127-130. University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 1976.

[7] Armando Menocal. to be supplied.

[8] The Stanford Alpine Club. Freedom of the quad.

16Perhapa a far-fetched examp1e-one would not expect the mere thought of impropriety to CI'Ol8 their minds-but it does illustrate the point. In typical productions, both the audience and the cast are partially from the surrounding communities.

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