The season is upon us here at the Gunks. Crisp days followed by cool nights, and, for the climbers among us, a sea of sticky stone. While your day might be filled with plugging gear or even a Catskills run and hike, join us at Rock and Snow every Saturday night from September 27th to November 15th for our annual Fall Speaker Series. We’ve hand-selected the most entertaining, stellar speakers for the series, which is free of charge. Check in at our Events page to stay up-to-date and follow our blog every Monday for musings on the upcoming speaker.

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In 2013, a group of three men, Dan Wiwczar, Derek Quintanilla and Joshua Brandon, set out to traverse the Ridge of the Gods and Mount Olympus—the tallest, most eye-catching peak of the Washington State’s Olympic Mountains—over six days. They covered more than 48 miles on foot, gaining and losing over 11,000 feet of elevation. Crossing a temperate rain forest, sub alpine hills, five peaks, and two glaciers—the group continued on, moving methodically.

From the peaks of the Ridge of the Gods, the wilderness of Washington State opened up in all directions. The ethereal white blanketed the dark, ragged peaks, and a distant blue range whispered out into the horizon. Empty and full at the same time, the vastness met everyone in a different place for moments of reflection.

Photos provided by Dan Wiwczar or sourced from vetexpeditions.com

The group of three men made this expedition in the beginning of September 2013 not only to tick off a peak on their personal bucket lists. All three were veterans; they were making the grueling climb as a quest to honor 9/11, and those who serve the nation and face challenges returning home.

According to a report released by the Department of Veterans Affairs in September 2014, of the nearly two million service members who were deployed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade, one in five returned suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It’s a striking truth—one of many issues veterans face after their service ends—which Wiwczar highlighted in a video he shot for a veteran organization aimed to help the cause of this statistic.

VetEx, short for Veteran Expeditions, is a veteran-led, chartered nonprofit based in Colorado, which works to empower veterans to overcome challenges like these. Appointed the Northeast Director in 2013, Wiwczar will be at Rock and Snow on Friday, November 7 at 8pm to give a presentation about his personal experience of cathartic mountain scapes and the organization’s aim.

Wiwczar, now a Rosendale resident, grew up in Long Island. After graduating from SUNY New Paltz, he spent eight years as an Infantryman in the US Army. After he finished his service, his love for the outdoors led him to a new career. He has spent countless years since working towards becoming an outdoor educator and guide.

In 2012, he founded Alpine Outdoor Adventures, an outdoor guide company located here in the Hudson Valley, which leads trips and classes ranging from hiking to snowshoeing to backcountry yoga. He simultaneously works for Iron Mountain.

Though Wiwczar had been climbing for years, the Mount Olympus trip last year was particularly meaningful.

“[After the expedition] I effeminately started to identify myself as a climber,” says Wiwczar of the trip to the Olympics last September. “While it may not seem like much, military service and consequent deployments play a huge part of an individuals life, and it is sometimes hard to make the transition out of it.”

The skills he used on this expedition—those he’d learn to move efficiently through the mountains and to trust his team—opened up the alpine world, and an ability to access landscapes that not many are able to experience.

“I started to realize there are other things that I can be, other than someone who has been to war,” says Wiwczar. “There are bigger things that I can do.”

For Wiwczar, expeditions into the mountains have remarkable similarities to combat, and the comradeship you get among fellow climbers is very similar as well.

Wiwczar first got involved with VetEx after a North Conway ice climbing trip a few years ago. When the organization asked him to join the VetEx staff as the Northeast Director, just over a year ago, he jumped at the offer to increase the events and reach on the east coast.

“I saw it as an opportunity to help other veterans who may be struggling as I have in the past,” says Wiwczar. “As climbing has helped me move on and become a better person, I really enjoy introducing it to other veterans.”

Over the past few years, the organization has helped Wiwczar open up many doors. In 2013, the Sierra Military Outdoors sponsored the Veteran Outside Adventure Film School, and Wiwczar, who has studied film in school, created a video aimed to help connect people by sharing the therapeutic ability of the wilderness.

“It was the first time I’d picked up a camera since school,” says Wiwczar. It was also the first time he was able to use his background in film and connect his two passions.

Through his films, his work as a guide and his work with VetEx, Wiwczar hopes to share with other veterans how climbing and outdoor engagement can be a therapeutic thing.

“The logistical planning, to the training, to the execution are something I felt was missing once I left the military,” says Wiwcza, “and planning for the next big mountain is a healthy way to replicate those things.”

In 2014, VetEx had a packed schedule for participating veterans: ice climbing in Ouray and North Conway, hut trips in Colorado and bigger expeditions like Denali and Mt. Rainer. VetEx has been going through some reorganization, but 2015 will follow a very similar schedule as 2014. Participates of the program can expect a mix of local trips and national trips, one of which will be the Veterans Climbing Festival partnered with Cathedral Mountain Guides. This will take place on the first weekend in January 2015. Wiwczar hopes to have 50 participants at this event.

“We are also sending a team of six to eight to Denali in May/June of 2015,” says Wiwczar, who also adds that there will be an Alaska Fly Fishing trip in July.

“Here in the Northeast my focus is going to be getting a group of vets who are interested in gaining certifications so that we can run more events locally,” says Wiwczar.

This Friday, Wiwczar will present at Rock and Snow on VetEx, the mission, past trips and what’s next. But the bottom line, notes Wiwczar, is simple: “it’s important to get out with other Vets and encourage others to get out.”

“A four-man team is designed more for comfort than speed, and there under Mount Fitzroy’s 5,000-foot Super Couloir, a fearsome route on its vast North-West Face, with the temperature way beyond cold, comfort was what we needed.”

 

– Andy Kirkpatrick, Psychovertical

By 8 p.m. on September 27^th, the salesroom floor of Rock and Snow was packed out: climbers were standing, laying down or sitting on crash pads that were tossed down and dotting the floor like islands. Merchandise was, for the moment, pressed to the back wall. 

Andy Kirkpatrick stood in front of the crowd. He was a squat man with glasses and blended in as just another climber amongst a see of chalk-dotted, taped-up rock junkies that had just screeched in from the ‘Gunks for the show. But then, Kirkpatrick began to speak; he took the stage. His show unfolded with wry anecdotes of his solo winter ascents of some of the most heinous walls around the world. One after another rolled out in a rapid-fire stream. The dark humor, offhand jokes and British self-deprecating manner only lightened the heavy undercurrent of Kirkpatrick’s show. Failure, funny enough, was often his punch line. 

Kirkpatrick appeared at Rock and Snow as part of his road trip across the United States to market his books and promote his like-minded sponsoring brand, Montane. But Kirkpatrick is representing more than just a brand. He’s representing a way of life and a passion that, if reading this, we all are a part of. 

Kirkpatrick is attracted to solo winter ascents of some of the most foreboding faces around—like Norway’s Troll Wall, the tallest vertical face of Europe at 3,600 feet known for it’s less-than-solid rock. It’s something at which many of us shriek in horror; but to him it is pure, hateful bliss. While we might not all identify with his desire to make solo winter ascents there is a part of all of us that identifies with the desire for adventure, to forge into unknown terrain. Basically, we can’t explain Andy, but we like him. 

Kirkpatrick in Antarctica. Photos provided by Andy Kirkpatrick.

With the gobs of different companies out there vying for our attention, and a horde of athletes trying to show their undying support of those who support them, it’s events like Kirkipatrick’s show at Rock and Snow — the athletes, consumer and brand all sharing beers and talking climbing on a dusty cement floor — that create memorable stories and allow us to take a peek at who and what is really at the heart of a climber and of a brand. When they align, we can smell it a mile away. 

Montane is a relatively new company, getting its start in 1993. A British company, its roots have always been and will always be in Britain’s calling card, mountaineering. By constructing clothing that acts more like equipment, the technologically savvy, functional-conscious company started off as a small homegrown brand making garments in a tiny British flat. But by focusing on quality and innovation, Montane made its name shortly after with lightweight performance in garments that get athletes through the most grueling conditions and environments. Built for the most rugged, heinous conditions and trying terrains, Montane is hyper focused on performance and intuitive, functional details that matter. It’s a focus on offering the absolute best product while maintaining integrity to the original purpose that’s a principle Montane and Rock and Snow both share. 

 The expedition team in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. Photos provided by Andy Kirkpatrick.

This intent is exactly why Montane partners with athletes like Kirkpatrick — he is committed to the core to his passion. But it’s not just about the successes, but also the humility in failure. It is the the ability to see your passion as an appreciation of the landscape and the challenges as much as it is the summit in sight — something we all can appreciate. 

Check out the Montane products for the upcoming winter season, and let us know what you think. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek:

Warmth without the weight: the Men's Prism Jacket and Women's Prism Jacket are built with Primaloft® insulation. Ideal for versatile layering. 

A workhourse in the mountains, the Men's Terra Thermo Pants and the Women's Terra Thermo Pants are weather-resistant stretch pants, made with a nylon and Cordura® fabric blend that wicks and quickly dries, engineered to provide maximum comfort when you need it most.

*All photos in this post are credited to Christian Fracchia. 

“Ice climbing in the Catskills might not be the feather in the cap but it can be a substantial experience,” says Rich Gottlieb, owner of Rock and Snow and a mainstay in the tome of local ice and rock climbing history. The ice, which forms up for a season running somewhere between December and March, is located within the protected, 700,000-acre Catskill Park, a portion of which is owned by the state and designated as a “wild” region. When the ice forms, it runs along a band of exposed sandstone about the same level off the valley floor. It’s known for its moderate protection—you can’t just drop a screw anywhere—close-to-the-road accessibility, and relatively short pitches. But, as the area’s first guidebook author, Rick Cronk, says, “what it lacks in length it makes up for in difficulty.” Though it sometimes gets overlooked for the larger and better-known areas up north, the Catskills are modest, but quality.

But while people have been ice climbing in the Catskills for 40 years, the history is muddled—more personal anecdote than history. Perhaps the rigorous documentation of nearby rock climbing in the Gunks didn’t hold because the Catskills draws people from a wide range of areas, and is spread out with no central meeting point to share ascents—unlike the Gunks, whose gateway is New Paltz. Or perhaps no one seemed too keen on keeping tabs. I’m not sure, nor does it seem to matter now—but we do know that Rick Cronk, who first started ice climbing through the SUNY New Paltz Outing Club, was the first to start documenting anything back in the late 70s. 

When he became president of the club in 1973, Cronk, Bob Smith and a group of college kids and local climbers armed with plenty of psyche poached participation in a clinic in the Adirondaks (‘Daks) to learn the skills of front pointing. One day new-comers, the next they were leading.

 “I went from top-roping on Chapel Pond Slabs to leading the next day,” says Cronk.

Not long after, Cronk saw a blurb in North American Climber, a short-lived magazine produced by Paul Baird, a peripheral member of the Gunks' Vulgarians. The piece highlighted Joe Bridges, Jim McCarthy and Claude Suhl, among others, ice climbing in the Gunks and Awosting Falls.

“In a matter of days we were out chasing after ice in Peter’s Kill Falls or Awosting Falls; Outback Slabs had been done,” says Cronk of these now off-limits routes (no climbing is allowed on state park land). All these endeavors and exploratory missions lead Cronk to then-owner of Rock and Snow, Dick Williams, who told him about Stony Clove.

Today, Stony Clove is one of the most popular spots in the Catskills known for it’s single- and multi-pitch climbs (and infamous for top-outs that have loose rock and very little ice: “if the climb doesn’t get you scared, the top-out probably will” says Marty Molitoris, in a later guide). At the time, though, there were not many climbers other than Williams and McCarthy out there. Williams recounted a story to Cronk when he was on belay for Jim McCarthy, who had ice climbed all over New England. As the story goes, McCarthy took a short, but abrupt, fall not too long after heading up off the ground…but all Williams could focus on were the 12, sharp points coming his way.

“That was the last day Dick and McCarthy ever went climbing in the Catskills,” says Cronk.

But the story of a new zone for Cronk set the wheels spinning: Cronk, along with Sawicky, Sacks, Rosenfeld and others, were inspired by the story. More ice! They all hopped in Sacks’ van and drove up to the top of the notch, hopped out, tromped up the slope and started firing off pitches.

 “Over the next few years we were there almost every weekend doing the routes, repeating the routes and at that point we started looking at maps for waterfalls,” says Cronk. They slowly started ticking off what ice could be climbed.

By the early 80s, though, many of the core climbers from Cronk’s group had moved away. Cronk, Sawicky and Dave Chassin were still around, and one day skied out and dropped into Coal Kills Falls (what is now called the Black Chasm). There, they saw a large overhanging wall filled with columns and sheets of ice—they knew that would be the hardest ice climbing in the Catskills, to date. But the group, who had sharpened their ice climbing skills throughout New England, was ready. “Sawicky, Felix [Modugno] and I came back the following week,” says Cronk, “Mike lead Instant Karma and I lead The Mephisto Waltz.” 

As the early 80s rolled around, Cronk, who was getting out less and less, began to compile information from climbers throughout the region with the hopes of publishing a small pocket guidebook. He posted fliers, with tear-off, phone number strips, in mountaineering retail stores throughout the regions—all the way to New York City—to try and compile as much information about first ascents as possible. He got five replies back. Regardless, he published the pocket guide with the info he had in the winter of ‘82.

Development continued from the late 80s and onward into the 2000s. New climbers started tackling the ice where others had left off: climbers like Gottlieb, Felix Modugno, Rich Romano, among many many others that go unnamed. More ice was climbed, and no one spoke much about it. It wasn’t until a decade later that any additional other documentation came along.

Marty Molitoris, who started climbing in the Catskills in 1992, moved to the area from Pennsylvania where he was working at a gear shop and guiding part-time. Once in the area, he founded his guiding company, Alpine Endeavors, and frequently took clients ice climbing in the Catskills as well as rock climbing Gunks. 

“I was just out there exploring with friends or clients,” says Molitoris. But he, more than perhaps anyone else at the time, was there all the time. He knew the mountains as good as anyone else. To the point that one day Gottlieb suggested Molitoris write another guide to Catskills ice climbing. “Gottlieb gave me the initial kick,” says Molitoris. “Every now and again he’d say, ‘when’s the guide coming out?’”

Molitoris self-published his first guide in 2003, with a second edition in 2004. There were issues—for one the perfect binding on the first edition turned out to be less than perfect—but he got the self-publishing thing figured out in the process, which he remembers as a fun project for himself. He wasn’t concerned with history either; it was too muddled. Within his guide were simply route names and descriptions. Few, if any, first ascentionists were credited or dated.

“That’s how it developed,” say Molitoris.  “Not many people really recorded stuff.” He reasoned that since it wasn’t North Conway or the ‘Daks, it got slightly overlooked and no one kept track. Trying to record the history, for Molitoris, would be a whole different can of worms. “I just left it out,” says Molitoris, “and put things in an ever-changing document on the website, so people can call me and say, ‘yeah, I did that.’ I thought that’d be the better way to go.”

Though there was less and less unclimbed ice, mixed climbing debuted when, according to Christian Fracchia—a local climber who moved to the area in the early 2000s—the visiting climer Jeff Lowe came to the ‘Daks during an ice festival and established a mixed route. “Everyone's eye's popped out of their heads,” says Fracchia. “It started a mixed revolution which took off throughout the Adirondacks and New England, but never went anywhere in the Catskills. It was always thought that rock was too loose.”

But then, in 2005, some bolts went in when visiting ‘Daks climbers established some mixed routes.  The whole thing took off. “People started exploring and a group of maybe 10-15 people started going bonkers and put up tons of routes. It was also ushered in by several back-to-back poor ice seasons,” says Fracchia, who along with climbers like Chris Beauchamp, Ryan Stefiuk, Dustin Portzline, Doug Ferguson (and still others unnamed) went out to establish new routes. As it turns out, the short and steep rock with moderate ice of the Cats lays host to incredibly difficult mixed climbs, like Hydropower, which visiting climber Matt McCormick did in 2010. At M9 WI5, it became the hardest mixed route in the area. That sealed the deal: mixed climbing in the Catskills, once thought to be too loose for it, was ripe. Though the Catskills’ mixed climbing still holds new routing potential, it doesn’t come without its dose of controversy. Like the Gunks, the area is steeped with a long history of traditional ethics and a mindset of preservation—and arguments still goes back and forth today. For some, like Cronk, “ice is nice and will suffice.”

Though the Catskills’ ice climbing has been written about in magazines—like in the links above or this story in Climbing—the Catskills will never be an epicenter for international climbing, nor will it necessarily be cutting edge. It is, however, just right for the area and it has something for everyone. That’s why in 1995, Rock and Snow started an ice fest, which Molitoris and Alpine Endeavors soon took over. Now in its 17^th year, the Catskills Ice Fest, which starts today and runs all this weekend (January 30-February 2, 2015), will include clinics for various ability levels, slideshows—like Saturday night’s show by Doug Millen from NEice.com at Rock and Snow—and more. Like the Catskills themselves, this ice fest is a modest affair, with little fanfare of the juggernauts of the winter festival world. But, somehow, in the Catskills, that’s just the perfect size.

 Our little neck of the woods is ripe with diversity, and steeped in rich appreciation of the outdoors. For those of us who live here, we all share the sentiment; for those who visit, it is easy to see and appreciate. But the protective cape around the areas we love in and around the Shawangunks didn’t happen overnight. It was a joint effort over many years with the help of many people and organizations. In "The Stewards" blog series, we explore organizations and people that have worked to help make the Shawangunk Ridge recognized as one of the “last great places” on earth.

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Outside, it is silent. A white canvas blankets the valley as freshly dropped snow shimmers; looking at the weather reports, this is one the last of winter’s offerings for the season. It’s been an unusually cold February here in New York, and you don’t need a weather report to tell you that; however, the information gathered at Mohonk Preserve’s Daniel Smiley Research Center will verify it. But 120 years ago, there was no Research Center, nor Preserve, to speak of. Spawned from the efforts of the Smiley Family and many other people and organizations, the Mohonk Preserve became a crown of the area housing and protecting the diverse ridge environment for over fifty years, allowing us to ski, hike and climb in beautiful places.

In 1869, twin brothers Albert and Alfred Smiley opened a small mountain resort on the Shawangunk Ridge. The resort, which eventually grew to 261 rooms, was an escape used to get back to the therapeutic cradle of nature. Known as the Mohonk Mountain House, it sits at the top of the ridge, nestled among pitch pines on a solid foundation of quartz conglomerate rock, and overlooks thousands of acres of land.

As naturalists influenced by their family’s sentiments and Quaker origins, Daniel and Keith Smiley, started collecting observations about nature on the resort’s property. They were tireless in their work to assimilate ecological information and weather data. Daniel’s personal interest and meticulous records turned into what would later develop as a research center tracking ecological shifts and climate change. Continuing in the tradition started at the resort in 1896 (and taken over for decades by Daniel himself), weather data has been logging tirelessly for the past 119 years. A very select group of people -- roughly five in all -- have collected this century-old weather data, making it some of the longest, most consistently recorded data available.  

In February of 1963, the Smiley family, along with others, formed The Mohonk Trust, which would later, in 1978, become the Mohonk Preserve. The Trust’s original “property” was a $100 donation from Mabel C. Smiley. In 1966, the Smiley family’s Lake Mohonk Corporation donated the 487-acre Trapps parcel, and the Trust became the steward of one of the world’s great climbing areas. Ecological research also continued with projects—like the study of the negative effects of acid rain with the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Breeding Bird Census and the reintroduction of Peregrine Falcons to the area—spawning from the efforts Daniel started. Daniel also helped found the John Burroughs Natural History Society, and was a founding member of the first chapter, the eastern NY chapter, of the Nature Conservancy.

While research and conservation are two elements that run deep in the Preserve, the Preserve was unique in the way it set out to develop a management plan for recreation. The idea of opening certain designated areas of the Preserve to human recreation made sense largely because it wasn’t a “wilderness”, in traditional terms.

“People used to live here,” says Gretchen Reed, Director of Marketing and Communications, speaking of the active community that once occupied the area called the Trapps Hamlet.

To boot, there were already a system of access in place —the carriage roads, built and maintained by the Mountain House—allowing a unique portal to the landscape that was already part of its inherited infrastructure. Thus the Preserve’s unique recreation management plan started to form.

John Ross, Associate Director of Visitor Services, who has been climbing at the Preserve before it was the Preserve, watched the evolution since the beginning. Ross, often found at the Mohonk Preserve’s Visitor Center, is recognizable by his head full of white hair and well-trimmed beard, firm handshake, and broad, toothy smile.

“I came to what was then Mohonk Mountain House/Smiley Brothers property as a young would-be, wanna-be climber,” says Ross, who was around when the hotel family donated the Trapps parcel, and the Mountain House and what would become the Preserve took separate paths. ”The donation ensured that the cliffs could be permanently protected and available to climbers,” says Ross.

Over the years, Ross has seen the transformation of not only the Preserve but the history of the climbing now allowed on its cliffs. The Preserve’s unofficial goodwill ambassador to the climbing community, Ross is a source of institutional knowledge of climbing at the Preserve’s (and thus Gunks’) crown climbing jewel: The Trapps and the Nears.

Ross started guiding in the Gunks in the late 60s, and opened a guide company in 1974, which he ran for over 40 years.

Working and climbing alongside some of the most well-known Gunkies, like Hans Kraus, he saw the whole development of climbing in the Gunks from the clean climbing of the 60s and all nut ascents (he modestly admits he claimed a first all nut ascent of High Exposure) to the influence of European climbers in the 80s.

“The Gunks are a laboratory and a classroom,” says Ross, who remembers how in May in the 80s European climbers would visit the Gunks to learn how to place gear, then head west. “It’s just like skiing ice in Vermont, if you can place gear in the Gunks, you can place it anywhere.”

The Preserve has helped protect and, in turn, be a part of this history. But it wasn’t without the help of people like Ross whose work helped ensure climbing in the Preserve remained open and accessible. Ross’ guide experience, for example, went farther than just his burgeoning business.

In 1984, Ross along with Ian Wade, the Chief Safety Officer and President of Outward Bound at the time, helped design and present the first guide accreditation program in Seneca. Ross was also instrumental in developing the Preserve’s first accredited guide programs—the Preserve was one of the first in the country to adopt one.

Ross had the foresight to see that there needed to be a program in place to emphasize the fact that accredited guides were needed in the Preserve—there simply was no room for liability—and also serve as a means to train them.

“Climbing here is a privilege, not a right,” says Ross.

Climbing and its history have been an integral part of the Preserve since the very beginning and climbers make up about a third of the user group. That’s 50,000 of the 165,000 visitors a year. The Preserve and Ross partner with local guiding outfits, retailers like Rock and Snow and organizations like the Gunks Climbers Coalition to cultivate a good relationship with climbers and contribute to the community.  

The successful relationship of the climbing community and the Preserve is just a snapshot, though. Today, the Preserve is New York State’s largest visitor- and member-supported nature preserves and growing and works with a variety of other communities: hikers, bird watchers, and cross-country skiers.  Recently, the Preserve increased in size to just over 8,000 protected acres with the purchase of nearly 900 acres of land from a partnering organization, the Open Space Institute Land Trust. Known as the Mohonk Preserve Foothills, this piece of land, contiguous with the land already owned, is a parcel of historic agriculture and foothill lands, which has a mixed-use agreement. These efforts to protect and preserve historical, cultural and ecological aspect of this area are part of why, in 1993, the Nature Conservancy called the Shawangunk Ridge one of the “last great places” on earth.

Our little neck of the woods is ripe with diversity, and steeped in rich appreciation of the outdoors. For those of us who live here, we all share the sentiment; for those who visit, it is easy to see and appreciate. But the protective cape around the areas we love around the Shawangunks didn’t happen overnight. It was a joint effort over many years with the help of many people and organizations. In "The Stewards" blog series, we explore organizations and people that have worked to help make the Shawangunk Ridge recognized as one of the “last great places” on earth. 

**

When last week I caught up with Jennifer Garofalini, Director of Stewardship at the Open Space Institute (OSI), she was taking the call in the field. That morning it was snowing—thick, wet, heavy snow that would most likely be the last snow of the seasons. We were expecting a few inches. But Garofalini, along with Peter Karis, Mohonk Preserve Director of Land Protection and Stewardship, was sloshing along, walking the grounds of one of the OSI’s newly acquired properties.

This new property is part of a larger project that is over a decade in the making: to create a corridor of recreation and conservation. It’s just another piece of the puzzle for the OSI, an organization that has been working for years to conserve the iconic and unique landscape of the Shawangunk Ridge and the land running up to it. The ultimate goal for this particular area is an ongoing process: a 50-mile corridor of conservation.

“For us, the Shawangunk Ridge is really one of the priority landscapes that the OSI has identified in order to preserve and encourage recreational activity for its scenic beauty, its ecological and recreational opportunities,” says OSI’s Eileen Larrabee, Associate Director, Alliance for New York State Parks.

Most of us are familiar with the amazing outdoor recreation of the area, and the hyper unique biodiversity that led the Nature Conservancy to call it one of the Last Great Places on Earth. What we might not know is that without the OSI’s ability to buy key portions of land and help transfer them to managing entities this area would not be as protected as it is. But what does the OSI do and how does it get its funding?

Founded in 1974, Open Space Institute’s mission is to protect scenic, natural and historic landscapes to provide public enjoyment, conserve habitat and working lands and sustain communities. The organization works in a variety of states, but it got its start here in New York State over 40 years ago.

To move towards its mission, the OSI works with state and local governments, land trusts and individual landowners, to help create or increase parks, preserves and protected family farms, and helps to develop land-use policies as well as increased public funding for conservation. The OSI has protected over 116,000 acres in New York State. The OSI’s funding comes from foundations, corporate funding and organizations, as well as individual contributions. In 2013, for example, the OSI’s incoming contributions were around $10 million. 

This kind of support from the community allows the OSI the ability to make some large transactions that have significant impact. Like, in 2006, when the OSI added the 2,500+-acres Awosting Reserve property to Minnewaska State Park Preserve. Or when, a year later, OSI transferred the 3,800-acre Sam’s Point Preserve to the State of New York, which would grow Minnewaska State Park by 25 percent.

“The OSI has more than doubled the size of Minnewaska State Park,” says Larrabee. On top of that, the OSI accounts for 10 percent of the total acreage in the state park system.

One of the newest acquisitions, the Watchtower Property, is a giant milestone for the OSI, and the region. This land holds the iconic watchtower you encounter as you’re heading west from town toward the Shawangunk Ridge. OSI announced the acquisition in February 2015. It includes 135-acres of land at the foothills of the Shawangunk Ridge, and will preserve the agricultural landscape as well as provide additional recreational use. This transaction, costing $2.1 million, is part of a larger framework—the bridge to ridge concept—that aims to make a connection that links the ridge, the village and beyond, creating a “premier recreational corridor.”

This is where Garofalini and Karis were walking in the snow. They were trying to map where some of the newly proposed trails might be going, which will extend the extensive network of trails through the town of New Paltz.

“These trail run through actively mowed fields so part of what we need to do is find the best sort of use,” says Garofalini, which also means contemplating future mowing and plowing.

The efforts will not preserve the iconic landscape that we’ve come to love (both on the ridge and the “flats” leading up to it), but it will in turn generate more tourism flocking to take advantage of the recreational opportunities. Imagine, people who live in New York City could, ostensibly, get off the bus, access a trail and ride or hike all the way up and into Minnewaska.

“What we are hoping is that it builds on the recreational excellence that is part of the goal for Ulster County and along the Shawangunk Ridge,” says Larrabee.

The most recent acquisition of OSI was announced early March 2015, this time in the southern region of the Shawangunk Ridge in Sullivan County. It marks the 20^th acquisition in the Shawangunk Ridge, Roosa Gap and Wurtsboro Ridge State Forests. This adds to the OSI-preserved land in the area—over 5,400 acres in the area—and makes up yet another piece of the puzzle in the quest to continue the organization’s commitment to the Shawangunk Ridge, and is one step closer to achieving the ultimately goal: to protect a 50-mile corridor that runs from Rosendale south to Port Jarvis.

“It’s been over 30 years and 40 transactions to move this project along,” says Larrabee, “a piece-by-piece effort and something that has been core to our mission in preservation and supporting recreational activity at the park and in the area around it.”

Rock and Snow celebrates 45 years of keeping it real

** 

If you build it, they will come.

That was the thought of the area legend and Gunks guidebook author, Dick Williams, and Dave Kraft, who in the mid-60s had a dream of opening a climbing store.

“Of course we were broke and couldn’t do it then,” says Williams. But the idea was planted and by 1969, Williams, along with then-local climbers Ray Schrag and Jim McCarthy scraped together enough money and investors, about $17,000 worth, to open the store. Originally there were five partners: these three main partners, plus Rich Goldstone and Hans Kraus.

 Photo and words courtesy of Rich Goldstone: A lot of us used an EB-like shoe called the RD (for Rene Desmaison). It has a leather upper and was very stiff. Here's a picture of Raymond Schrag (one of the major R&S partners) bouldering in RD's at the Hagemeiser boulders in Estes Park. John Gill looking amused below.

 “The reason why we started a shop was there was only one shop in New York City that handled climbing equipment,” says Jim McCarthy, one of the most prolific first ascentionists in the Gunks in the 50s and 60s. “We climbed all the time and we realized that if we opened a climbing shop, climbers would come.”

A snap shot of the original store before the fire in 1990. Photo via Eye on New Paltz newscast. 

The first iteration of Rock and Snow was converted from an old auto parts shop. They used the original shelving to display the gear. “It was more like a hardware store and less like a climbing boutique,” says Goldstone.  It had a great location (the same Main Street location as today), had decent parking and was highly visible on the way to Gunks.

It was slow going at first—with a kind of blue-collar feel, according to Goldstone—but started to pick up business as it became more established. If anything, the store had one thing going for it:

“It was the only show around,” says Goldstone. 

But its humble and mishmash beginnings were quaint, and gave the store its character. There wasn’t anything flashy. It had everything a climber needed and nothing more.

“What made it unique at the time and unique in the east,” says Goldstone, “was that it was a store run by climbers. None of the other stores were run by climbers.”

A snap shot of the original store interior in the late 80s. Photo via Eye on New Paltz newscast. 

Basically, there was a lack of any kind of real expertise in terms of what other stores carried and how they sold it, or even how they talked to customers. They simply just weren’t up to snuff.

Back then, there wasn’t much variety of gear or clothing. It was a much simpler time… and cheaper.

“We used swami belts so we didn’t have to buy a harness, used a hip belay so we didn’t have to buy a belay device,” says Goldstone.

What the shop did have was a small selection of all the key gear that might appear on any one of the employees’ humble Gunks racks: pitons, some carabiners and webbing. Maybe some knickers, which Goldstone remembers selling because everyone wore them. There were a few down coats. A pack or two. 

Words and photo about his Erve down jacket courtesy of Rich Goldstone: Probably from 1970, the first year of Rock and Snow. Note the velcro+snaps—no zippers. The cordlocks were added, in 1970 we actually tied our drawstrings with bows just like your shoes.

“It’s not a very sexy subject,” says Goldstone.

McCarthy, who was a partner for about 10 years, pretty much knew everybody in the manufacturing business. He helped with securing certain accounts, like Chouinard Equipment, back when Yvon Chouinard was hammering pitons before he started selling clothes.

“Chouinard basically created the idea of climbing clothing with the rugby shirts,” says Goldstone, which the store later carried, along with an archive full of now pre-historic climbing gear like the stiff-soled climbing shoes EB’s and sticky rubber Firés.

Photo and words courtesy of Rich Goldstone: A picture of me on Arrow in full 70s regalia: EB's, knickers, swami belt, Chouinard rugby shirt. My belayer Barbara Thatcher is wearing a Whillans harness.

It wasn’t long before the store itself became a Gunks area institution. Jon Ross, area fixture and owner of a local guiding company for over 40 years, started renting skis out of the upstairs of the building, and people started meeting at the shop before going climbing, or to consult Williams and other employees at the store for stories, beta or new routes.

For example, it was here, that in 1972, John Stannard—a prolific Gunkie and, named by many, father of clean climbing on the east coast—started keeping an all-nut ascent log at the store.

“It was helpful, says Williams, “it got a lot of people acclaim.”

From knowledge and expertise to a curated selection of prime, state-of-the-art gear—all the stuff you needed and wanted, and what the locals were using—were on the shelves. The culmination added up to a streamlined, highly specialized store. But what really made it was not what was in it or what you could buy, but the people, personalities and spirit behind it.

In 1982, Rich Gottlieb, a young, eager climber who had moved up north from his southern roots, started working at the store. He started on the floor covering a manager’s lunch shifts while working his way through a graduate program at SUNY New Paltz.

“He was very energetic,” says Williams.

As Gottlieb worked his way up to become a manager at the store and hammered through school, he continued to climb hard and often at the Gunks, becoming a fixture himself. His psyche for squeezing in soloing sessions on his lunch hour and then running past many friends on his way back to work earned him the nickname, “Gotta-leave” from Paul Curran.

**

In 1990, Williams took a trip out to Joshua Tree with his then-13-year-old son when a fire took place at the store. When he called home, no one would tell him what happened.

“We jumped on the red-eye flight back to New York,” says Williams, “and I’ll never forget, my son said to me, ‘dad, you can have all my money.’”

The fire, due to an electrical malfunction, leveled the store. Williams, along with the help of Gottlieb, moved it to a temporary location across the street.

“We had to start all over,” says Williams. Overwhelmed, it was about this time that Gottlieb stepped in and eventually became a partner in the business.

“I think one of the best aspects of Rock and Snow and why it remains relevant is the very smooth transition of ownership from Dick to Rich,” says Russ Clune, a well-traveled climbing lifer and prolific 80s Gunks climber. “Rich is such a pillar in New Paltz, not only for the climbing community, but for the village as well. He has done a ton to make sure everyone feels welcome in the place and keeps the history alive.”

Now, 45 years since the opening and still under the ownership of Gottlieb, the store is one of the oldest independent climbing retailers in the country, and expanding. The store started the Annex in February 2013 when Rock and Snow's manager, Andrew Zalewski, saw a small space available for rent on South Chestnut St, just around the corner from the shop and bordering Rock and Snow's parking lot. Zalewski, who himself has become an crutial part of the climbing community and the shop, convinced Gottlieb to let him pursue expanding into outdoor consignment. The Annex opened just over two months later and has become an integral part of Rock and Snow.

 Buy and sell used gear at the Annnex. Photo: via Rock and Snow Facebook page. 

"I always loved the swap meets we would run twice a year and The Annex allows that excitement year round," says Zalewski.

Beginning this week, Rock and Snow will be looking towards the soon-to-start building process for a secondary location that will increase space.

While times change, and climbing, like everything else, seems to get more complicated—more choices, more stuff, more expensive—Rock and Snow has stayed true to its original mission: to provide climbing gear to climbers.

“We’ve been pretty monogamous with climbing. It hasn’t been a passing thing for us. It’s been our focus forever.”

But it goes beyond that. In times like today where homogenization is the standard and everyone is just trying to fit in and make themselves viable, Rock and Snow holds true to its quirky but very independent feel not only through its curated collection of gear, but through its continual, unfaltering support of climbing, climbers and the lifestyle.

“The spirit and intention of the people at Rock and Snow is to go well beyond the concerns of commerce to support the essential core of the climbing spirit,” says internationally known climber Lynn Hill, who lived and climbed in the Gunks in the 80s.

Yvon Chouinard once said that the word adventure is overused. The same is true for the word authentic. However, it’s the only one fitting enough for Rock and Snow.

It’s this eclectic feel, original style and total support of everything ‘climbing’ that gains Rock and Snow it’s cult following. Go to a crags all over the country, and sometimes internationally, and you’ll likely see Rock and Snow sticker somewhere. And shirts—a story in their own right.

Climber and Rock and Snow employee Chris WIlliams shows off a new shirt design. Photo: via Rock and Snow Facebook page.

“Originality is part of what the shirts are about. Climbing is supposed to be fun and a lot of the shirts are funny. Shirts are weird. Climbing is weird. We’re out there risking our lives, and for what?” says Gottlieb.

“We don’t want to be the conventional,” says Gottlieb. “Climbing is unique and not conventional, hence we try to gravitate to our own voice. We don’t want to be ubiquitous. We’ll always be Rock and Snow. And to me, that’s good.”

Four men and their gear. Photo: via Rock and Snow Facebook page. 

This weekend (May 1-3), the ROCK Project will be coming to New York. For those unfamiliar with this event series, the Access Fund and Black Diamond teamed up to work with the climbing community, aligning education and programs that directly address access and environmental concerns in particular regions. With the event based partly in a gym and partly outside, the goal is education on how to achieve longevity of climbing.

The event raises important questions about how to sustain the growth of climbing, and we're fully in support. In fact, we’ve asked many of the same questions. From keeping an all-nut ascent book at the store when pitons were being replaced with nuts to stopping carrying pitons at all, to donating money, time and energy—Rock and Snow has always tried to be thoughtful, respectful and involved with our climbing areas. But why is this important and what is needed to preserve the future of climbing?

**

Back in the early 1970s, climbing was at a tipping point. Two totally different communities (the local Gunks area and Yosemite) across the country were facing a decision surrounding a little piton. The dilemma: to hammer or not to hammer. 

Leading up to this, in the late 60s, pitons were the norm. But around the turn of the decade their destruction started becoming more evident. In his regional newsletter, The Eastern Trade, John Stannard, climbing pioneer of his time, writes “Pitons were about as natural as a bulldozer, and not significantly less destructive.” The Eastern Trade, which launched in Oct 1971, was published quarterly for eight years with a purpose of making people “aware of the problems and courses of action that may lead to their solutions,” along with notes on equipment, climbing techniques and news.

 A snapshot of The Eastern Trade. These newsletters provide a fascinating trip back in time, with plenty of serious discussions and tongue-in-cheek humor. You can read a collection of them on the Rock and Snow site, which the Mohonk Preserve gaciously lent from their archieve. 

From England, a new type of protection arrived: the nut. The practice of using this type of protection in the States, at the time, was newfangled. It was largely spawned by The Eastern Trade, by Doug Robinson’s 1972 essay in the Chouinard Catalog, as well as Royal Robbins and others that had traveled to and adopted techniques already in use in England. 

“The future of the Shawangunks,” writes Stannard, “depends upon the willingness of all climbers to use nuts and fixed pitons for their protection.”

These nuts, were the future: they left little to no damage to the rock and could be removed and used again. It was a novel and less impactful, but it depended on climbers to make the switch. And when the time-tested trust of the protection of pitons was sized up against the no-so-well-known nuts—many were skeptical. 

But resistance didn’t deter Stannard, and he spearheaded the change. He created an all-nut ascent log, placed it at Rock and Snow and urged everyone that did an all nut ascent to write it in the log, lending climbers notoriety and a source of beta. 

The idea came at a crucial time: The practice of placing and removing pitons in the Gunks over just six years “has produced a level of destruction in the Shawangunk exceeded only by the destruction it has produced in Yosemite.” The destruction came in the form of enlarged holes in key areas where party after party hammered in and then removed pitons. In some instances they suddenly created new handholds, changing the climb entirely. 

 Photo from SuperTopo of pin scars on Serenity Crack in Yosemite.

But there were other concerns, as well, centering around impact that the increase in climbers had on the environment,which caused La Verne Thompson, Trustee of the Mohonk Trust, the land managing body at the time that would become the Mohonk Preserve, in April 1972 to write: We all love the ‘Gunks’, but let us not love them to death.” And still others mourned another change from the increase in climbers: the loss of the “essential experience of the cliffs and climbing…"

A collection of old pins. Thanks to Richard Ross for contributing the photo.  

There were all types of actions taken to lessen the impact of climbers or other visitors on the cliff: climbers painted pitons grey to blend in with the cliff, they removed rock paintings, discussed new trails and exchanged ideas of how to introduce new climbers to climbing. The solution to impact was, as it still is, hard to navigate.

**

By the mid 70s, the practice of hammering in pitons was all but a dying art in the Gunks and largely because of the thoughts spread by The Eastern Trade and push from Stannard. Rock and Snow, the only show around, was also a huge supporter of clean climbing, pushing the movement forward. Soon, the store stopped carrying pitons altogether. But the step away from pitons didn’t go without backlash. Stannard’s advocacy for nuts, after a Sept. 8 1973 accident on Frogshead, resulted in a large cry that his promotion of nuts was “irresponsible and contributed to the accident.” 

Standard lamented the situation, but noted, “I also feel that a climbing from which all risk had been removed, would not be what it should be. The essential point is that each individual must have the freedom to choose those risks he will accept.”

Risk is a part of climbing, and something that we can never truly take away. It is as much a truth now as it was in the 70s. 

One July 1973 New York Times article notes that swarms of climbers "are sprouting like spring flowers on every cliff from coast to coast, showering canyons with dislodged rocks and increasingly their own bodies." 

Climbing gained popularity and got covered in publications like the New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly the same as it is gaining a new explosion of mainstream coverage now. The result has pushed climbers, again, to take a self-exploratory look at sustainability. 

Rich Goldstone on Double Crack. He made the first all-nut ascent in the Gunks on this route. Read a snippit of Goldstone's account of his all-nut ascent in his Flashback.

There is the environmental impact, but there is also something more existential changing, a concern that Richard Petrowich raised in a '72 newsletter: "What I feel is being neglected is the quality of life, the essential experience of the cliff and climbing." 

Now, as then, the attention climbing gets and the more people that start climbing creates a catch 22 when the outdoor resources is so limited. Are we adding to the problem we are trying to shed light on? The more poplar climbing gets, the more coverage it receives, the more people it reaches, the more climbers it creates. In the end, impact increases; the problems grow, while the amount of rock in the world stays the same. 

By addressing it, by trying to target new climbers, is the media at fault for the over population by giving it light? Perhaps, yes; but ignoring it doesn’t help either. 

In his day, Stannard had three ideas of how to address the problem: “Discourage the exposure given climbing, reduce greatly the number of people you yourself introduce to climbing each year, and reduce your own impact on the land while volunteering you time and effort to help The Trust reduce the impact other make on the land.”  He even wrote a piece called, "Coping with the Media," which appeared in the April/June edition of The Eastern Trade, in which he talked of his approach, skirting the media, not giving them any photos that showed climbing in a fantastic way. The issue also reprinted mainstream articles on climbing. But simply telling less people about climbing is nearly impossible in today’s viral world where practically anything you need to know has a how-to video on YouTube.

While his first two option aren’t viable options anymore (or arguably ever), the last one is, and "The Trust" can be interchanged with the name of any climbing area that is local to you, and can apply today. 

“Clean climbing is required in most areas in the United States to one degree or another,” Rich Gottlieb, current Rock and Snow owner who has been in the area since the early 80s, say of the situation today. “Climbing developed differently over time and land managers and traditions must figure into the way we engage in our beloved endeavor.”

Each area must find its own way. In the Gunks, discussion that appeared in The Eastern Trade helped start a tradition of that. But it’s ever changing and morphing. 

“Trying to institute a fast food approach in which every place is the same is boring, destructive to an area, ignorant of climbing's rich culture, and limits our ability to grow beyond mere grades,” say Gottlieb. 

Rather, an approach we all must take, now and in the future, no matter how new or long-standing your personal climbing history is, is to be respectful and thoughtful in your own personal actions. 

“Climbing speaks in many tongues and the more well versed a climber becomes communicating with rock, self, and the environment, the richer the experience,” says Gottlieb. “If we exhibit intelligence, maturity, and respect we will go down as builders and not destroyers of this noble activity.”

Originally from Ellensburg, Washington—now based in Flagstaff, Arizona— Oakley Anderson-Moore’s dive into filmmaking was anything but conventional. She launched her work with a seven-years-in-the-making film that is part history, part existential wanderings. A project that took over her life, the making of Brave New Wild (which will be showing at Rock and Snow this Saturday) was one that had deeper roots than just a creative production—it explored questions of a lifestyle that pervaded her youth and helped to explain the passion of her father. It helped unlock the musings of a generation of vagabond climbers in the 50s, 60s and 70s, to ultimately take a look at herself.

The filmmaker, Oakley Anderson-Moore.  

Anderson-Moore attended film school in San Diego. But her eye—her in-depth look into life—that comes across the camera started before that.  Anderson-Moore’s itinerant climbing parents, always looking for the next climbing destination, brought her along as they traveled the world. From the Philippines to California, Brazil to Italy, Oakley was on the move.

“Being dragged across the planet by my parents completely shaped me as a person and informed me as an artist,” says Anderson-Moore. “When you travel to different places and experience different cultures, you're exposed to a completely new world than the one you're from. And usually realize, quite astoundingly, that there is more than the one you're from.” 

She grew up with climbers—listening to their stories and getting the way of life instilled into her. They had been a part of her father’s life as long as she had known him. In fact, her father, Mark Moore, at about the same age when she started making the film, spent 13 years traveling, picking fruit and climbing—living in the true original dirtbag style. Part of the early “Golden Age” of climbing, he and the many influential climbers that he crossed paths with along the way were defining climbing and the times. They were outcasts and beatnik poets defining their passion, and the culture of climbing—a seemingly meaningless activity that each would weave into a personal way to view their lives. But while Anderson-Moore knew and could feel this lifestyle that her father had instilled in her and its hook in a subversive counter-culture, she wanted to take a deeper look into her father and his passion that many people didn’t understand.

Broken down...again. Photo: Mark Moore. 

Growing organically from home videos, Anderson-Moore set out to tell his story, and her own story, through the stories of historical climbers. And there was no better way to do this than to pack up the van, along with her friend and film producer Alex Reinhard and two others to head east from the west coast. Tracking down over dozens of climbers to interview, they spent over a month of the road living like gypsies chasing stories of the past in the 1976 Volkswagen van.

“It was not so glamorous,” says Anderson-Moore. “We just drove from California to New Hampshire going from one person’s house to the other talking about things that happened so long ago.”

Living in the van and sleeping in rest areas, they captured some incredible interviews and footage, talking by campfire with figures from Royal Robbins to Dick Williams. In fact, she and her gang attended the Gunks Climbers Reunion in 2008 to garner some of their interviews. Many of these interviews appear in the film.

 Lost Arrow handstand. Photo by Claude Suhl. 

The interviews were the easy part in some ways. During the project, she immersed herself in climbing—reading every book she could get her hands on—and then took her knowledge, research and the stories she’d collated and wove them together.

Seven years in the making and hundreds of hours of postproduction later—tracking the storylines of the interviewee’s tales and digging up archival footage and photographs—finally, the full-length feature is done. Anderson-Moore and Reinhard took Brave New Wild to multiple film festivals; the film was an official selection for the 2015 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and 2014 Tallgrass International Film Festival, and also a winner of the Woods Hole Film Festival Emerging Artist Award in 2014.  

Framed by the story of her youth and home footage of a young Anderson-Moore with a grip of red locks and her father always close to the mountains, the stories of Anderson-Moore’s youth, her father’s passion and the stories of those spearheading the generation weave into a tight film that also tracks her own history, her own passion and her own views.

“When you think about what art is and why people are compelled to create it, to me, it's really about communicating the incommunicable reality that exists in our heads,” says Anderson-Moore. “You can't ever really know what the experience of living is for anyone other than oneself. Art can bridge that lonely, impenetrable existence. And filmmaking is as close to expressing human thought as any other art form I've come across.”  

While some may have seen the short, award-winning documentary by Anderson-Moore, Wild New Brave, which screened at Rock and Snow earlier this year, check out the feature-length film Brave New Wild this Saturday (May 23^rd) at 8pm.  Entrance is free.

Bold rock and ice climber and owner of Rock and Snow, Rich Gottlieb, talks about the past, the present and what it means to take risks.

The smile says it all. Photo by Teri Condon.  

A fixture in the Gunks climbing community, Rich Gottlieb showed up on the local scene in the early 80s. While enrolled in a master’s program at SUNY New Paltz for sculpture, he took a part-time job at Rock and Snow. This soon turned into a full-time job, then a manager's position and eventually owner after Dick Williams bowed out. But while the name, humor and helpful attitude of Gottlieb are recognizable to anyone in town, the story of how he got here is less known.

**

While Gottlieb grew up in Queens, he didn’t start his climbing career here at the Gunks. Gottlieb’s first idea of climbing came down south (where he would live for about 10 years) on his way back to Atlanta from a fiddler’s convention in Virginia.

“We took the scenic route on the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way back, and I saw Looking Glass,” says Gottlieb. “We drove down and got a two-second glimpse of the north side from the road and something just clicked.”

He recruited Denny Mays for $35 a day to teach him a thing or two, and he started leading during the second lesson. After that, Gottlieb started buying nuts one at a time. This was before cams but after pitons, when the clean climbing movement was going off full force in the Gunks.

 Gottlieb running it out. Photo by Teri Condon. 

He made climbing friends—like Jan Schwarzburg, Bobby Lee Chesson, and Darrow Kirkpatrick, among others—and they often climbed at Mount Yonah. But when a couple of cavers said they wanted to take them to a new area, they piled into the back of a truck, slipped and slid through mud and rutted-out roads and arrived at a new cliff line in Alabama called Sand Rock.

With that, they forgot Mount Yonah, and started going to Sand Rock all the time. “We just kept putting up routes.”

Then they found Yellow Creek and visiting climber and Yosemite veteran Chick Holtcamp found Jamestown, the mile-long cliff line with 80- to 100-foot routes, where Gottlieb was among the first ascentionists. He established routes like Winter’s Respite (5.8), Riff Raff (5.10c/d), Pumpkin Patches (5.9+), Autumn Sonata (5.9), Spiritus (5.11r.), Dirty White Boy (5.9) and Wildlife (5.10).

Alabama and Georgia were a little slower than the rest of the country in terms of climbing development. "But being behind put me years ahead in the pleasure category,” says Gottlieb. And with new cliffs, no real direction and a small guidebook that covered the entire southeast, the group had fun forging their own way. But Gottlieb remains humble about this time. “I attribute a lot of my excitement and adventure to my friends who shared the rope,” says Gottlieb.

But while humble, Gottlieb wasn’t afraid to hang it out. His boldness only grew over the years. When he took his initial trip to Yosemite, the first route he and Jan Schwarzburg got on was the Salathe Wall. Turns out, the small cliffs of the southeast weren’t bad prep for the route. “I was able to do up to the Heart Ledge free in EB's. And I didn’t think of myself as an 5.11 climber,” says Gottlieb, who ended up leading many of the pitches.

At home in the mountains. Photo by Teri Condon. 

By the time he reached New Paltz, he was coming in full-form as a bold rock climber and ice climber. He was soloing a lot which suited his abilities to handle risky situations, and in the early 90s, spent time out at Millbrook putting up routes like Dance Card (5.11 R) and White Knuckles (5.11 R).  

“I remember when Felix Modugno and I went on ice climbing trips. We’d call up north and they’d say, ‘oh, that route was in last week, but it isn’t in now,’ so we’d just go do it,” says Gottlieb. 

There were close calls with rock fall, terrifying climbing in Peru with Schwarzburg, and even a close friend’s rock climbing accident in Boulder Canyon.

“But I still kept soloing,” says Gottlieb, who was known to go out and solo tricky Gunks 5.10s. “Ice climbing went well because I had a decent set of balls. I took a lot of risks. Long run-outs on pretty hard stuff in Quebec and around here.”

Gottlieb had the head for it and, some might say, climbed his best when he forgot to get scared. At first, close calls didn’t phase him much. In fact, the most dangerous climb he did was a 700-foot ice climb in Quebec with Modugno within six months of fracturing his pelvis in a 100-foot near ground fall at City of Rocks.

“I had to get back on the horse,” he says.

But, he could only get back on the horse so many times.  After years of walking away or being carried away from some serious falls Gottlieb's views on risk have changed.

“I think we all get caught up in things and when you’re caught up its hard to get an objective perspective on it,” he says. “You can be so close to something that you don’t realize your nose is being worn off by that grindstone."

The game face comes out. Photo by Teri Condon.

Over time, he admits to making a few mistakes and not paying the price, and then seeing other people paying the price. It hit at the core of something.

“I knew great climbers who have died and as wonderful as it may feel to live large I would rather knock it down a few notches and survive to see many more beautiful sunrises and sunsets. We share the stage with those we love, who love us, and when you lower the curtain on yourself you create a void and a sadness for those that loved you most.”

Now, the past “is what it is” and Gottlieb tries not to dwell on it. Rather, climbing to him is a very living thing that's always changing. “When you talk about the past it’s not a living thing anymore. It’s easier to move forward then to turn your head to look back. Anyway looking ahead saves you from walking into a wall.”

That said, he is thankful for opportunities he had to put up routes in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and the Gunks, but for him the partners remain more vivid than the climbs themselves. Climbing is about relationships and shared experiences and he is grateful for having wonderful partners throughout the over 40 years he has been climbing.

Then there is his rock Teri and their daughter Celia. “The former epitomizes grace in every way and the later embraces change with a fierce determination,” says Gottlieb. “What a great experience it has been to be with a women whose climbing ability and style puts me to shame on a regular basis and how exciting it can be, in a different way, to travel and climb with Teri and Celia in faraway places,” he says.

Now he pours a lot of his energy into Rock and Snow, and some of his greatest recent challenges involve the shop.

Rich Gottlieb overseeing his domain. Photo by Teri Condon.

“While most people consider it a travesty that corporations are considered people under the law the staff do their best at the shop to continue to be way more than shopping. They strive to be the place where all voices can mingle and have a collective heartbeat that empowers,” says Gottlieb.  “They don't stop with all the different expressions of climbing but rather they work courageously to reconstitute community.”

Gottlieb believes that community has slowly eroded through the actions of fear, capitalism, hedonism and peoples dread that their contributions become meaningless in light of these many challenges. But, he goes on to say, “climbing doesn't have to be separate from the rest of life but, if practiced with sensitivity and love, can become an example of how we can live in a more fulfilling way and in greater harmony with the planet and each other.”

For Gottlieb, the deeper meaning isn't about his great adventures and meager contributions to climbing, but it is about us all moving ahead with an appreciation of the adventure brought about by change and wonder. And for him, Ali G. pretty much sums it up.

 “RESPECT.” 

A prolific female climbing pioneer of the 70s, Gunkie Elaine Matthews talks women in climbing and how she became a "lifer".

The ever-stong and humble Matthews tolerating a photo in Joshua Tree. Photo Chris Cook, 2010.

It was the middle of June, but a severe cold snap had moved in on Elaine Matthews and Chuck Ostin. They had just reached Camp VI  (a relatively plush high-in-the-sky bivy ledge) of El Cap with the summit nearly in sight.  It was hard enough finding partners in the male-dominated climbing world in 1970, and with only a handful—if that—of pitches to go until they reached the summit, Matthews wasn’t about to let a little “blizzard” deter her from finishing the route.

But then the haul bag broke and plummeted to the ground, leaving Matthews and Ostin in shorts with no sleeping bags, food or water suspended on the side of the wall.

If it were up to her, she would have suffered hypothermia before she resorted to a rescue. Self-admittedly headstrong since her early childhood, Matthews wasn’t ready for help out. Despite attempting to shout up to the descending party that they did not need help, Tom Baumann, Chuck Pratt and a few others lowered a rope down, one rappelling down, to assist.

“We were overwhelmed with the fact that Tom had rapped down the ropes and passed over these knots—horrifying—that we jummared out with him,” says Matthews. 

Had they completed their attempt, Matthews would have been the first woman to climb El Cap—both swinging leads and hauling loads with Ostin, something that very, very few women were doing at the time. Summiting El Cap was a huge milestone for woman in the early 70s, and something that was finally completed almost three years later by Beverly Johnson. Claude Suhl made the interesting, but perhaps not strong, argument that since Matthews did, in fact, jumar out of the last few hundred feet to the summit, that she was technically the first woman to climb El Cap. Regardless, Matthews never went back to try it again.

Matthews and cat and land in Minnesota. Photo George Bloom,1965. 

**

Matthews’ story started as many women back then—a boyfriend at the school she was attending in Minnesota introduced her to the sport. That boyfriend was George Blum, a Vulgarian, who brought Matthews to the Gunks in the summer of  ‘65, where she met a slew of fun-loving, mischievous Vulgarians in their haunt.

“I guess to put into perspective a little bit, I was a college student and it was the 60s. The Vulgarians seemed like the perfect group,” says Matthews. “I felt as if I had found my real family. Everyone was very accepting, everything went and everyone was tolerated and embraced.”

She was enamored of the place and the people. Suhl, another Vulgarian who Matthews would later date in the Gunks, remembers that a short time after her initial visit, Matthews showed up with a van back at the Gunks—this time, without Blum. Matthews was by no means the only female among the Vulgarians. But Matthews was different: she was passionate about climbing from the beginning and the only one at the time actively climbing.

Smiling and in her comfort zone, Matthews sets up for a big move in Red Rock. Photo Andy Carson, 2007.

“I ended up wanting to climb and wanting to pursue leading,” she says. That was something many women were not interested in at the time. But being a female climber at the time wasn’t easy, even for this bold and headstrong force.

 “It was a little disconcerting,” she says, “and nagged at me and my self confidence. Climbing was a guy thing in one aspect in those days: carrying heavy racks of pitons with hammers and hammering in and hammering out. It was work.”

At one points, when Matthews was going through a hard stage where she was “scared shitless”, some of the other women in their circle of friends, suggested she didn’t really have to climb.

“They said, ‘you don’t really have to climb just because the guys do,’” Matthews says. “I said, ‘Are you kidding? I have to. I have to climb. This is what I have to do.’”

Her desire to climb took over, but not without occasional criticism, like when she lead Birdland, a huge accomplishment by anyone at the time in the late 60s/early 70s. But despite the noted success of this feat, “One of the guys wanted to downgrade it,” she says, and call it a 5.7.

No stranger to steep terrain, Matthews catches a quick rest before the roof moves on Wild Seed in the New River Gorge. Photo Beth McLendon, 2012.

While Matthews loved the Gunks climbing and people, she moved back West for nine years, living in Jackson Hole to be close to Yosemite and alpine climbing areas like the Wind River Range.  For the first few years she would spend two or three months living in Yosemite, where she hung with legends like Chuck Pratt and more than pulled her weight on the wall. This is when she attempted El Cap and wowed the boys with her bold climbing and strong leading head. But, ironically, it wasn’t until the last night of her last visit that she finally met some other women climbers there. Though she’d crossed paths with them a few times, she’d never swapped belays.

An independent woman, over the years Matthews taught dance, guided and worked at IBM after moving back to New York. She eventually opened the Inner Wall Climbing Gym in New Paltz in January 1994, with her partner Bruce.  Mostly because, she admits, “we wanted to climb in the winter.” They owned the gym until 2007, when they sold it so they could have more free time to climb.

Though Matthews had some slow times in her climbing career, like when her daughter was young, this year she celebrates her 50^th year climbing. She refers to it more like a relationship though, calling it her anniversary. Fifty years is an impressive length to be climbing in it’s own right, but it is made more impressive by the fact that she is still leading, and leading hard.

Matthews poses with Gunkie John Stannard in Joshua Tree. Photo Chris Cook, 2006.

Just the other week she climbed Turdland… “and you know what,” she says, “I found that a TCU fits next to that pin and it’s no longer R,” she laughs. “Well, I didn’t test it, but it looked really good.”

Matthews leading the infamous Turdland this summer. Photo: Christian Fracchia, 2015.  

Humble, strong and selective with her words, Matthews was a force to be reconed with as the topless cover girl of the second edition of Vulgarian Digest, climbing lifer and pioreer of the early female climbing culture. But it comes back to the simple things when I ask her what about this area keeps her around. 

“Is it the climbing, the community…the feel of the landscape,” I asked.

“Yes,” she says, considering the whole list. “I just love it here.”

 The brains behind the words this weekend: Luke Mehall.

The season is upon us here at the Gunks. Crisp days followed by cool nights, and, for the climbers among us, a sea of sticky stone. While your day might be filled with plugging gear or even a Catskills run and hike, join us at 8pm at Rock and Snow on select Saturday nights this fall for our annual Fall Speaker Series. We've hand-selected the most entertaining, stellar speakers for the series, which is free of charge. Check in at our Events page to stay up-to-date and follow our blog every Monday for musings on the upcoming speaker.

 (Show starts at 8pm on Saturday, October 3rd at Rock and Snow.)

Meet the brains behind the Climbing Zine: Luke Mehall. Currently based out of Durango, Colorado, Mehall spends most of his time writing and editing (the Zine, books, articles, poetry and hilarious quips like this one about red Patagonia underwear) and rolling burritos at his night job.

In some way, Mehall has become a dirtbag historian and philosopher. But he’s more known as being author of two books (with a third on its way), a storyteller and a modern-day beatnik. And his views of climbing—through the lenses of freedom, passion and expression—make for some good tales, our true possessions in the end. “The essence of climbing is the moment at hand, but what we come away with are these stories,” says Mehall.

Calling himself a “born again dirtbag” (we’ll get to that), Mehall’s voice is a kind of tribute to love, life and experience that comes through in a no-hold-barred style. This voice is hard to come by, but he owns it well—and perhaps for good reason. For him, climbing changed his life. It’s part of his own personal climbing story and one that makes his writing raw, unique and relatable.

But we’ll come to that, and how the Climbing Zine transformed from some scribbles to a full-fledged publication. But first things first: what happened to the original dirtbag? And how is Mehall’s underwear modeling gig shaping up these days?

 Enjoy a little Q & A between Rock and Snow and Mehall and remember, come to the show this Saturday:

How did you get into writing and how did the Climbing Zine come into existence? Do you have a favorite stories?

Well, my Mom was an English teacher, so I guess it’s in my blood, but I didn't really get into writing until I was in college over in Gunnison, Colorado. I was moved by writers like Jack Kerouac, Edward Abbey, Tom Wolfe, Tim Leary, John Long, George Sibley, and Martin Luther King Jr. which inspired me to start writing myself. 

The Climbing Zine started on a whim. I'd written a couple other zines after discovering them in Salt Lake City, and since I knew so many climbers who write I thought it would be fun to put together one with a climbing theme. I thought we would do one issue, five years later and here we are. 

Originally it was like the old school punk black and white zines. I'm not a skater/punk kinda guy but I loved the freedom and independence. Eventually my friends started telling us we needed to go color with professional photos. That shot the printing costs through the roof and then we needed sponsorship. The climbing industry and community has rallied to support us, and that's how we've been able to keep doing it. 

A personal favorite story of ours is “Climbing Past War” by Stacy Bare. He told his story about going to war and how climbing saved his life. I think that's where climbing truly has its deepest value, how we can use it as a tool or a metaphor to overcome adversity. 

 Mehall reveling in his dimensional wheelhouse. 

Seems as though climbing has been used as a metaphor to overcome adversity in your own life.

Well, I got into climbing at just the right time in life, when I was a lost, depressed 20-year-old. The first climbing trip I ever went on was with two buddies and these three other guys who were heroin addicts. I wasn't addicted to hard drugs like that, but when I started climbing I was addicted to substances and had no exercise regiment. Climbing really came in and gave me something to live for. I think I'm the type of person who can naturally lean towards depression, but when I'm climbing regularly I feel like the happiest person in the world. 

When Stacy Bare, the author of that story, and I met we talked about how both of us "would be dead or in jail without climbing". I think that's true for me. 

Is this why you consider yourself a “born-again dirtbag"?  Can you explain that term? 

Well, that's just a joke, but climbing does take that path of fanaticism. I did think of giving up on the live to climb lifestyle for a couple years and got a 9-5. Then I realized I couldn't do that, so now I'm back to that life of living the climbing life, while working a creative schedule with flexible jobs. 

So on the thread of dirtbags, you seem to know a lot about them. I mean you authored a book called "The Great American Dirtbag"! So, in your opinion, is the climbing dirtbag in decline? Are there any true dirtbags left?

Well, in reality the dirtbag lifestyle is probably growing. The thing is gym climbing is the dominant force in the climbing culture. So dirtbagging comes later, not first. If you've been to places like Squamish and Indian Creek its apparent many people are still chasing the dirtbag dream. 

As for if there are any true dirtbags left, I think for sure there are. It's like asking if romance is still alive, or if hip-hop is dead. We can debate it online and people can lament the good 'ol days, but the reality is many people are still living out of a bag, in the dirt. 

How does climbing and its lifestyle meld with writing for you?

I think climbing gives me the headspace to be able to continually create. Most of my stories come from climbing adventures, so there's that as well. Plus, the ability to fail, over and over, but still have the love to come back. And, they can age together well. I'll probably lose my climbing prowess before I lose the ability to craft a story, but hopefully not! 

Why do stories matter to climbing?

The essence of climbing is the moment at hand, but what we come away with are these stories. My personal story matters because climbing saved my life from substances and depression. And, someone else who is going through the same thing could read my story and know there's a better life out there. 

Plus, I think with modern life there's this thing called boredom and a good climbing story is the perfect cure for that. 

 Feast your eyes on the Freedom Mobile. Keeping the dirtbag dream alive with flare. 

So you’ve written some books, two of which are published: "The Great American Dirtbag" and "Climbing Out of Bed". Tell me about those.

Both books I've published are collections of short stories about climbing and mountain town culture. I just finished a draft of my third book, a memoir called "American Climber". In short its the story of how climbing saved my life, and how it gives me life. 

I like to think I have my own simple style, that was heavily influenced by the beatniks, the desert rats, and other writers who love the mountains. 

Even dogs read it. 

Now, what is your funniest story? Lay it on me. 

I like the "Naked Disco Dance Party in J-Tree" that's in my first book. I also have a funny one about being MC Hammer for Halloween and taking over the streets of Crested Butte, Colorado. 

Nice, that one is funny. I really loved the Patagonia underwear modeling one. Soooooo is your dream job really to be an underwear model and perhaps the better question, do you still have that red pair of Patagonia underwear? 

Ha, ha, that whole thing was this joke that had some crazy synchronicity. I used to joke with my friends that I was going to be an underwear model for Patagonia, and then my friend started a petition. We contacted Patagonia and they said, okay, sure. And, then I did a story about it and a Dirtbag Diaries podcast. Kinda like the Flight of the Concords "It's Business Time". 

Crazy thing is I lost the red pair of underwear right when Patagonia published the story up on their blog. But, they gave me some new ones! 

What, in your eyes, is the current state of storytelling in your eyes? Is it a declining art or is it still going strong? Who is the best storyteller you can think of (and don’t tell me John Long)? 

It's going strong. The way we as climbers have been able to tell our story has really expanded over the last few years. If you're referring to climbing writers John Long is the man. I can't say there's any more influential climber-writer out there for someone like myself. As far as novelists go, the best of the best for me are Edward Abbey and Jack Kerouac. They weren't really climbers, but they were. No climbing writer I've ever read can touch those two. 

I think the current generation will provide a great climbing novelist, and I don't think it's going to be a climber who fits the old mold of a climber. It will be a fresh story. 

Thanks Mehall! For more of Mehall’s own story and to hear some of his writing, join us on Saturday and be sure to check out his blog and The Climbing Zine.  

Mehall poses with one of his babies. 

While picking through an outdoors store in Acadia on a bike trip that he and a fellow student took from New York to Maine, a 14-year-old New York City-based Scott Franklin stumbled upon climbing—a cool pastime for which he had natural talent. But there’s no question: just a few years later, Franklin, in his prime during the mid- to late-80s, quickly became the best American climber of his time and a pivotal climber in American history, whether he’ll admit it or not. And climbing in the Gunks was one of his most important stepping-stones to get there.

“I remember one of my favorite routes that I did there to this day was Laurel,” says Franklin of the classic 5.7. “I had just started climbing and remember reaching for a hold, getting my hand on it and having this profound experience. Like, these holds were put here in just the right place just so people could climb this. That was the spark for me. I thought, this is what I’m going to do, this is the most amazing thing you could do.”

He started to spend as much time in the Gunks as possible, initially under the tutelage of his first real climbing partner: Mo Hershoff. This mentor of his would later introduce him to a climber that would become a lifelong friend, Jordan Mills.

Franklin and Mills, similar in age, would become an unstoppable dynamic duo ticking Crack'n Up, Kevin Bein testpieces like No Comment and Open Cockpit. They were soon joined by a third: Al Diamond. Once they all got connected, they were pretty much inseparable.

As the 80s rolled on, Franklin started pushing it; he climbed the gems of the time, like Kansas City, Gravity’s Rainbow and Super Crack. He was young, motivated and hyper talented. And he was just beginning to realize it. Among a posse of climbers establishing some of the hardest routes in the area of the era, he put up Survival of the Fittest, a power endurance challenge at Lost City. He later went back to solo it, making the first 5.13 solo in the United States, and the first 5.13 solo by an American. Franklin then put up a variation of Clairvoyance, which broke off to the right called Planet Claire. Though it was originally graded 5.13d, later attempts by others suggested it could be harder (it took almost 30 years for a second ascent). Perhaps it was then among the first 5.14s in the United States, though no history lesson will tell you that.

Scott Franklin soloing Survival of the Fittest, making him the first American to solo the grade. 1980s. Photo courtesy of Scott Franklin. 

“The Gunks was a great place to build a foundation of climbing skills and makes you strong…we were really confident going other places,” says Franklin. More than anything, for Franklin it instilled in him the experience of knowing he could overcome a challenge. Franklin had the rare and confident mentality of “if it goes, then I should be able to do it.”

He started traveling, first taking trips to Europe with Mills and Diamond. “They were some of the best times ever,” remembers Franklin. For them, the first trip to Europe was a game changer: “We realized what a big world of climbing it was out there, and how varied it was,” says Franklin, “how incredible the talent was and how many strong climbers there were. We just started going back again and again.”

They met a lot of climbers there, many of which would later visit the Gunks. They would bring with them a methodology of climbing that was transitioning away from traditional climbing and towards sport climbing, via hangdogging and working routes.

“I was trying to work through the ethical implications of all that, and trying to understand how we fit into that; what was the right way to do it,” says Franklin. It was during this shift in collective climbing perspective that Franklin remembers he, Mills and Diamond tried a route called Cybernetic—among the hardest routes in the Gunks still to this day. Franklin first heard about the route from Rich Romano and Jim Munson, who talked “in hushed tones about a mythical wall that one day they would show us at Bonticou.” This route was anything short of a gimme, with pissed-off, nails-hard cruxes crammed into roughly 50 feet of climbing.

Here, Dave Lanman works the bottom section of Cybernetic. 1980s. Photo courtesy of Todd Leeds.  

Cybernetic and Love Muscle, a route that splits off to the left, were caught in the crossroads of the two approaches, not yet parting from the old ways of ground-up ascents, but borrowing some of the new school methods.  

“We climbed them ground up," says Franklin, “we just led it.” And, at first, if they didn’t send the route, they came back down to the ground and pulled the rope.

Franklin quickly whittled Cybernetic down to a single fall, but was stumped on one move up high. “I’d climb to the crux and place a high RP, and kept trying to do a dyno to the jug. I must have fallen off that thing hundreds of time.”

He tried it so many times that the bottom crux was starting to feel easy. Franklin remembers a friend he’d made traveling Europe, Jerry Moffatt, visiting. Moffatt was a legendary strongman, known for dispatching routes like Britain's first 8c (5.14b) Liquid Amber. So Franklin took him out to the route to try and do it; but, surprisingly, Moffatt could not do a particularly tricky hand jam move low on the route.

“Jerry started flipping out,” says Franklin, “I said, ‘no way, I can't believe you can't do the move! I can dangle off that move!’”

Moffatt, attempting to call his bluff and thinking he knew how hard Franklin could climb, said, ‘No way. You can’t do that.’

Franklin struck a deal: “I said, ‘I’ll go boulder up and if I do it, you have to take us all out to dinner,’” speaking of the trio of friends: Franklin, Diamond and Mills.

“It was a classic grit-style sandbag,” says Franklin, laughing. “I just happened to know the jam fit my hand really well.”

The trio got their dinner, and Moffatt got a dose of his own medicine.

Though Franklin could prance through the bottom crux, there was still that pesky high move. “Somewhere in there I’d learned the European model of working routes. So I hung up there and examined all the holds.” Instead of lowering back to the ground after he fell, this time he hung on the rope and looked at the rock, the possible sequence and then tried the moves after hanging. He found an undercling and another hold, and quickly realized he could do the moves statically up to the jug.

The next attempt, Franklin sent the route: “It just went. It moved from this never-ending project with a wild dyno to done. It was anticlimactic.”

After ticking some of the areas hardest routes and traveling overseas, Franklin was feeling the pull to move away from the area in order to push himself to get on the level of climbers he’d seen in Europe.

“Going to Europe was like going into the wide world,” says Franklin. “Climbers from Spain and Italy and Austria and Germany and Switzerland—they are all super talented and grew up on the best rock in the world…It really opened our mind to what can be done, and what hard actually is.”

He set his eyes on Oregon’s Smith Rock, the birthplace of American sport climbing. To get on the level of European climbing, climbers in the States needed to catch up, and at the time, Smith was the locale of some of the hardest routes in the country—the litmus test for climbers to measure up: who was the best? 

Once at Smith, Franklin met folks like Alan Watts, Chris Grover and Brooke Sandahl, some of the area’s best climbers and first ascentionists. “They became some of my best friends in my whole life,” says Franklin. Inspired by the climbing, the landscape and the people, in 1986 Franklin decided to try To Bolt or Not to Be, the first 5.14 established in the United States by French hardman J.B. Tribout, who was decidedly the reigning king of Smith when Franklin showed up on the scene. But Franklin was going to give him a run for his money.

Scott Franklin on the first ascent of Smith Rock's Scarface, the first 5.14 established by an American, in 1987. Photo by Cathy Beloeil from Flickr.

Franklin had first heard about To Bolt while he was still in New York from fellow Gunkie, Russ Clune. “Russ came back to the Gunks and told me to go out and do it,” says Franklin. “Russ was such a mentor for me…if he thought I could do it, then I could do it.”

Franklin got on the route and quickly realized he could do all the moves right away. He worked it, steadily getting higher and higher from the bottom. Then, around Thanksgiving—a quiet day with no one around expect Franklin and his friend Sandahl and Jeff Ellington—he gave it a burn. He’d been trying the route for some time, but that day he stuck the tricky move he’d been falling off of previously.  The next thing he knew, he was on the top.

Like Cybernetic, it was anticlimactic for him. But with the ascent, he became the first American to climb 5.14.

“At the time I didn’t realize what kind of mental barrier it had become not just for me but a whole generation,” says Franklin. “5.14 was this whole mythical level; getting through it was a big deal. I think what opened my mind there was overcoming what was seemingly impossible.”

He quickly gained notoriety for his ascent, and sponsorship calls came rolling in. His professional climbing career was opening up, but he didn’t get too caught up in that.

Soon after To Bolt, he returned the following spring looking at a potential new route. The route was an obvious feature, and he remembers telling himself that if he could do To Bolt, then he could link up the line of pockets.

He bolted the line it to see if it could go. It was a personal challenge for Franklin, and he quickly made the first ascent of Scarface, becoming not only the first American to climb 5.14, but the first American to establish one. “That’s one of the coolest things about climbing. Transcending your perceived barriers is what it’s all about. If it’s a 5.9. or 5.15 it’s the same experience.”

Scarface was just one of many of these personal barrier routes for Franklin. He solidified his status as one of the strongest and most gifted climbers of his time, with these and other hard first ascents all over the country: like Mango Tango in the New River Gorge, Simply Read in Rifle, Dead Souls in American Fork, and Edge of the World in North Conway, among many, many others.

 A modern throwback: Here, Tim Deroehn does a stretch armstrong move to the arête on a Scott Franklin first ascent Edge of the World in North Conway, New Hampshire. 2015.  Photo courtsey of Freddie Wilkinson. 

Now the CEO of a solar company based in Colorado, which he started after founding Franklin Climbing (which he eventually sold to Black Diamond Equipment), Franklin still climbs sharing it with his kids. Though his accomplishments were great, historic even, the most memorable parts were the times with friends, and the lessons he learned from climbing.

“It goes back to our conversation with Jerry Moffatt,” says Franklin. “It always comes down to one split second, it’s the moment right before you’re about to fall. What do you do in that moment?  Do you let it wash over you and give up, or do you just keep going? That’s what’s so cool about climbing, and what keeps me coming back to it every day.”

Maybe you've just started climbing and you're breaking in your first pair of climbing shoes in the gym. Or maybe you've been climbing for 10 years and have a closet full of climbing shoes, skipping Goldilocks-like between pairs because this one is too cambered, but this one is too insensitive on polished slabs. Either way, one day you'll reach a time with your shoes when they are, to use technical terms, "shot." But what does that mean? How shot is too shot? Should you get them resoled? Or surely someone will want to use them if you bring them to the Annex and ask for a bargain-basement price, right? Identifying the wear and tear of your climbing shoes will enable you to make the right decisions about using, resoling, or getting rid of them. Also, not only can you assess your own shoes, you'll be able to buy used shoes and know what quality shoe you're getting every time.

Buying used climbing shoes is a lot like buying new climbing shoes: it all comes down to fit and feel. Take your time and try on as many different pairs as you can find near your size, bearing in mind that shoes fit differently across brands and models. A well-fitting climbing shoe should have no dead spaces or wiggle room, but there should be no hot spots, pinching, or pain. Remember that used shoes have been broken in by feet that aren't yours, and that might contribute to a different feel. Look for shoes that are snug and seem to exhale their air for a vacuum-like seal when you pull them on.

When determining if a shoe is "shot," first give an overall look at the parts of the shoe from the rand up. If the shoe has velcro straps, like the one pictured below, look them to see if they are fuzzy, torn, or otherwise blown out. Look especially at where the velcro folds around the buckle! If it has laces, check the eyelets, the aglets, and the laces themselves to see if they are worn, torn, fuzzy, or frayed. Laces can be replaced, but be sure to factor that cost in. The pull straps should be fully secured to the shoe, not ripping off. Most climbing shoe uppers are made of leather or synthetic leather, so check that for signs of age and wear. Leather can stiffen, or start to pull away from the rand. Finally, check that the heel cup has retained its shape and isn't collapsed or spongy. All of these factors will affect the fit and feel of the shoe on your foot, but you'll have to look at the rubber to assess how the shoe will perform.

Image from New England reSoul

The shoe's sole and rand are both made of rubber, but they function differently. The rand is a thin layer of rubber that wraps around the upper, and goes underneath the sole on the bottom of the shoe. It protects the material of the upper, attaches the sole to the shoe, and also provides friction for toe-hooking and heel-hooking. The sole is a thicker layer of sticky rubber that provides the foot's point of contact with the rock. The sole (specifically, the toe) is what will likely wear out first on your shoes.
Here are some examples of wear on shoes we have at the Annex.

Here is the toe from a new pair of shoes here at the Annex. You can see a clear line between the sole and the rand, the rubber on the toe is sharp, and the edge is straight and clean. The only concern with buying and wearing them would be breaking them in. Otherwise, you can expect a shoe like this to last as long as any brand new shoe does for you. If your existing shoes look like this, the only reason to resell them would be because they don't fit well or feel right on your feet.

Unlike the previous pair, these shoes have obvious wear. The line between the rand and the sole is wavy and chewed-looking, and the rubber is starting to wear thin from contact with rock or climbing walls. A climber could expect about half as much wear time out of these shoes as-is; resoling them would provide additional wear time. If your shoes look like this, now—while the rand is still intact, with no holes—would be a good time to consider resole. If you are no longer happy with how your shoes with this level of wear fit or feel, reselling is also an option at this point.

These last shoes are much more worn. The rand rubber has a clear hole in it (probably from rubbing against the textured walls of a climbing gym), and the line between the rand and the sole is totally blurred from use. You can also see some stippling on the sole. Shoes like this have about a quarter of their useful life left: the actual time in weeks or months would be dictated by your personal climbing habits. If your climbing shoes look like this, you might consider resoling. At around $60 for a full rand and rubber resole, resoling is a good option for people who really love the fit of their shoes and/or they don't want to buy a brand new pair. Reselling through the Annex is no longer an option because we don't accept shoes that require major repair. Note that if the hole is clear through the fabric, you might consider launching them into space, because resoling is also not an option.

Buying new shoes and want to know if they've been resoled? Flip them over and look at the sole. There will be a line near the ball of the foot where new rubber has been glued down. The shoe on the right has been resoled; the shoe on the left has not. There are benefits and drawbacks to buying resoled used shoes. For one, resoling can often change the fit or feel of your shoes. Buying them already resoled means you know how they fit and feel. You also know that the rubber is newer and has more life in it than on a pair of similarly aged used shoes. However, you might pay more for used shoes that have been resoled. Also, shoes that have been resoled once might not take another resole without a drastic change in their performance. If you have resoled your own shoes and no longer like their fit, you might consider selling them through the Annex.

If reselling isn't an option, and resoling seems too expensive, remember that even the best of us have to retire some day. Run their jersey up to the rafters or say a few words of respect, then send them to the big trash can in the sky. Hopefully the above guidelines help you feel equipped to make the best decisions for you, your wallet, and your shoes. Because each pair of used shoes is different, you might still have questions about whether your shoes are good candidates for reselling. Feel free to bring them in to the Annex, we'd be glad to take a look at them for you.

by Emma Blauer

Earlier this month, two Rock and Snow employees and a few of their friends flew south for nearly two weeks of bouldering in the west Texas sun. Considered by many to be both the mecca and the birthplace of American bouldering, the North, West, and East mountains of Hueco Tanks boast thousands of problems spanning the grades from V0- to V14. Three- and four-star classics abound at just about every grade, and the sheer volume of climbs couples with the pleasant winter conditions to make Hueco a draw for climbers around the country and the world. Visiting Hueco requires a little more planning than your average climbing area, however, so read on to learn more about how to get the most out of your Hueco trip.

Traveling
Hueco Tanks State Park is 30 miles east of the airport in El Paso, TX. Most people fly in to El Paso and rent a car—rental car companies abound at the El Paso airport, the airport's compact, walkable size makes picking up and dropping off rentals seriously easy—though the 32 hour drive can be made from New Paltz with a little willpower and some coffee. Book an early enough flight and it is possible to catch a few hours of climbing the afternoon you fly in. We caught a 6:00 am flight out of Albany, met the rest of our party and grabbed breakfast during a quick layover in Atlanta, and were warming up on the classic V2 roof Nobody Here Gets Out Alive and sussing the moves on Baby Martini and Dirty Martini on the Rocks by the early afternoon.

Emma right off the plane and trying the juggy roof moves of Baby Martini (V6)

Climbing
Before our trip, a few friends of ours asked the common Hueco question: "don't you need like, guides to climb there?" The short answer is... sort of. Because Hueco Tanks State Park is a historic site protected by a Public Use Plan, some areas of the park are completely closed to the public, some are only open via guided tours, and some are self-guided. Use the handy chart below to see what kind of access each mountain has.

One important thing to note is that visitors to self-guided areas (North Mountain) are required to watch an informative 20 minute orientation video. If more than a year lapses between visits, visitors need to watch the video again. Full of information about thousands of years of park history, the video is an easy watch and a good introduction to the park. For the guided areas, you'll need to book or join a tour. See the Resources list at the bottom of this post for links to guide options. Although it sounds complicated and even overwhelming, joining and booking tours was easier than picking which climbs we wanted to do. You can book North Mountain reservations up to three months in advance. We originally booked quite a few days, but ended up taking guided tours some of those days to work climbs about which we were more excited. Guided tours have some benefits over self-guiding: guides know their way around, they carry a pad and help spot (commercial guides only! Volunteer guides cannot spot or climb!), and they often have the best beta. It is appropriate and appreciated to tip your guide a few bucks at the end of the day!

Pete working the pinch to sloper move on Focus (V10)

Money-saving tip: It costs $7 per person to access North Mountain, unless a member of your party has a Texas State Parks Pass. A Parks Pass has an upfront cost of $70 for one year, but it allows for free unlimited access to all Texas state parks for the card holder and members of the card holder's party. If you and your morning are planning on paying for North Mountain more than 10 times during your visit, you should consider buying a Parks Pass!

All rules and regulations aside, the climbing at Hueco is simply terrific. It is physical, full-body climbing that will leave your shoulders and lats sore and your finger tips throbbing. Full days of hiking and climbing demand a deep reservoir of power, which you can build before you go by climbing a high volume of moderate to difficult boulder problems over long gym sessions. Most of the boulders range from gently tipped forward to dead-horizontal, requiring a strong core and good footwork to keep your feet pasted. For the precision challenged, the best footwork is strong fingers, so effective trip prep might involve using a fingerboard after a good warm up at the climbing gym.

Matt Wilder's out-of-print Hueco Tanks Guide Book is still the best resource for finding stoke-inducing climbs, but these days you'll need a spare $150 and an eBay account to snag one. A free way to find good climbs is to hoof it over to YouTube and watch videos of random crushers, making note of interesting-looking climbs. Mountain Project is another excellent free resource. Lastly, you can always ask your tour guide for climb suggestions if you're having trouble coming up with a ticklist. You can't go wrong with spending some time with the multi-star classics at your flash level, or even grabbing a lap on one of Hueco's many stellar highball V0s or V1s.

Drew crimping through the send of Windy Ass (V9)

After a couple days of climbing, you'll inevitably need a rest day. In our mind, rest days are for charting the shortest possible distance from the couch to the fridge, but the ambitious can take a rock art tour through the park, drive a couple hours to Carlsbad Caverns, or go to the movies.

Lodging
With lodging options ranging in comfort from car camping to hotels, our party opted to stay at the Hueco Hacienda. Large and comfortable, if a bit cold—tile floors and adobe walls don't offer much warmth, bring slippers and a sweater—we had plenty of sprawl space in the great room and found we could all throw together our breakfasts and lunches for the day without overcrowding the kitchen. One member of our party stayed in the bunk room, a potentially shared space that he ended up having to himself. This is the least expensive option for staying at the Hacienda, but you could end up sharing the room with up to seven people. The rest of us shared private rooms, where we were able to store our things and bed down for our doctor-recommended eight hours. If the whole hostel scene isn't for you, look to El Paso for hotels and motels. Not only will you have a room to yourself, you'll definitely get plenty of private time driving the extra 30 miles to and from the park every day. The Resources list below has links to other lodging/camping available in and around the park. Just like the Samuel Pryor Campground here in the Gunks, the Hueco Rock Ranch offers a discount to American Alpine Club members.

Be prepared to eat a lot of burritos at El Durangito (formerly known as El Pasito), a mini-market just a few miles down the road from the park with a small kitchen and eating area in the back. Walk in, go left and back, grab a Tecate or a Mexican Coke from the fridge, and park yourself at a table. Someone will hustle out some chips and salsa and take your order. Leave when you're ready and pay at the front counter but remember to drop a few ones in the kitchen tip bucket on the way out! Groceries can be had at the Vista Market, especially good produce, fresh doughnuts and tortillas, and basic necessities like peanut butter, oatmeal, and beer. If you are particular about your coffee or your crag snacks, you might consider bringing or shipping those from home.

Packing
The mountainous terrain of the park means you'll need a good pair of approach shoes to comfortably and confidently get around. If you don't already have a pair of approach shoes, look for a pair with a sticky rubber sole, like the classic Five Ten Guide Tennie or the La Sportiva Boulder X. Regular sneakers won't cut it on some of the more slick slabby terrain. Clambering around the rock fall of a mountain means you'll also spend a lot of time moving in and out of the shade of boulders and corridors. We got a ton of use out of our Rab Strata Hoodies, because they are designed to breathe while you're on the move and keep you warm and insulated while you're standing still.

For climbing gear, some of us packed a couple pairs of climbing shoes (one for projecting, one for easier terrain), while others went with one faithful pair. A good rule to follow: if you don't use it at home, you won't use it on a trip. Those highly specialized shoes you never reach for? You probably won't reach for them here, either. Stick with what you like, pack what you use, and you'll be a happy climber. Aside from shoes, chalk, and brushes, you'll also need crash pads to protect the often uneven and sometimes dangerous landings in the park. Guests of the Hacienda can make use of one crash pad per room rented, and rent additional crash pads. Hueco Tanks Mountain Hut also rents crash pads at reasonable day rates. We shipped two pads with UPS to avoid the hassle of checking them at the airport. Another piece of gear you might consider using is the Send Knee Bar Pad.

Dave locked, loaded, and sending on Loaded with Power (V10)

A high-quality, Made-in-America pad of sticky rubber available in a few sizes, the cheekily-dubbed "Downgrader" lets climbers take full advantage of the myriad no-hands rests afforded by the unique Hueco rock. We can't say if climbs felt easier with it on, but it feels fantastically secure while you're hanging from one knee, head pointed straight down.

The rock, a soft type of granite called syenite porphyry, can be highly-textured and quite sharp. We kept our skin in good shape with end-of-day handwashing (you don't want chalk on your burrito, but you definitely don't want it drying out your fingertips), assiduous sanding, and nightly applications of climbing salve.

The Takeaway
We were in Hueco Tanks for almost two weeks, giving us enough time to get used to the climbing style and full experience the enchanting beauty of the area. With eight days of climbing and four days of rest, we were able to send projects, push the grades, cruise classics, play around (approach shoe double clutch dynos on the deceptively tricky V3 El Burro come to mind) and see fingerprints of the past through the rock art and pictographs. Climbing history truly intertwines with human history in Hueco Tanks, and we recommend you visit for at least a week to give yourself enough time to explore and experience.

One of the many pieces of rock art found throughout the park

Resources
Hueco Hacienda
Hueco Tanks Mountain Hut
Hueco Rock Ranch
Texas Park and Wildlife Department
Wagon Wheel Coopt

By Emma Blauer

We opened our new Annex location at 28 Main Street three months ago. Now we're looking at what's changed, what's stayed the same, and what's next for our new building for old gear.

It was just over three years ago when Rock and Snow decided to make the semi-regular used gear swaps hosted by the store a permanent fixture. Finding the little Annex space around the corner—a bony 400 square feet, with stooped ceilings and pinched wall space—was easy, and the original Annex opened for business late April 2013. The first items sold were a jacket and a belay device. Fast forward two years and the Annex has outgrown its small confines. In April 2015, we fenced off a bit of parking lot and broke ground on what would become the new Annex building. Construction flew by and a quick six months later, the first week of December, we moved into the new space. 

Two days before we opened

The Annex these days

The biggest change is that we've nearly quadrupled our floor space, going from just over 400 square feet to 1600. In addition to more floor space, we also have an art gallery's worth of wall space to display shoes, climbing shoes, packs, and seasonal items. When we moved from the old Annex to the new space, we inventoried every single item by hand, and we saw that we had over 100 bags! Now, instead of being piled together, they are displayed on the wall for easier browsing. We also have a dedicated storage space on our second floor, something we didn't have in the old space. Since we've opened the new building, we've added 114 new consignors to our system, and a total of 2609 new items, ranging from tank tops to 8000 meter suits, carabiners to crash pads.

What hasn't changed about the Annex is that we still run on a consignment model, selling new and used gear on behalf of consignors. As always, we are accepting seasonally appropriate clothes, shoes, and gear that is in good shape. The consignment terms also remain the same: consignors receive 75% of the cost of their item in store credit as soon as the item sells, or they can still opt to receive a check for 60% of the item cost. Recently we've begun a weekly mailing to alert those who have sold items that week, so people are more connected to the process. If you consign with us, check your inbox on Thursday, you might have some new credit to use at the Annex or at the main store!

We strive to make community-building a big part of what we do at Rock and Snow, and we're hoping to see that reflected in the new Annex. We want to continue to introduce beginners to climbing, skiing, hiking, running, and more by providing good deals on gear and the knowledge needed to get started. Going forward, we also plan to host the occasional event here—think parties and pop-up sales—just as we host events at our main store. We're also going to make some new Annex-specific t-shirt designs, so keep your ear to the ground for news and updates. Whether you've already been to the new store or didn't even know we had an consignment shop, if you've been climbing for 30 years or just started last week, thanks for being a part of what we do. We can't wait to see what the next three (or 45) years bring.

By Emma Blauer

Fritz Weissner was practicing modern climbing techniques in the Gunks before chocolate chip cookies were invented, and, like chocolate chip cookies, the Gunks engender a certain homey nostalgia in many climbers. Not many American climbing areas have such a rich and storied history, populated with an inspiring cast of ironclad men and women who pushed the sport forward year after year. Not many climbing areas offer as much uber-fun terrain for the absolute beginner, and our human-scaled ridge of quartzite conglomerate has inspired countless climbers to commit their free time to climbing. Climbers with a long-running attachment to the area have seen the numbers of climbers increase each year and, along with that, the advent of bolted anchors and rappels, the closing of road parking and Camp Slime, and more. Every change to climbing, camping, and access has sent ripples into the climbing community, both in person and online.

Rock and Snow employee Justin pulling through the roofs of Yellow Wall (5.11)

Probably the loudest conversation this year surrounds the closing of the New York State DEC Multi-Use Area on May 1. A primitive campground with no amenities or running water, the MUA provided out-of-towners with free, no-reservations camping. The opening of the Samuel F. Pryor III Shawangunk Gateway Campground last fall (aka the American Alpine Club campground, aka the AAC campground) gave the state justification to close the difficult-to-maintain MUA. At first consideration, this has the potential to greatly increase the price of a weekend of climbing for out-of-town climbers. Luckily, there are a couple of free options within 30 minutes of the Mohonk Preserve. The Shawangunk Ridge State Forest MUA and the Hemlock Ridge MUA both offer free primitive camping on a first come, first serve basis. Please review the area-specific rules and regulations on their websites before camping. There's also always the Walmart option: clear it with a manager and you can catch some shut-eye in your car in their parking lot. Because climbers are a resourceful and adaptive bunch, we have no doubt that people will find a way to enjoy their time here after the campground is closed.

With peregrine closures cordoning off a larger slice of cliff than ever, we've been looking elsewhere for start-of-the-season leads and potential projects. As we've started our season by knocking the cobwebs off on well-protected cruisers like Oscar and Charley (5.7, and you can link it to Shockley's Ceiling) and Middle Earth (5.6), we've turned to Gunks Apps' Trapps and Nears Apps to find newer and more obscure lines in less-traveled areas like Sleepy Hollow. The apps' crystal-clear photos of the cliff and thorough route descriptions have turned up some plum-looking projects, and the ticklist and sort-by grade and protection rating features make it easy to keep track of everything. The more analogue-minded will be happy to hear the the classic "grey Dick"--Dick Williams' unimpeachable guide to the Trapps—is back in print, now in a fetching blue, and will be available for purchase at the shop soon.

The new Trapps guide

Finally, not all of the big changes are centered around climbing and the preserve. Since the end of last climbing season, three new restaurants have opened in New Paltz: Huckleberry, Schatzi's, and the Parish. The first, a cozy bi-level bar with board games, cocktails, and a straightforwardly delicious order-at-the-bar menu opened in December. Owned by a couple from Brooklyn, Huckleberry has been a prime spot for post-climbing drinks for us here at the shop. Now that the weather is warming up nicely, we've also been enjoying their patio.

Schatzi's is the little sister of a Poughkeepsie-based German-American restaurant by the same name. They offer a huge tap selection and German-ish pub food. And, parked right between the main store and the new Annex, it is a prime spot for us to grab a mid-shift lunch or a quick beer after work. Finally, Water Street Market's Parish, a New Orleans-style spot with excellent cocktails and a deck with an unbeatable view of Skytop, rounds out the new selections.

Out-of-towner Melissa gets a sewing lesson on Ken's Crack (5.7)

As we reflect on how much has changed since Fritz Weissner first brought his hemp rope here, what strikes us is how much has stayed the same. Something—the quality of rock, Millbrook's proud face, the friendly posture of the ridge—compelled him to try to get the rope up there, and that same thing compels us. The rock still seems to invite climbers to balance on its quartzite crystals or pull fun moves between perfect roof jugs. Everything else attendant to climbing—camping, eating, parking, rappelling—might have to change to support the ever-growing numbers who come here. As other climbing areas across the country struggle to regulate crowds and access, we can be thankful that Gunks climbing has been carefully preserved and stewarded into the 21st century.

How the Gunks Volunteer Trail Crew is Changing the Way You Approach Climbing

Dick Williams has been climbing in the Gunks since 1958, and when you visit his office you’ll find signs of it. Pictures of Williams and friends out climbing dot the walls, huge bookshelves taking up the majority of the wall’s real estate are filled with old guidebooks, rows of CDs containing Gunks photos, and stacks upon stacks of bound journals and logbooks documenting everything from the area’s crags to trail work, which was what had brought me to his doorstep. I wanted a peek at his rumored photo gallery, which he started in 2005, and his logbook, which he started in 2002 listing all the work the Volunteer Trail Crew had done.

He pulls out a photocopied booklet of 12 oversized pages from his Trail Work Log, and hands me the stack to look through. Meticulously documented, with ruler-straight lines drawn in, this log tracks not only the volunteers that came out on which days and for how long between 2002 and today, but which areas the crew worked on, accidents sustained and man-hours put in. 

I look through the pages a little awe-stuck at the sheer time it took to document the work done, not to mention the actual hours of manual labor. Williams sits next to me and looks on as I flip through his work, occasionally stopping me to add and note here or there. He finally sits back, adjusts his glasses with a kind of proud revelry, and then looks up. “I just like to document things,” he says.

When Williams first arrived on the scene, a busy weekend would spike to about 40 or 50 climbers, but typically there were few more than a dozen. That’s a stark contrast to today where you sometimes find lines of climbers at the base of popular routes on busy weekend days.

The fruits of labor. Even after the first day of trail work on the High E staircase in May 2013, you can start to see progress. Photo: Dick Williams. 

Another difference: As Gunks climbing was developing in those early days, climber didn’t typically walk along the base of the cliff to access the routes like we do today. The cliffline was overgrown with vegetation; it was nearly impossible to do so. Rather, climbers would head straight up from the carriage road picking their way through the talus to the route they wanted to climb. Then they would climb the route to the top and walk off the backside, picking up the carriage road to loop all the way back around again.

But as climbers in those early days started to cut timesaving corners by hacking their own trail along the base, the environment along the cliffline began to suffer. “Over the years the trail along the cliff base got wider and wider and then erosion began,” says Williams.  It was something Williams noted in those earlier days, but it wasn’t until 1999/2000, when he sold Rock and Snow to Rich Gottlieb, that he had enough time to commit to working on the trails.

“It was time to act, time to actually do something constructive,” says Williams as he pulls out a guide with route and area names highlighted in different colors. “I began by drawing up a proposal for the Mohonk Preserve with a plan to restore the entire Trapps and Near Trapps,” says Williams as he points to the highlighted names in the book, “showing areas on immediate repair (in red), areas that will need repair (blue) and areas that are good for the time being (green).”

A series of shots from trail work done on the V3 trail in 2006. Photo: Dick Williams.

He also listed other projects for the Preserve: areas that needed retaining walls or major leveling, areas that need protection of exposed tree roots, areas that just needed repairs. It started to snowball into a much larger project: to construct, repair or rebuild most of the existing approach trails, and to close off many of the maverick trails up to the base of the cliff. The idea was simple: funnel everyone approaching or descending from the cliff to one of these designated and well-maintained trails and reduce erosion and damage to the cliffline environment. For this proposal, the Mohonk Preserve awarded Williams the Thom Scheuer Stewardship Award in 2001, an award of which Williams was proud, and for good reason. This proposed work turned into real work done by Williams alongside a huge crew of volunteers over the years. It changed the way climbers approach Gunks crags.

Work began in 2000 and Williams’ meticulous documentation skills came in handy as he tracked not only progress, but also the volunteers that came out to help and man-hours put in. In the early years of the trail crew, tools were limited. They only had ropes, pulleys and pry bars, so they couldn't move big stones. But after the first year, the AMC donated a grip hoist and this was a game changer; that and more manpower allowed the crew to move some incredibly huge pieces of stone. Many of the stones average about 500 to 1000 pounds, many of which are one or two tons. One stone below Three Doves that the crew moved was 8,000 pounds, and they moved another 8000-pounder that was in the way to Madame G’s (Madame Grunnebaum’s Wulst). According to Williams, the largest stone moved to date, was just last month when they started the new trail to Arrow. The big stone you can see at the base weighs in at about 10,000 pounds, and took four grip hoists and very good rigging management to accomplish.

The new Arrow Trail begins. Here Mark Arrow, Carol Yang, Williams, Claude Suhl, working on moving/placing a 10,000 pound stone. 2016. Photo: Stu Soycher

The finished product. This 10,000-pound baby is the largest stone moved to-date. 2013. Photo: Stu Soycher

More equipment and more volunteers meant more projects. By 2007, the crew had repaired most of the entire base of the Trapps and Nears. By 2010, they were well into major rebuilds of staircases, beginning with the Middle Earth trail, including the area over to and up to Red Pillar.  2011: Never Never Land area, and V3 trail and base area including the Wild Horses/Raunchy area. 2012 turned into a beast year when Williams decided it was time to tackle the Mac Wall. The crew built a new staircase and restored the entire area from Three Pines over to Tough Shift, which according to Williams was in horrible condition. Then in 2013, Williams decided it was time to get started on what turned out to be the longest project, rebuilding the High Exposure staircase and reconstructing the base of the cliffs from The Last Will Be First all the way over to the High E rappel base. That project, in its entirety, took two years.

Before the High E Trail work. 2013. Photo: Dick Williams. 

Before the High E Trail work. 2013. Photo: Dick Williams. 

After the High E Trail work. Reconstruction work completed at base Directississima and of Hi E rappel. 2014. Photo: Dick Williams.

High E Trail Work Project in August 2014. Al Limone, filling in the paver gaps at base of Hi E rappel, Rick Cronk in back. Photo: Stu Soycher

Last year, the crew tackled the construction of a stone staircase up to Madame G’s to replace a dirt trail. This is one of the few areas they have returned to a second time over the 16 years, and the struggle here was finding the stones. “There was no boulder field near by so we had to harvest every stone from along the carriage road, haul/drag them to the base of the trail and then haul each one up to be placed,” says Williams. It was the most difficult task to date, and took a year.

High E Trail Work Project, moving a monster stone, Mark Arrow, and Rick Cronk. 2013. Photo: Dick Williams. 

The complicated styles of rigging, moving and hauling giant stones is time-consuming and labor intensive; occasionally there were injuries, 2010 being to worst year with broken ankle and twisted knee. Hundreds of man-hours go into these projects. In 2015 alone, Williams recorded 1,146 total man-hours. Disregarding 2000 and 2001, which Williams did not record, the volunteer trail crew has logged 9,415 man-hours to date, and that number is going up. By the end of the year, and the end of the Arrow trail project, the crew will likely surpass 10,000 hours. That adds up to about 13 months of 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week worth of labor.

High E Trail Work Project, moving a pretty big stone, Claude Suhl on the grip hoist. 2013. Photo: Stu Soycher 

While Williams has been the organizer over the years, he attributes the volunteers as the driving force behind all these projects. “I have so many great memories of great work with the greatest bunch of people you can imagine,” says Williams. “They are supremely dedicated and talented, the Gunks are very lucky to have them.”

There are too many to name, and an incredible amount of hours volunteered. But the work done stands as a reminder to the thousands of hours of hard labor. So next time you’re hiking to the base of the cliff, admire the stone steps, take a look at the base of the cliff and notice all the hard work right below you feet.  And if you’re feeling really good-natured, buy the trail crew a beer.