SAS joins FMCBC

SAS has joined the Federation of Mountain Clubs of BC as an associate member. There are several reasons. First, it is clear that not all the access issues in Squamish can be solved through our relationships with the local land managers. Sometimes there needs to a voice in Victoria, engaging with policians and agencies at the provincial level. With its full-time salaried staff devoted to advocacy on behalf of mountaineers and climbers, the FMCBC is the group who can do this most effectively. Associate membership signals our support for those efforts and gives us a formal channel to communicate issues that we would like raised in Victoria.Second, FMCBC holds the large land parcel purchased by climbers in the 1980s to prevent further residential development in the Smoke Bluff and safeguard cliffs and trails in that area. That parcel was the precursor to the current Smoke Bluffs municipal park. The new relationship with FMCBC will give SAS more influence on future decisions regarding that landFinally, in recent years SAS has become increasingly drawn into Squamish backcountry/ mountaineering access issues (Tantalus, Garibaldi, Sky Pilot zone, etc) as there is no other local Squamish advocacy group that has a natural interest. FMCBC membership makes it easier to spread the word about urgent issues affecting those mountain areas to other groups in the lower mainland.The FMCBC's own news item on this topic is here.