whatthegunks

2008-09-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

And now the season begins!

It is a real joy being out this time of year, showing up at the crag with a hoodie on and leaving the bug dope behind. This past week and weekend were some of the best weather days of the year and I have been feeling energized by it.

Jeff Myers came up to climb on Friday. He is an English professor and is lucky enough to be able to get away pretty regularly on that last of the weekdays. Jeff has been re-learning skills and picking up new ones this season to climb independently, especially with his sons, but Friday was just for climbing. Especially cool was Overhanging Layback, a steep line with beautiful rock and a great feeling of exposure on the upper pitch with the long, sweeping arete that is the right edge of the MaCarthy Wall below.

On Sunday I visited a quiet hideaway with a group of sales reps for Primaloft. These were all athletic folks who make their living in the outdoor industry and were a lot of fun to be around. I led a bunch of routes and set top ropes from 5.5 to 5.11 and everybody got something done to suite their ability/experience.

Earlier in the week I got out with Paavo Thabit to Lost City. We both needed to get out and get a burn and then back to other tasks. I led Stannard's Roof. It took a second try after I got the gear in and couldn't make the lip. This huge roof is intimidating and though the holds are huge it is so improbable to be climbing upside down for so long. After pulling the lip I jumped off and lowered to the anchor, we pulled the rope and then Paavo led it too. I took another lap and pulled the gear. We also top roped the 10+ just right of Stannard's and then did some laps on Persistent. I felt strong on the steep long moves of Persistent and got a boost of confidence from being able to do it three times without falling.

Next comes Enduro Man!

2008-09-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

It has been super hot this week. After such cool temps the last week or more of August it is a little tough to go back to nearly ninety and muggy. Next week looks like it'll be back to fall.

Marty and I visited Lost City yesterday and set top ropes on three routes; Red Wall, Texas Flake and Forbidden Zone and ran a pair of laps on each. Marty is working hard to be fit for a trip to the Cascades that is just a week away and so we dashed out for a quick work out and stayed cool in the sort of corridor in which these great routes hide.

Personally, I feel like it is time to crank it all up a bit. After a long summer of climbing mostly moderate pitches it's time to do something hard (at least by my somewhat lame standards). I got a taste of the Adirondacks last week with a client from the city. We visited the west face of Mt. Colden and climed Colden Slide, a thousand feet of cruiser slabs in a back country setting that landed us right at the summit. We also went to the Beer Walls by Chapel Pond and climbed a number of reasonably good pitches. I am amazed at how featured the rock is up there, very nice.

Hoping to visit Canon Mt. next week for a long route or two. The weather dictates.

2008-08-31T04:55:00.000-07:00

Here's Willie in Eldo. We visited Boulder in mid July for two weeks and I got a chance to climb with my good bro's Will Hackett and Colin Mitchell. Will came out and climbed 5.10 off the couch which was impressive.

I was fortunate to be able to do some guiding in Eldorado Canyon. My client is a solid climber and we cruised a bunch of great pitches. Best was the Yellow Ridge. What a cool and dramatic line! It had been a long time for me, being away from Eldo and I felt like I had come home. I love the Gunks but the heights and the light in the Canyon are amazing. I often dream of climbing on that dark stone with the dayglo lichens and insistent roar of South Boulder Creek. It's a place that doesn't leave you once you've been.

Visit to Millbrook

2008-06-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago Anne Parmenter drove out from CT. She got slaughtered in traffic, of course. The plan was to climb at Millbrook and several friends, all guides with Alpine Endeavors, came along too. Paavo, Marty and Ryan met us in the West Trapps lot and despite the mostly overcast skies we made the trek out there. We were treated to an amazing display of mountain laurel in full bloom. It was like a forest of flowers surrounding us in color and delicious odor. The blooms don't last but a week or so and so we were lucky to catch it full on.

The climbing was good. Anne and I did Westward Ha and Cruise Control while the rest went to have a look at White Rose. Thunder began to rumble after a bit though and so by early afternoon we were packing it back through the laurel as the dark skies intermittently drizzled down on us.

Back at the cars I suggested to all that we visit the Near Trapps and try to squeeze a couple more pitches in. Anne was up and so we tagged Roseland and tr.ed Shit Face before it really began to pour. After that we were left no option but to head to a pub for a bite and some beer.

It was great to climb with Anne. She is super enthusiastic and totally competent, a great climbing partner. I definitely plan to share some more days out with her and with some of my other old climbing friends from CT.

2008-04-29T05:58:00.000-07:00

The desert gets inside you, in subtle and in extreme ways, it changes how you think and how you feel. It's the distance and the light and the extremes; it is almost always hot or cold, rarely warm or cool. It requires strong language to describe, nothing warm or cool or soft about it.

It had been fifteen years or more since I visited Red Rocks last, too long. I immediately found myself making promises to myself that I have to visit Red Rocks every year for the rest of my life. The formations are breathtaking and the climbs provide fantastic adventures. There are small cliffs with lots of bolt but these hold very little interest for me. I am drawn to the Rainbow Mountain and Mount Wilson and Black Velvet Canyon. These enormous features with their long and complex approaches and majestic heights are what captures my imagination.

I picked up the rental car and Patrick at the same time. His flight came arrived in the late morning and so he had spent a fair amount of time seeking out the seedy underbelly behind Vegas' Disney veneer. I found him sleeping off a quart of margaritas on a comfy couch in the Galactica style rental car pavilion. It didn't take us long to find a hole in the wall Irish pub to kill the rest of the evening waiting for Ryan's flight to arrive.

The camping scene at Red Rocks is lame. It's a harsh landscape and the spot that the Park has allowed for camping is rocky and windswept and a long ways from the majestic beauty of the cliffs. We arrived in the midst of the Red Rocks Rendezvous and so couldn't even land one of the gravely wind tunnel sites. Instead, we commando camped in the dirt too close to the road. The Red Rocks that I visited so many years ago has been modified a fair amount by the non-climber land manager crowd and the result is a significantly less user friendly place. Mainly the approaches to many of the best formations have been extended back to the main road and that has created some long approaches. On the bright side of this fact is that earning your pitches will probably earn you some solitude you might not otherwise have had.

Patrick and Ryan had never met before and they hit it off perfectly. It was cool for me because Patrick has been a friend and partner since we were teenagers and Ryan is a new partner who I expect to share a lot of climbing days with. Ryan is a strong young climber too and so like the old farts we are becoming Pat and I let Ryan run that rope right up the cliff for us. We climbed excellent routes like Triassic Sand sands and Wholesome Fullback, mostly 5.9 and 5.10 pitches, moved smoothly and efficiently and laughed it up along the way.

I was struck once again at how beautiful the drainages in Red Rocks are. The rounded stones, the small pools and green gardens in the otherwise dry cactus landscape are cool and serene and the effort of scrambling around in there is a joy. The stark contrast between the relative green of the creek bed and the surrounding desert and the closeness of the drainage and immense rock walls soaring above is something very special and unlike anything we can experience here in the Northeast.

After five days of climbing in Red Rocks I split with Patrick and Ryan for Joshua Tree. The three hour drive was straight forward across the immense distance and space of southern Nevada. I was amazed by the sheer sprawl of Las Vegas and it's surrounding communities. The voracious corporate chain concrete McMansion machine is feeding happily on the desert's open spaces and is showing little or no sign of stopping to recognize basic realities of finite resources.

It is hard to for me to believe that it took me twenty five years to finally visit Joshua Tree. An old roommate once gave me a copy of Randy Vogel's 1986 guide and I have carried it around for all these years, occasionally opening it up to look at the topo's and route names and yet still I failed to make the time.

As I drove into the park I was immediately in awe of the brilliant array of flowers carpeting the desert floor and of the freakish Joshua Trees themselves with their odd milky white flowers and modern dance poses. I had talked to a friend about the busy campgrounds ahead of time and he told me about another friend that was leaving that morning. I made a bee line for the site in the Hidden Valley campground and found it vacant. I got out of the car and immediately met some young climbers from Washington who invited me to jump in their car to go see a desert tortoise they discovered the day before. They took me into the Wonderland of Rocks, through a maze of massive boulders and crack lined faces to a quite, shaded spot where desert paintbrush and a tortoise can thrive.

Of course I was not in J-tree to visit turtles or marvel at the sunrise light, I had the AMGA exam to do. The exam is a necessary evil, I suppose. I look forward to visiting the park again with the intent solely of being and climbing in the place. The routes I did get to do were mostly excellent. I especially enjoyed Poodles are People Too at the Hemingway Buttress and Frosty Cone at the DQ Wall. I was most impressed with the immense amount of climbing, what the area lacks in height it more than makes up in shear numbers of routes; over seven thousand. It is like three times the size of the Gunks!

On my first day back from the trip I went out to climb with Marty and was immediately reminded of how amazing the rock is here in the Gunks. All the beauty of these desert environments and vastness and clarity of light does not change the fact that the rock here in the Gunks is simply the best.

2008-03-22T05:33:00.000-07:00

It's spring. The calendar agreed on Thursday with the tale that the last few frozen remnants of snow have been have been telling for days. It was a mild winter in the Catskills. It's hard to believe that Vermont and New Hampshire had record snow fall this winter since we had more rain than anything. The relentless cycle of warm ups was frustrating and made consistent guiding difficult.

On the other side of all that is that rock climbing season has begun. Yesterday I worked out at the Trapps and watched black vultures glide along the cliff faces. When I met my clients at Rock and Snow in New Paltz it was sunny but windy and cold and it was hard to be optimistic about the day. It turned into a perfect day though and the father and son pair that I was working with were great to watch as they moved on the rock and shared the experience of being high above the Wallkill River and Hudson River Valley beyond.

I leave for Las Vegas on Tuesday and can hardly believe my good fortune at having two excellent climbing partners. Ryan Stefiuk and Patrick Hackett both waited till the last minute to buy plane ticket and I was thinking that I might find myself kicking around the dirt campground looking to drum up a partner. Patrick is a long time climbing partner and friend and Ryan is a guide looking to tune up for the AMGA Rock Guide Exam. It's really a perfect set up for me to be able to get in some great climbing and to tune up for the Rock Instructor Exam the following week in Joshua Tree.

It has been far too long since I have been to the desert to climb. It won't be until after April 8th that I post again, look for details about the trip and lots of photos after that.

First Frozen Fingers

2008-03-14T08:02:00.001-07:00

The rock climbing has begun! On Tuesday I climbed with my old friend Rit at the Trapps. Climbing with Rit in March has become a ritual since we have lived here in the east, it is as much a sign of spring as returning song birds and the flooding Wallkill.

I have known Rit since I was a wild eyed teenage climber wanna be. He was already a relatively experienced climber and got a kick out of the wild eyed exuberance of young climbers like me and Parick Hackett, Nancy Stohr and George Amenta. Rit lived in NY city at that time and never missed a chance to cruise out to CT to climb at Ragged, there was always somebody to get out with to make the moves and have a few laughs.

Rit lives in New Paltz these days and each spring we say good bye to snowboarding and ice climbing by picking our way through patches of snow and ice to get to the barely sun warmed rock and enjoy frozen fingered first routes of the year. Who knows what the coming season holds but this day we got a bit of adventure and a few laughs under the blue sky

2008-03-03T08:07:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was, for me, the best day of the ice climbing season. I worked with a climber named Brian Fry (in photo) who picked up the climbing bug about a year ago and has thrown himself all in. The weather was fantastic and the ice is in it's best condition of the year. The winter has passed in fits and starts with periods of cold sandwiched between periods of very warm temps. This is somewhat typical for the Catskill region but this winter has been particularly egregious in it's treatment of those of us who are sustained by outdoor play. I hope that we are in for a bit more cold before all the ice falls down and we are into that rainy cold between time before rock climbing season can begin.

I will be going to the desert towards the end of March to climb at Red Rocks and to participate in the American Mt. Guides Association Rock Instructor's Exam in Joshua Tree National Monument. This will be an interesting two weeks. It has been about fifteen years since I have been to Red Rocks and it sounds like the development of the city, of it having grown right up to the boundary of the park might be a bit of a bummer. City light can't take away all of those brilliant routes though. If only I had some clients to work with while I am there I'd really be jazzed.

2008-01-15T07:12:00.001-08:00

The ice climbing season which got off to such a fine start has come undone. After a period of fifty and even 60 degree days the ice is gone and that includes the North Country where there has been both record snow fall and now record warmth; very strange. On the bright side, as Peter Doucette said to me, we are about to start another early season season. There is an enormous amount of water in the ground so as soon as temps truly drop (it's 30 as I write this) we will be in great shape.

I did get a handful of good days in and just before X-Mas I made a quick trip north to visit my old friend Patrick Hackett in Lancaster NH. Patrick grew up playing around on the cliffs of Ragged Mt. in Southington, CT. When I met him in the mid 80's he and his brother Will were already notorious rock trolls climbing hard and terrorizing the more stodgy elements in the climbing community. I took my first real climbing road trip with Patrick.

One cloudy cold November afternoon we set off west in Pat's Ford Ranger with just enough scratch to cover gas and grub for a month long ramble through the west's warmer climbing areas. We drove straight to Eldorado Canyon and as we rolled into the narrow gash with South Boulder Creek rumbling by I could barely catch my breath, I looked up in awe at the towering Red Garden Wall and the Bastille and what seemed to me to be endless rock. I could never have guessed how familiar those walls would eventually become. Patrick and I climbed a little bit in a lot of places; Boulder Canyon, CO National Monument, Indian Creek, Mount Lemon, Hueco Tanks and The Tennessee Wall. On Nov. 17th we climbed Mexican Hat in the Four Corners area of Arizona, an upside down sombrero of dusty sand stone along the Colorado River, a wild and quiet place to look at the world on my birthday.

Patrick has been climbing hard ice routes more or less since I've known him, over twenty years. He has the north country wired, is competent, tough as a badger and has all area watering holes sussed out for atmosphere and pint by price.

We climbed a day in Crawford Notch and a day at Lake Willoughby. The snow was super deep and temps were moderate. At Willoughby we climbed the Last Gentlemen. Conditions were ideal with the first pitch direct start being in allowed us to climb the 450' route in three long pitches. The route having gone smoothly we went ahead and shot ourselves in the foot by choosing to walk off rather than rap the route. Waist deep snow made our traverse across the top of the cliff and back along the base an energy sapping stagger; what's ice climbing without some suffering?

As I look out my window at that too long red line on the thermometer at least I can daydream about a great day of climbing shared with an old friend.

2007-12-03T06:31:00.000-08:00

If I die before I am old
let me have lived more
tasted the golden nectar
of moments on high
above pointed boulders
slipped into freezing streams
running wild from ice and snow
taken in crystal blue sky
and breathed it out
an exhilarated gasp
at the beauty all around me.

Guides Course done....

2007-06-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

I completed the ten day AMGA Rock Instructor Course yesterday. This was a great experience. I have a host of new rope tricks now and am certainly a better guide. I am also happy to have spent an extended amount of time with the course instructor Alain Comeau. Alain's Yoda like presentation, his sense of humor and deep knowledge and love of guiding was inspiring.

Much of the course was about fine tuning techniques that I have been using for quite a while, both guide and recreational climber. The short roping, short pitching and the rescue scenario are largely new. I continually find myself shaking my head about the years of climbing that I had never practiced belay escape much less rappelling to an injured climber and initiating a rescue of them. It always was more fun to get out and do the moves than play around with all that. It is amazingly good fortune that I never needed these skills on the Diamond or on Canon or a host of other places I've visited where things can go very wrong. Pursuing this guiding discipline has been an eye opener.

2007-06-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

"Both climbers and youth are inclined to self-absorbed obsessions. I developed mine to the fullest. For over twenty years, until well into my thirties, all that mattered was the next crag, the next route, the sheer thrill of movement. It was a joyous ignorance, and I look back on that period with a shake of my head and a pang of envy.

Through prolonged exposure to some extraordinary two- and four-legged animals encountered in my climbing lifestyle, I belatedly developed into a worthwhile human being. It could have all been different in other company. Climbing is a potent formative experience for those who give themselves entirely to its power, forging changes within us of which we are barely in control and helping define our engagement with the world. In a time when 6.5 billion people share the same increasingly crowded planet, our individual responsibilities have become greater than ever. By itself, climbing means nothing. How it influences our lives beyond the crags means everything."-Johnny Woodward. Profile.

For love....

2007-05-17T05:47:00.000-07:00

These quotes are from an interview with Tom Adams on Climbing Magazine's web site. This guy apparently climbs super hard and yet seems to have his feet planted firmly on the ground.

"My friends and I climb because we love the sport; we love to improve, and more importantly, we love to be there for each other! A day climbing with my friends is much more than just climbing!"

"Climbing is about feeling the movement, the camaraderie, and the love. It’s not meant to be food for the ego! Climb for yourself, support your friends, and take care of all the areas where you climb."

"The majority of us love something. We may not always revel in our love, but it’s there. For me Love is the driving force of life whether it be for my girlfriend, family, friends, or climbing!"

"I want to get to know my inner self..."

2007-05-15T04:26:00.000-07:00

Over the course of this last ten days or so we have gone from gray to green. The forest has changed now and the canopy is very nearly in place. I climbed with a visitor who is from CT like me but now lives in Salt Lake City yesterday. We both marveled at how different this forest is than anything in the west, at how full of life it is. We also marveled at what a brilliant experience it is to climb on a cool and quiet weekday morning in the Gunks.

In our online registration form a woman from NY wrote; I want to try climbing to get to know my inner self better. This got me to thinking about what draws people to climbing. Why spend all this time, money and energy to go hang from a cliff face? I think that Diana's response is refreshingly honest, "to get to know my inner self better". That gets right to the center of it, I think.

Over the next several weeks I'll be asking the visitors that I work with why they have come out and I'll let you know what I here.

J.

alpineendeavors

Sky Top Climbing

Mohonk Mt. House

2007-05-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

Hello! I have been threatening to start a blog for quite awhile now and am finally getting round to it. Thanks for looking in.

The point is to provide a view of what I see happening in the Gunks and the climbing community in general, and to spread the word about what we are up to at Alpine Endeavors. Most of you are probably familiar with the guide service and with Marty.

While working full-time for the ski patrol at Belleayre Mt. this winter, I filled in most of my spare time guiding ice in the Catskills. Though the winter began mildly, we ended up with mostly sustained cold from the middle of January through March, allowing for lots of great adventures climbing ice. We split time mainly between Stoney and Platte Cloves, with a visit to Buttermilk
Ravine for the Back Country Ice Fest. Seven of us made the hike into Buttermilk through deep snow on a bitterly cold day and were rewarded with thick ice in a pristine setting; it was brilliant. Perhaps my favorite moderate outing was the multiple falls of upper Platte Clove--the Japanese Falls, Bridalveil and Platte Kill Falls. This combination gives five pitches on five separate waterfalls, all in a gorgeous setting.

My last day of ice climbing was in The Devil's Kitchen on March 24th, and with the cold snap in early April we likely could have squeezed in another couple of days.

Most of April was more winter than spring, with rain and cold and some significant snow falling in the Catskills through mid month. But, we are now in the midst of some beautiful spring weather. Things have thawed dramatically and the forests are rapidly turning green. For six or more days in a row, we have had 70-80 degree temps, with dry and crystal blue skies. Perfect.

We have been climbing quite a bit in the Trapps, and true to form, the weekends have been congested while the weekdays are far less busy. A visitor from the city told me today how happy he was to have so many classic routes to himself. I told we could share.

We have also begun work at Sky Top. After years of quiet, persistent negotiations, Marty Molitoris worked out a program with the Mohonk Mountain House in which Alpine Endeavors will provide guided climbing services to overnight guests of the hotel. This is a remarkable development. Due to liability concerns and other issues, the Mt. House closed Sky Top to climbing nearly fifteen years ago. Sky Top is arguably one of the single best crags in North America, and it's closure has been a tragic blow to the climbing community. Though these current developments do not mean the crag is now open, it is a step forward and perhaps one day we will see Sky Top open to the climbing community on some level again. It is certainly a great honor to be part of this process. The Mohonk House has such a wonderful history, and, of course, all of us who enjoy playing in and living near to the Mohonk Preserve owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Smiley family for their vision in preserving this fantastic land resource, which includes both the Mt. House property, the 6,500 acre Mohonk Preserve and most of what is now Minnewaska State Park. This fantastic undeveloped swath of land would likely be another exclusive McMansion Land if it were not for their vision.

Well, please check in regularly for more on what is happening with us, and I'll at least try to reward you with some cool photos for your trouble.

Cheers.