Monthly Archives: May 2010

Grade IX Day?

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cannon_3_5 My quadriceps keep getting more and more sore and it’s making me feel old. Marathon days are fun in a masochistic way, and when Kevin Johnson pitched his Cannon idea to me I was immediately interested. I don’t get to climb there that often, and despite Cannon’s reputation for loose rock (it’s all true) there are some amazing granite pitches.

We met at about 9:30 Wednesday evening at a park and ride near Northampton, Ma. After a long 3.5 hour ride through the most horrendous (amazing) lightning I’ve ever seen we arrived at the pullout near the north end of Cannon Cliff.  Instant bivy and 3.5 hours later we were on the move again.

Kevin’s plan was to climb three full-length grade III Cannon routes in a day. A few years ago he pretty casually climbed Moby Grape, III 5.8+ and Vertigo, III 5.9+ in a day and he wanted to see what it was like to add one more to the list. As he was unfamiliar with other routes on the cliff and we wanted to keep the grade fairly moderate for the third route we decided we would choose either Union Jack (bad decision) or Moonshadow (maybe also a bad decision), which are both 5.9.

We planned to do the climbs we were familiar with first and finish with the route we hadn’t done yet.  After the fact I see that we may have wanted to sandwich the new one between the two familiar routes. Moby Grape, the most popular of the three routes was definitely going to be our first climb. That way we could beat the crowds (definitely a good decision).

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At 4:50 a.m. I heard Kevin moving around and semi-unwillingly arose from my sleeping bag. This was my second pre-5 a.m. start in two days and with only 3.5 hours sleep I was like the walking dead. We racked up, packed our little packs and headed up the talus for the first time. As you would expect, there were no crowds on Moby Grape at 5:30 a.m. I lead the whole route and we were on top at about 9:10 a.m. I am ashamed to say that I’ve never climbed this route to the top, and it’s something that I plan on doing over and over again in the future. This is one of the best 5.8′s in the northeast, and one of the best long 5.8′s in the United States. The rock is a bit shattered in places, but for the most part it’s solid and really fun climbing on God’s own stone – tacky fine-grained white granite.

cannon_3_1 35 minutes later we were back in the parking lot for a short break, a snack and a water refill. We were warmed up and wide awake now. By 10:30 we were on the first pitch of Vertigo and enjoying the sunny weather (but not the black flys). Kevin lead for the whole route and we were on top at 2:10. Vertigo has some really killer climbing on the lower portion of the route (granite that’s good even for Yosemite). There is however, as I found out at this point, a good reason for the rappel bolts after the Half Moon pitch. The upper 450′ of the route is loose, really loose. A single person with prybar and a twelve pack could have the time of their life trundling large blocks on this route. Not super desirable, but it’s good to do things once just to make sure, right?

After experiencing the upper pitches of Vertigo we decided we weren’t too keen on playing the numbers game on the same upper sections of the cliff again with another route in that vicinity. Union Jack climbs the same upper section as Vertigo and Moonshadow climbs allegedly solid (everything is relative there) rock to the top. We settled for a grade II, the very classic Whitney-Gilman Ridge.

At 3:30, after a loose and longer approach (there seems to have been substantial rockfall recently on the face right of the Black Dike) We climbed the Whitney-G without a whole lot of conversation. Fatigue seemed to settling in a bit for both of us. I felt my strength waning and was definitely getting goofy. The third and final descent, which is longer and steeper on that side of the cliff, was utter punishment. Both Kevin and I felt pretty good after two routes, but the third absolutely wiped us out.

At 6:30 p.m. we hopped in the car and headed down I-93 and back to Northampton, psyched about our day but a wee bit stiff from a lot of movement. Several days later I’m still hobbling around a bit, and walking downhill is pretty uncomfortable.  And my neck is a pock-marked, bloody mess from the black flies. So, do three grade III’s (actually two III’s and a II) add up to Grade IX? Well, not really. Maybe grade V+ or VI, with a whole lot of pretty fun moderate granite climbing.

The Lost City

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lost-city-cracks4 No, I’m not talking about Atlantis.

A couple of years ago I got into a heated debate with a housemate of mine about whether Lost City should be a “locals only” area. Earlier that day he had seen a guide friend of mine there with a client. It frustrated him that guides would decide to take clients climbing at Lost City. He felt it was a “locals only” spot and that it was taboo to take outsiders there. However, when I asked him how he’d learned about the climbs there he replied that a “local” friend had shown him. And when I asked him how long he had lived in the area the response was a meager three years. I told him that my guide friend’s client has owned a house in the area nearly twice that long, and that she was climbing in the Gunks back when my housemate was still in his early teens wondering when he’d get to shave for the first time and what to do once he got it up. So who’s a local now? To me the answer seems muddy at best.

In fact I could care less.  I’ll gladly take the time to show any one of my out of town friends around Lost City. Hell, it might be the first place I take them. The climbing is fabulous – gymnastic, crimpy and sustained. There’s no road beneath you, and you get to hop from rock to rock so that you don’t harm the most amazingly large, green beds of moss.

lost-city-cracks2 If you want sustained climbs you definitely won’t find them in the Trapps. With the exception of the Workout Wall in the Nears, sustained climbing can’t be found there either. Go to Millbrook looking for sustained climbs and you’ll need to change your underwear afterward. Lost City, however, has sustained climbs galore, many of which you can toprope or lead(woohoo!).

Some of the locals have tried to keep Lost City to themselves. It is, however, decidedly not a local’s only crag. On crowded weekends it’s busy with “nonlocals” too (damn, how did they ever find the place?). Not as busy as the Trapps, but as busy as the fragile ecosystem above and below the cliff can probably handle. It’s no secret either; you can see it from the road, and the High Peterskill trail parallels the cliff from below. Jeez, there’s a parking lot with a flat trail that goes straight there in under 15 minutes (and a ranger who’ll give you directions).

A long time ago the Mohonk Preserve decided that they didn’t want a guidebook published to Lost City. For better or worse the local climbing community has acquiesced to the preserve’s request. That’s not to say no one’s written a guidebook to the area. This just isn’t true. There’s more than one local who could probably furnish a publisher with pretty detailed guidebook to Lost City tomorrow if they felt it was a good idea.

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Myself, I’ll live without a guidebook to the area. Some of my best experiences in the Gunks have involved being shown new climbs by other people who are more familiar with the cliff. More than one of those people have become my best friends. As I started to think about writing a post about Lost City I did a little internet research. You know what I found? Not much. Mostly I found forum bitch sessions on sites like rockclimbing.com about how unfriendly the locals are about their precious cliff. Now I can’t get it out of my head, and it’s under my skin. I’ve never been a smug unfriendly local to visiting climbers, and most of the people I know aren’t that way either.

Not having a published guidebook to the Lost City is a blessing. It forces us as climbers to do a few very important things: to be friendly and open-minded and to explore. Climbing is about making friends. And, the things that most likely attracted us to climbing were the sense of independence that it gave us, the wonder of exploration and the discovery of new places and things.

Climbing is like an art or a trade. There’s some information in books and on the internet, but most things you learn get passed on to you by someone who’s generally wiser and more experienced at climbing than you are . It’s a word-of-mouth skill that you acquire over years, not overnight and definitely not over the internet. I definitely don’t sit at home polishing my climbing skills and knowledge in front of my laptop, that’s for sure. I don’t think there’s a climber out there who’s learned everything they know about the sport from books and other media sources. The beauty is in the process and the interaction. You make friends, find new climbs, appreciate the outdoors and realize that you have it really good. And good it is. Lost City is a very fine crag. Oh the Gunks! How I love thee.