Mountain Skills Climbing Guides and Gunks Rock Climbing Instruction
Gunks Rock Climbing – 845-853-5450 – www.mountainskills.biz – Guiding the Gunks and BeyondArchive for Gunks Climbing
Amazing Gunks climbing weather
The weather here has been amazing this week. It is the last real push for summer. Fall officially starts on Monday and the leaves have been changing more and more each day. The 10 day trend is calling for more of the same so if you can get a day off now is the time to get up here.
Doug Ferguson climbing Cold Turkeys pitch 1 5.8
Gunks top rope building courses and guides climbing hard
Brendan Mealia climbing Bragg-Hatch 5.10+++
The weekend went off even with the rain and high humidity. Brendan Mealia just missed the on-sight of Bragg-Hatch 5.10+++. He is climbing really strong right now and it is fun to watch him go for it. I climbed with Mark Folsom the other day. Both of us got on routes we had not climbed before. Mark on-sighted Protorsilex 5.9+ and I did a no star classic on-sight with lots of exposure call Cold Turkey’s 5.9-.
Top rope anchor building
Mark Folsom onsighting Proctor-Silex 5.9+
I also got to do some more Top Rope Anchor courses during the week. I like to show people how to use the friction hitch back up as well for rappelling in this course. Once you build the anchor up top you still have to get down safely, so it’s nice to be able to get over the edge of the cliff backed up. This is a popular course for us and is really easy to teach new or experienced climbers a quick and efficient way to set up top rope anchors.
Brendan Mealia climbing Bragg-Hatch 5.10+++
Building three point anchors and rappelling
Lots of Gunks Climbing Instruction
Bonitqou Crag 5.4
Gelsa pitch 2 5.4
With great weather all week and Labor Day weekend Mountain Skills Climbing Guides were busy on the cliffs. I did a lot of Learn To Lead courses and also had a great day with Noah climbing all the routes on the Arrow Wall. Wes Converse and Brendan Mealia headed up to Rumney in New Hampshire to clip bolts for a couple of days with Wes red-pointing 5.12a/b and Brendan red-pointing 5.10d. John Mackey and our friend Gabi went to the Wind Rivers Range in Wyoming for a week. I’ll get some photos from him and a trip report this week. Mark Folsom got rave reviews from a client on his own Top Rope Anchor building class. The leaves are already starting to change in the higher elevations and a real feel of fall is at hand. Brendan and Ralph will be headed to New Jersey this week to guide on some of the rock in the Delaware Water Gap. Things are really starting to shape up well for everyone and I am proud of our guides traveling to different areas to climb and guide.
Peterskill Top Rope Building, Rappelling, and Rock Climbing
Building top rope anchors and rappelling safely
I had taken Daniel up to the Peterskill in the Minnewaska State Park Preserve about a month ago to teach him top rope anchors, rappelling, and knots. Daniel is getting ready to start college next week and really wanted to be able to hit the cliffs at the Gunks and to climb knowing he was doing everything correct.
Bronto Plater 5.6 Peterskill
This time we went back to the Peterskill to see if Daniel could do everything he had been taught on his own. Daniel had been practicing his knots at home in Long Island on his piano bench. He built two point anchors from his bench, equalized everything and imagined he was at the top of the cliff ready to rappel and climb. Thetime he had to digest everything he had learned really helped him be efficient and clean with his anchors and transitions into safe rappels and on to bottom managed climbing sites. Daniel really did a great job and if he focuses on college like he did his anchoring skills he’s going to really excel at college. Good luck Daniel.
On a other note, Roger and I did a road clean up in the Catskill Mountains by an ice climbing area we like to frequent during the winter.
Adopt A Highway in the Catskills Roger Ennis
Adopt A Highway in the Catskills Doug Ferguson
Frost Valley YMCA at the Gunks
We took out the Frost Valley YMCA to the Mohonk Preserve to climb on Friday and Saturday. Friday we went to the Trapps and climbed all the Uberfall routes with the kids and counselors. On Saturday they climbed at the Near Trapps.
Boston 5.5 The Trapps
The kids already knew how to tie the figure 8 knot, lowering correctly, belaying, and the correct commands for starting a climb and finishing a climb.
Frost Valley kids at The Trapps
These kids are a real treat. They are all excited about climbing and respecting nature. The counselors really do a good job keeping them under control and minding their manners during the day. We all enjoy taking these summer camps climbing. It’s fun to interact with the kids and to show them the things we like about being outside.
