Mountain Skills Climbing Guides and Gunks Rock Climbing Instruction
Gunks Rock Climbing – 845-853-5450 – www.mountainskills.biz – Guiding the Gunks and BeyondArchive for June, 2008
Great June
This has been a interesting month for Mountain Skills Climbing Guides. We have been doing self rescue courses at MPHC down in the city on Monday evenings and just this past Monday I did a power point presentation about the Gunk’s featuring photographer and long time guide of Mountain Skills, Matt Calardo. Matt’s photos are amazing and if you would like to check them out just visit his site at www.mattcalardo.com. Matt is also doing the photo shoot for Shape Magazine for the guide service this week.
Besides working with the great groups we have climb with us we also get great characters. Roy is by far the most interesting character around. With his many stories about Peter Croft, his Karate Dojo, and his travels, Roy is a real treat to climb with. He wanted to climb High Exposure 5.6+ the other day to remember how crazy he was back when he used to lead it.
Roy on the High Exposure ledge 5.6+ pitch 2
We had a great time with no people around and finishing up and down in under 2 hours.
Some Rock Climbing Photos
Brendan Mealia on Resistance 5.10c Lost City Crag
Lost City Crag with Skytop View
Domenic
I got this call last month from a guy in the city who wanted to climb. No problem. Domenic wanted to start training for a climb in the Tetons and had some ice climbing and mountaineering experience under his belt already. No problem. Domenic is also totally 100% blind. Hummm. No problem. I picked Domenic up at the Poughkeepsie Train Station around 8:33 am and headed to Rock and Snow to get some gear before blasting up to the Trapps. Domenic really wanted to get in some multi-pitch action to start getting accustomed to the systems of lead belaying, cleaning gear, transitions at belay stations and rappelling with a friction hitch backup while simu-rappelling. Actually those last four things are systems I wanted to teach him so when he gets to his destination he makes it up and down efficiently and safely. We started the day on Black Fly 5.5 and Bunny 5.4. Domenic had no problems with either climb and we both started to get used to the way we communicate with each other about movement and body position. Note: If you ever want to learn how to get better at describing exactly what you see and how to get to it, hang out with someone who has little to no sight. By the end of the day you will reevaluate the way you describe directions to people. We headed over to do Betty 5.3 and get Domenic’s multi-pitch fix in. I broke the pitches up so I could watch every move Domenic had to do during the climb. Never once did he have a problem with gear removal or breaking down 3 point anchors at belay stations. Once we made it to the top of Betty it was time to Simu-rap two times back to the ground. I told Domenic if he ever got pinned down in bad weather and had to get off the Grand quickly this would be a good skill to learn. Once again no problem with either rappels. Domenic and I both learned a lot of skills today. I am starting to realize it’s the people I meet that makes me have fun during the day. Yea I love climbing. Yea I love running around outside, but I also really enjoy the characters I run into while doing these things. I’m not sure why I didn’t take any pictures. I guess I didn’t feel like I needed to. What a day.
Top rope building and learning to lead courses
Nick on pitch 2 Andrew 5.4 The Trapps
Nick at pitch 3 belay Andrew 5.4 The Trapps
I’ve been going out all week with Nick from Harlem to teach him how to build top rope anchors and learning to lead. With a full week of teaching anchoring skills Nick is going to become the master at anchors and have a really good foundation for leading trad routes here at the Gunks. I love to teach. It is so fun to watch someone with little to no skills in the morning bark out master point, BFK, redundancy, and equalization by 12:00pm. Nick is a quick learner so I decided to climb some multi-pitch routes to cement different anchors a climber would see and rappelling with friction hitch back ups for safety. Here is Nick on the exsposed Andrew 5.4 pitch 2 belay area. Hangin it all out in space and trusting the gear.
