Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor Julie King has issued a follow-up to her March 7 letter. The new letter, dated March 25, is reproduced below. The letter contains a number of inaccuracies, actual and implied. The statement about routes on the South Rim especially demands comment. Simply put, there are no routes to any climber's knowledge at the South Rim. What makes this claim's inclusion especially disturbing is that it reveals the extent to which the BNF listens to the anti-climbing group without verifying the information they're being fed. We saw an example of this last year when Lost Horse was closed based on hearsay of nesting raptors that was shown to be false.
The South Rim statement does raise an interesting question: If there are several imaginary bolted routes at the South Rim, and we are allowed the "replacement of existing bolts for safety reasons" then logic seems to indicate that missing bolts on routes believed to exist can be replaced, bringing those routes into actual existence. Any philosophers in the reading audience want to weigh in?
Here's the letter:
