NUTS & BOLTS; ROCK-CLIMBING FANATICS IRKED BY BAN ON GEAR.

Byline: Jennifer Bowles Associated Press 

Like a modern-day Spiderman, Dave Mayville scales the 90-foot-tall, copper-colored boulder, carefully planting his feet and hands on the sheer face with intense, chesslike strategy, knowing every move counts.

As the agile San Diego rock climber meanders his way to the top, he threads his safety rope through bolts freshly drilled into the ancient granite.

``If he didn't have that bolt right now, he'd fall and die,'' explains Pierre De St. Croix, a Visalia college student who cranes his neck and squints from the sun as he studies the mesmerizing moves of Mayville - sort of a climbing legend in these parts.

Crucial as they are to some climbs, the bolts are the subject of heated debate in this otherwise serene, world-renown climbing mecca 150 miles east of Los Angeles. As some see it, the bolts are an environmental hazard because the tiny metal gadgets are left permanently in the rock until they erode several years later.

The anti-bolting movement gained momentum June 1 when the U.S. Forest Service announced it was banning rock-climbing bolts - or any fixed anchors - in the agency's 412 wilderness areas. Penalties for violations and what to do with existing hardware have not been determined.

The move affects an estimated 40 premier climbing sites across the country, from California's San Jacinto, John Muir and Ansel Adams wildernesses to Lizard Head and Wetterhorn peaks in Southwestern Colorado to Wyoming's Wind River Range.Some climbers fear the National Park Service might be the next agency to ban the bolts, in climbing havens like Yosemite Valley. From there, they believe, the Bureau of Land Management and state parklands could follow suit.

``It's a pretty dangerous precedent,'' said Sally Moser, executive director of Access Fund, a national climbing group based in Boulder, Colo. ``It seems like . . . all the agencies will eventually come out with this sort of prohibition.''

Without bolts, many of the shear faces favored by climbers will simply be off limits, said Duane Peck of Studio City, one of many Los Angeles-area recreationists disturbed by the ban.

``There are a lot of areas where you wouldn't be able to climb,'' said Peck, who ascends bolted routes in Malibu Creek State Park three times a month. ``Originally, the only climbing took place where gear was jammed into cracks or where the route wasn't very steep; they started doing bolting to allow for safer accents.''

At Joshua Tree National Park, any limits on bolting will be decided by Ernest Quintana, superintendent of the 800,000-acre park named for its gangly desert trees and famous for its jumbled heaps of colossal boulders.

``It's an impact whenever you chip away at a rock,'' he said. ``It's gotten to the point where there needs to be some management control.''

As it stands, there are roughly 4,000 bolting routes already drilled or hammered into the rocks here. A 1993 moratorium banned any new bolting in the park's wilderness area until a strategic plan was established. The park's advisory committee hopes to have such a plan finalized by August.

Quintana is leaning toward maintaining the moratorium and possibly removing some of the bolts that are already in place there. In the remaining 20 percent of the park that is non-wilderness, Quintana is considering implementing a permit process and allowing replacement of eroding bolts.

As with the U.S. Forest Service, the bolt issue here stems from an attempt to interpret the aim of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which prohibits the installation of permanent fixtures on primitive federal lands.

``There's no doubt that climbing anchors are specifically banned,'' said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes. ``With the growing popularity of climbing, we can envision all these routes up cliff faces with this metal permanently installed in the mountain. We're looking at the future even more than what we're looking at now.''

Studio City climber Peck appreciates the balance between the preservationists and the climbing community.

``It's an interesting controversy, like mountain bikes on trails and dogs in parks,'' he said. ``But these bolts are about the size of a half-dollar and often they are camouflaged to match the face of the rock, so they are almost impossible to see from more than 100 feet away.''

``It's the naturalists who don't want anyone in the park,'' Peck said. ``They don't seem to mind that you make trails all over the place, but when you put a bolt up that you can't see it seems to bother them.''

For environmentalists, bolts are just one aspect of climbing's adverse impact. There's also the trampling of fragile vegetation around the base of climbs and the powdery marks left on the rocks by climbers chalking up their palms to sop up sweat.

``It's an intrusion into the natural color of the rocks and the patterns of the rock itself,'' said Norbert Riedy, regional director of the Wilderness Society's conservation programs.

Those issues, Quintana said, will also be addressed in his final plan.

The environment notwithstanding, there's also an economic side to the issue: Climbers make up a substantial number of visitors to Joshua Tree, frequenting local hotels, shops and restaurants.

When the bolting issue first surfaced months back, it ballooned into ``a very big issue,'' said Gary Daigneault, chairman of the park's advisory committee. ``It was largely self-created by radical climbers who circulated fliers and handed them out to businesses saying the park was trying to get rid of them. But that's not true at all.''

In fact, not all climbs here even require permanent bolts. The more environmentally friendly camming devices can be wedged into crevices, which the second climber can then remove on the way up. With the climb Mayville successfully completed, there were few crevices, prompting him to use a combination of bolts and cams.

Such temporary devices as cams, some climbers argue, are less reliable than bolts and can't be used to rappel. So even if a climber uses cams to ascend, he can't get down without putting his rope through a bolt unless there's a natural anchoring device such as a tree or rock.

Quintana is aware the pressure is on him to make a decision soon. It is one he hopes will protect the park's resources and still satisfy climbers.

``At the same time,'' he concedes, ``I'm a realist and I know that I won't be able to please everyone.''

As Mayville sees it, bolting has become a ``power control issue'' on the park's behalf.

``I respect `Don't take anything out of the park, don't litter,' '' he said. But by using bolts, Mayville said, ``It's not like I'm tearing the rock down.''

--- Daily News Outdoors Editor Brett Pauly contributed to this story.

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5 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) QUINTANA

(2--Color) Bolts drilled into granite and used as rope anchors for rock climbers are under fire at Joshua Tree National Park and many other popular climbing areas.

Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press

(3--4--Color) Ropes drawn through bolts drilled in atop the ``Planet of the Apes'' Wall in Malibu Creek State Park connect climbers to belayers. At left, climbers take a break.

Tina Gerson/Daily News

(5--Color) Tom Bristow of Panorama City ascends a rock face in Malibu Creek State Park with the aid of a rope attached to a climbing bolt.

Tina Gerson/Daily News