Adirondack Sport Climbing: Holy Shit! It Does Exist.

Earlier this year I finally had the chance to check out the summit cliff on Snowy Mountain.  After years of seeing that hot climber chick (local hard woman Emily Drinkwater) on the cover of the original Adirondack Rock every time I opened the guidebook, enough was enough.  I guess the only excuse for not going sooner was the approach.  This entails hiking 2000+ feet of elevation gain over almost 4 miles.  Matt and I made the trek in two hours flat, and we were booking it.  He had the rope, and I had the rack...which is just a bunch of quickdraws.  The hike really isn't that bad and would almost be worth it just to summit and enjoy the views from the fire tower.  Another cool feature of Snowy is that it is one of few Adirondack crags that offers only sport climbing.  I will say that you can't clip bolts in a more beautiful place.  The climbing is just below the 3899' summit with views of Indian Lake, miles of rolling hills and the high peaks off in the distant north.  It is a first class location.  There are a total of 8 pitches of climbing, 5 of these are pure sport, one requires one 4" piece and one has a short A0 bolt ladder leading to more free climbing above.  The last route is a long slab climb below the summit headwall.  On one hand, its a bummer that the cliff isn't more developed.  On the other hand it is the perfect amount of climbs to do in one day while still having time to do the hiking and explore the fire tower.

High Peaks from the fire tower

 To the far left are the warm ups.  There are three climbs all around 5.8 and around 50 feet long.  Immediately, I was like, "this is fun".  The rock up there is super featured by Adirondack standards.  Really positive, lippy crimps, pockets and huecos make for great holds.  I'd recommend anchoring packs and belayers at all times.  We used low bolts and and an old Bong piton we found.  The grassy ledge the climbs start on isn't that wide and its slippery and steep in spots.  Slipping would be a bad idea and potentially fatal.

Matt getting psyched

 I think it was mid to late may when we made this trip.  The black flies were out and about in lower elevations but we were totally bug free up there.  Later on, in August, I returned by myself and had to sprint off the summit before I was eaten alive.  The bugs can be truly heinous up there...I mean the worst ever, so plan accordingly.

Bong

Warm ups

The logical next step in our progression was to attempt freeing the aid ladder route.  This was pretty hilarious and also pathetic.  If you can dyno 6 feet to a micro crimper and do a one arm pull up off it there is a good chance you still won't do these moves.  Anyways, the aid is not a big deal and links up really cool climbing on a 120' route called Buckwheat.

Redneck on a Rope

Next it was time for the main event.  The area's classic line.  Redneck on a Rope is a 180' sport climb that goes at 10d.  The first 40' are this offwidth crack that leads to the top of a pillar.  Having a big cam is a good idea as the climbing is not super hard, but hard enough where most people would want some pro in.  From here is pretty sustained climbing up a steep face that seems to just go on forever.  It's a great climb, especially if you are into thin face climbing.  We both fell off once at the crux on our attempts.  Its one of those cruxes that is, in my opinion, just kind of dumb.  Basically, you run out of holds and have to pull a move off your fingernails.  Its just a blankish section in an otherwise well featured face.  Even if that one section actually detracts from the route, the rest is classic and reason enough for me to hump back up and try it again someday.

me

We ended the day by climbing Vertebrae, which ended up being my favorite route up on Snowy.  Its also a convient way to avoid the climber's path and top out right next to the fire tower.  This lets you link up the hiking trail to walk out.  Vertebrae is a two pitch slab climb.  Lower angle than the other climbs and with different features.  The first pitch is really cool and unusual slab moves through overlaps and between good holds.  Cerebral style climbing.  The second pitch is a bit steeper and has these spinal column features that I have never encountered elsewhere.  Sometimes they are pinches, or slopers or even jugs.

The interesting part about the climb was that it became progressively mossier the higher I climbed.  The line is a natural drainage of sorts for the mountain.  The top was super green, wet and furry.  Never a good combination.  There were just enough clean spots to climb through.  I think someone did a little in situ cleaning at some point recently.  In fact the second pitch could really use a little TLC from a wire brush, or better yet, a pressure washer.  On the other hand, digging a bolt hanger out of a moss patch adds to the adventure a little bit.  This is a link to a video I shot on my phone of Matt topping out.

Matt tops out and cracks me up

So this post is really just a short trip report to let people know about Snowy.  If you're up in the Adirondacks on a week long climb trip, I would say this cliff is worthy of one of those days. Maybe someone will get super motivated and look for some new lines up there?