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For the past 15 years, I have worked with land trusts buying lands for parks and trail corridors. Being a rock climber for nearly 40 years, I decided several years ago to apply this expertise to acquiring privately-owned crags and cliffs to re-open them. My first project was in Kentucky working with the Red River Gorge Climber’s Coalition to help them purchase 800 acres for a new climbing preserve, which they now own and manage.

Shortly after this, I joined the Board of the Access Fund and worked to strengthen support for local climbing organizations. I also researched and compiled a list of significant climbing areas across the country in private hands.

Upon moving to North Carolina in 2003, I began exploring whether any major crags might be available to be purchased. The name Laurel Knob came up several times in conversations with local climbers as some huge, mysterious, secret crag. Not knowing where it was and never having been there, I went on line and searched maps until I located it. On the Jackson County website, I found the name of the current owner.

In March 2004, I called him up at his home in South Carolina. As luck would have it, the timing was perfect. He had been discussing with the Nature Conservancy about a conservation easement, but they had not shown much interest. I expressed to him the importance of Laurel as a magnificent climbing resource and that we might be interested in buying, if he was willing to sell.

A little later, we met in person for the first of numerous meetings to discuss the project. He was a retired doctor but liked the idea letting us buy it to keep the cliff open for climbing. I then contacted Sean Cobourn to see if CCC might be interested in becoming the owner of the property. Not surprisingly, he was very enthusiastic. After all, this was an opportunity to buy and protect something as magnificent as Whitesides or Cannon Cliff or a major granite dome in Yosemite!

Over the next 12 months. I made several more visits to the owner’s house on top of Laurel. I researched local land values and made an offer, which he eventually accepted. Then for another 6 months, we continued negotiations over the details of the deal: where exactly would be the dividing line along the top of the cliffs, how wide would be the trail corridor, what activities would be permitted on the land, how would climbers get down after a climb, etc.

Then we discovered that the large landowner below was planning a major housing development. We met with them to share our plans and learn about theirs. Eventually we reached a verbal understanding that they would support our climbing plans and in the future might even be willing to consider climbing on Cow Rock on their property.

Then came the big hurdle of how to finance and pay for the purchase. Up until now, CCC has been a small organization that only recently got federal tax exempt status. Our bank balance has been typically only a few thousand dollars. How were we to raise $250,000 by December 2005 to pay for Laurel?

My first attempt was to arrange a large loan from the Open Space Institute in NY, who I have worked with in the past. For a long time they seemed interested in making a loan to us, but at the last minute they changed their mind. We then turned to a wealthy individual that the Southeastern Climbers Coalition had worked with in Georgia and Alabama. That too looked promising for a while, but eventually did not work out.

By now we were already a month past our scheduled closing date and starting to sweat bullets. Through Sean’s and other folk’s efforts we had raised about $50,000 in donations, but we were still $200,000 short in necessary loans. At this point, feeling desperate, we sent out a plea to everyone we knew who was a climber anywhere in the country to ask them for short-term loans. We got an article in the Access Fund’s Vertical Times newsletter. Climbing Magazine did and article on Laurel. Rockclimbing.com put up website posts. We hit the trade shows for corporate gifts. The response was truly amazing! We began getting in gifts from all over the country and even 3 foreign countries! We found about a dozen individuals who were able to consider making loans to CCC for up to 3 years. I managed to get the seller to give us another month of time to raise the money. Finally we were able to get commitments from 9 individuals who loaned us a total of $205,000. We also brought in another $10,000 in donations. We finally had enough to money to close.

With the help of our attorney, we prepared all the loan documents for the closing. In addition we had already completed the appraisal, and survey and environmental assessment. Finally on February 15, 2006 at 2 pm, after nearly two years of work, we signed the closing papers and Laurel Knob is ours!!

In my 15 years of buying land for conservation, I have helped purchase over 20,000 acres. This deal, however, means the most to me. Having been a climber for nearly 40 years, this was truly a labor of love and a great opportunity for me to “pay it forward” for the next generation of climbers.

Thanks to all of you for “stepping up to the plate” and making this amazing purchase possible. We could never have done it without you. A big, big thanks to everyone who helped!!

And now the next task for all of us is to continue reaching out to our friends and the climbing community, so we can pay off our loans over the next 2-3 years. I know we can do it!

John Myers