Here, I'm going to log the information about the pictures that you see in the gallery on the Gunks.

These photos are during my climbing trip with AJ and Pablo to the Shawanagunks, a cliffside of quartzite well known for rock climbing because of its "bomber" (bomberproof) rock. Small holds here are often really something you can clamp onto to. Often better than holds in a rock gym because the holds are cleaned pretty often (by the environment).

Tom Grace, our guide from EMS, took us to two spots over the course of the day on the north side of the cliff, about 3 and 5 minutes from the Überfall (supposedly "waterfall" in German). In the morning half we climbed a 5.5 route called Jackie (Williams #82) which has a 5.6-7 variation (maybe Williams #83, "Classic") more to the right.

Later in the afternoon, I asked Tom to show us climbs that would challenge our technique, so he brought us to two routes: "Travels with Charlie" (Williams #139, 5.8-) and another route directly to the south "Gaston" (Williams #138, 5.8). Travels with Charlie works on climbing at the intersection of two planes, and the other route worked more in traversals. AJ and Pablo, having mostly completed only 5.5 - 5.6 routes before, were challenged but both completed Travels with Charlie. Tom fixed another easier 5.6 route later in the day but both me and Pablo were unable to climb this last route.

We were also witness to a rather bad accident as we saw another climber above us on a 5.7 route ("Strictly from Nowhere", Williams #140, 5.7) fall about 30 feet to smack into the cliffslide and bruise his ankle. That was the end of his day, and we saw him limb out onto the Mohonk Preserves ranger's truck. We quit soon after as we had run over time as well.

Find your best route to follow at the gunks with the Trapps route finder! Cool gadget. http://www.gunks.com/rock/rock_frame.htm

knmnyn@knmnyn.com | | All pictures and text are © copyrighted 1996-2001 by Min-Yen Kan | Generated on: Tue Jan 1 22:56:03 2002