All of it. Putting a fresh coat of paint on the cliffs every year is expensive.

Kidding aside, I assume the money goes toward salaries for the rangers and maintenance of man-made improvements. Whatever, I'm happy enough to pay for climbing at such a great place that I went ahead and bought an annual pass (pays for itself in a week's worth of climbing).

JL

There's more info on what the preserve does overall on their website.

The MP Annual Report lists the income and expenses as follows:

Operating income $2,047,051
Membership 22%
Contributions 22%
Interest & Dividends 12%
Special Programs/Events 12%
Entry Fees 11%
Grants 10%
Other fees 6%
Nature Shop 3%
Other income 2%

Operating Expenses $2,003,537
Stewardship 26%
Education 16%
Research 12%
Land Protection 11%
Development 11%
Communications 10%
Administration 5%
Membership 4%
Nature Shop 3%
Volunteers 2%

It used to be the case that there was no "maintainence" of the cliff. Since the Preserve installed bolts, one can only hope that they have some sort of periodic inspection schedule. Still, such a program would involve little actual work and would consume a miniscule portion of the money raised from day and membership fees, so I think it is still fair to guess that virtually no part of the daily use fee goes for cliff "maintainence."

Basically, the cliffs are opened to climbers on an "as is" basis, and the Preserve takes no responsibility for all the crap climbers add in their never-ending pursuit of convenience. Any webbing you find up there is not being inspected or maintained by anyone other than your fellow climbers, who may be doing nothing more than threading their rap lines and sailing off without even a cursory look at the composition of the anchor.

Hence the title of this thread.

Exactly!

And even if someone was supposed to go out and "inspect" the webbing... I would still check it myself! Cause, well... What if they missed one.

I'm pretty good at checking rap slings as a rule, but was particularly vigilant this weekend in light of this thread! Placed two new rap slings on The Wedge at Whitehorse this weekend. Unfortunately, I forgot my knife, so couldn't cut away any tat, but neither station was that bad in terms of there still being plenty of free space inside the rings.

Good call Nerdom...

Don't forget to check what the heck the anchor is attached to as well as the anchor. In the past, I've rapped off a dead twig that had me wanting to puke the entire way down rather than leave a piece of gear behind. My attitude on that changed, and now I'm happy to abandon a nut or a hex should it seem likely to radically improve the nature of the anchor.

If you can move the tree with one hand, you probably don't want to rap off it...

I've gotten into the habit of always carrying a couple of tied shoulder length slings, a couple of rap rings, and a knife whenever I climb. Replacing a rap anchor is cheaper than buying new underwear.

If you're too lazy or cheap to do that, in the Trapps you can generally just walk 50 feet and use a different anchor if the one at the top of your climb is too manky.

And just as a reminder since no one has said it yet...except for a minuscule handful of climbs, you can walk off from any climb in the Trapps and the Nears. There are a large number of climbs where this is faster than rapping.

SHHHH! Don't tell anyone how nice it is up on top of the ridge. They might spoil the quiet and chase away the animals, to say nothing of eating up all the berries.

You can climb all the way to the top?

I thought you had to stop at the bolted anchors... How else would you get down?