Skip to Content

Rock Climbing : News : Locations and Access : AF Comes Through with Millions

AF Comes Through with Millions


Submitted by admin on 2009-08-10

Rating: 12345   Go Login to rate this article.   Votes: 2 | Comments: 3 | Views: 2741

by admin


Boulder, CO, July 23, 2009 — The Access Fund announces the launch of a new campaign to save endangered climbing areas—the Access Fund Land Conservation Campaign (AFLCC). The AFLCC is a multimillion-dollar revolving loan program designed to provide local climbing organizations and other agencies with the funds and expertise needed to act quickly to save threatened climbing areas.

“Over the years, we’ve seen more private climbing areas changing hands, some of them lost to cash-ready developers. Local climbers don’t always have the money or the resources to save these climbing areas. This program was designed to help them,” says Brady Robinson, Access Fund Executive Director.

While a portion of the Access Fund’s focus and revenues has always been allocated to acquisition and protection of threatened land, the new AFLCC program will expand on this capability, arming local climbing organizations to take on the ever-growing threats of development and protect our climbing resources from landowners who are not climber friendly.

The AFLCC will provide local climbing organizations with short-term loans and expertise on direct acquisitions, leases, easements, and other tactics. This assistance and bridge financing for time-sensitive projects will give local climbers the opportunity to raise money over a longer period of time and/or finalize take-out strategies. In addition to loans, the AFLCC may also offer grants for direct conservation efforts, including acquisitions and other projects that protect climbing areas on private land.

The AFLCC already has two successful pilot projects underway. The first is a $15,000 bridge loan to secure an option agreement for the acquisition of the Lower Index Town Wall in Washington. “The Access Fund Land Conservation Campaign stepped in at just the right time to loan WCC the funds necessary to secure this option,” says WCC Secretary Matt Perkins. The second is a $20,000 bridge loan to Southeastern Climbers Coalition (SCC) to help facilitate the purchase of a 29-acre cliff line in Steele, Alabama.

The Access Fund has been fundraising for the campaign for 14 months and is over halfway toward its goal of $2.5 million. To date, the AFLCC has been supported by a number of generous individuals and companies within the outdoor industry. Bill Supple, President and CEO of Mammut Sports Group commented, “from an outdoor industry prospective, as the bar gets higher and more complicated in maintaining access to multi-recreational areas, we need to step up and support initiatives like the AFLCC for both future generations of users and for the long term sustainability of our businesses.”

Because the AFLCC is a revolving fund, donors’ contributions are recycled over time, allowing the Access Fund to protect more and more valued climbing areas for future generations. For more information about the Access Fund Land Conservation Campaign, visit www.accessfund.org/AFLCC.

About the Access Fund
Founded in 1991, the Access Fund is the national advocacy organization that keeps climbing areas open and conserves the climbing environment. The Access Fund supports and represents over 1.6 million climbers nationwide in all forms of climbing: rock climbing, ice climbing, mountaineering, and bouldering. Five core programs support the mission on national and local levels: climbing management policy, stewardship and conservation, local support and mobilization, land acquisition and protection, and education. For more information, visit accessfund.org.

Tags: access fund

Twitter  Facebook  StumbleUpon  Delicious  Digg  Reddit  Technorati

3 Comments CommentAdd a Comment

 rockreaver
 More ArticlesArticle RatingsArticle CommentsProfile
 2009-08-10
This is really cool but it makes me wonder... how much work is involved in partnering with the AF to obtain land? For example how much work went into procuring both areas in Washington and Alabama? Does AF money cover legal fees? What can you use the money for? What is the money not intended for?

I'd love to know how much effort is involved in doing this and does the AF provide people on an advisory or more committed basis to climbers seeking to protect land buy purchasing it.

I see that grants in $1000 to $4000 amounts are the most common. What are people doing with those funds past and present?

How fast can money be brought to bare to rescue certain areas? I just looked around the site and didn't see obvious answers to all of this.

As a climber this is a super serious issue and we all should be making the $50 donation to join so that our kids can be doing the trad thing and showing their kids how to do the trad thing and so on and so on...

Great story, thanks for broadening my awareness. As a climber I'm really just a taker. It's neat to see how I can reverse that and become a giver too. Good deal!
 milesenoell
 More ArticlesArticle RatingsArticle CommentsProfile
 2009-08-10
I don't know much about the AF, but I have been surprised at how little it can take to buy some cliffs (right place and right time always apply). A friend of mine bought a half mile or so of cliffs in Idaho for about 5 grand. Apparently many cliff bands are associated with land that has no water resources and thus are not especially valuable to ranchers or homesteaders.
 sandstoned
 More ArticlesArticle RatingsArticle CommentsProfile
 2009-08-19
5 out of 5 stars This is the best news I have heard in a long while. Of all the places I have climbed, these are two of the best, and any money thrown towards their long-term preservation is money well spent. Having always given my tithe I say it's good to see definitive action taken for these two. The AFLCC sounds like great way to put more power in the hands of the climbing community; way to go AF, and props to everyone who has paid their dues.

Add a Comment