Climbing Archives

Chapel Pond Slab

A rock climber could spend a lifetime exploring the Adirondack Park. The guidebook Adirondack Rock describes more than 1,900 routes (and the number is growing) on cliffs and crags scattered throughout the region. By Phil Brown

Eagle Slide

Perhaps you’ve heard of Richard Louv’s best-selling book Last Child in the Woods, in which he laments that modern kids grow up cut off from the natural world. By Phil Brown

Bouldering at Nine Corners

What goes up must come down. But not always easily. Take Tower of Power, a spicy, twenty-five-foot route at the Nine Corners bouldering ground in the southern Adirondacks. By Alan Wechsler

Poke-O-Moonshine slab climb

Whenever I drove past Poke-O-Moonshine Mountain and saw rock climbers clinging to the cliffs, often hundreds of feet above the ground, I used to say to myself, “Look at those nuts.” By Phil Brown

Climbing the Trap Dike

We started up the trail a little after 9 a.m., but the real adventure began about noon, after we had hiked to Avalanche Lake and stood gazing up at the Trap Dike, the famous gash in the cliffs of Mount Colden. By Phil Brown

Whiteface slide

I’ve been here before, so I know we’ll get out of this mess eventually, but I suspect Sue and Jeff are starting to have doubts. By Phil Brown

Rogers Rock

Tom Rosecrans has climbed all over the world, but he’s most at home on Rogers Rock overlooking Lake George. By Phil Brown

Climbing Wallface

I’m lying in bed at 4:45 a.m. The alarm hasn’t gone off yet, but I won’t be going back to sleep. I’m climbing Wallface today. By Phil Brown

Sunrise Mountain Slab

I met Jim Lawyer and Jeremy Hass at a pull-off on Route 86 in Wilmington Notch, not far from Whiteface Mountain. By Alan Wechsler

The frozen steep

This is a piece about ice climbing. I’ll tell you what I know, how it’s done, when it’s done. I’ll explain all the pointy tools and where people do it. By Don Mellor

Gothics slide climb

This story starts in 1896. That year, on Aug. 20, Newell Martin and a companion, Milford Hathaway, ascended the vast rock cirque on the South Face of Gothics—no ropes, no helmets, no pitons, nothing at all to protect them from a deadly fall. By Phil Brown

Bouldering near McKenzie Pond

One thing you can be sure of when you go bouldering: The names of the climbing routes (or “problems,” in the sport’s lingo) are going to be entertaining. By Alan Wechsler