 Why was mountain climbing prohibited on the Eastern Slope during the time?
Not even in the Rockies could anyone remember a series of rock slides as bad as this. Only Joseph Schwartzberg, head geographer of the Department of the Interior, wondered if the disturbance might not be a settling of the Kiowa Fault. East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. All mountain climbing was prohibited on the Eastern Slope because of the danger of rock slides from minor quakes. Virtually all east-west land communication was suspended and the President declared a national emergency. Tremendous fissures opened up perpendicular to the Fault, and a general subsidence of the land was noticeable well into Kansas and Nebraska. Prairie and hill cracked open under intolerable strains as the land shuddered downward in gasps and leaps.
 They feared the danger of rock slides
 The rocks were shifting too fast and the paths could be confusing  The flooding was too substantial  They feared the danger of rock slides  Rescue missions were too dangerous due to the sand storms