They didn't remove the bolts for "leave no trace" reasons. They removed them because the style they were put up was considered "poor climbing ethics". They felt it could go "free" and on gear.

This would have made the summit unobtainable to all but the strongest climbers in the world... Which would have upset many people who had traveled far and spent a lot of money to attempt the summit.

Alex Honnolds "climbing gold" podcast has like a 3 part series on this history if your interested to learn more.

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kodt 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I think the question here is: what is the specific criminal charge or law that was broken to be arrested?

	▲	dfxm12 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You don't have to be charged with anything to be arrested. Kennedy's wikipedia page suggests they were released from jail, implying LEO decided they actually committed no crime (and certainly weren't charged). If you're really curious, maybe the jurisdiction has public arrest records, but this assumes that the cops were doing everything by the book, which is not always an apt assumption. My guess is that towns and leo get, let's say, passionate, when a big tourism draw gets defaced, or when something can get more dangerous, but cooler heads eventually prevailed.