Comment from Nathan Furman

June 25, 2026 Re: Comments on EXPLORE Act-Mandated Wilderness Climbing Guidance for the National Park Service Docket No. NPS-2026-0101 Dear National Park Service Leadership, My name is Nate Furman. I am a Professor of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism and the Director of U-EXPLORE at the University of Utah. I am submitting these comments in my personal and professional capacity. These comments are my own and are not an official University of Utah institutional comment. I appreciate the National Park Service’s effort to develop guidance for managing recreational climbing in wilderness pursuant to the EXPLORE Act. I support guidance that recognizes climbing as a legitimate public use, including in wilderness, when managed consistent with the Wilderness Act, the National Park Service Organic Act, park-specific enabling legislation, and resource protection objectives. Programs like U-EXPLORE rely on access to federal public lands to teach outdoor skills, leadership, risk management, stewardship, and responsible public lands use. Students learn climbing, mountaineering, canyoneering, backpacking, backcountry travel, and other forms of human-powered recreation in real landscapes, under the guidance of trained educators. These experiences are educational, not simply recreational. For many students, a university outdoor course may be their first meaningful experience in a national park, wilderness area, desert landscape, canyon system, or climbing environment. These courses help students develop judgment, humility, technical competence, environmental ethics, and a deeper relationship with public lands. They also teach students how to respect closures, protect sensitive resources, understand risk, and become future stewards. U-EXPLORE classes are credit-bearing courses that help students make progress toward graduation through experiential learning. They support belonging, retention, applied learning, leadership development, and pathways into recreation management, outdoor education, conservation, tourism, and stewardship work. Access to federal public lands is therefore not only a recreation issue; it is also an education and stewardship issue. I encourage the National Park Service to ensure that final guidance recognizes the difference between responsible, low-impact climbing and activities that create unacceptable resource impacts. Climbing can be managed in a way that protects wilderness character, cultural resources, wildlife, visitor experience, and public safety while preserving opportunities for education and responsible recreation. I also encourage the National Park Service to distinguish routine replacement of existing fixed anchors from the establishment of new climbing routes or new fixed equipment. Replacement of existing fixed anchors is a maintenance and stewardship activity. It can preserve established climbing opportunities, protect public safety, reduce improvised or redundant hardware, and concentrate use in appropriate locations. In educational settings, instructors rely on established and appropriately maintained climbing areas to teach technical skills and risk management responsibly. Aging or deteriorating fixed anchors create safety concerns and may lead to greater resource impacts if users improvise alternatives, add unnecessary hardware, or shift use to less appropriate locations. The final guidance should make routine stewardship and maintenance administratively workable while preserving the National Park Service’s ability to impose targeted restrictions where site-specific concerns exist, including Tribal and cultural resources, sacred sites, wildlife, vegetation, soils, wilderness character, visitor conflict, or public safety. I encourage the National Park Service to prioritize education, stewardship, partnership, monitoring, and targeted restrictions rather than broad systems that may be difficult to implement or enforce. Clear expectations, visitor education, seasonal closures, sustainable access routes, sanitation planning, cultural resource protection, and site-specific management will often be more effective than overly complex approval systems. Outdoor education programs can be strong partners. Programs like U-EXPLORE can help communicate expectations around Leave No Trace, cultural resource protection, human waste, fragile desert soils, wildlife closures, fixed-anchor ethics, wilderness character, and responsible climbing practices. In closing, I support National Park Service guidance that recognizes climbing as a legitimate public use where appropriate, supports student education and responsible outdoor learning, enables routine stewardship and fixed-anchor replacement, and gives park managers practical tools they can realistically implement. Sincerely, Nate Furman Professor, Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Director, U-EXPLORE University of Utah