{"id":899,"date":"2023-09-15T15:37:45","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T15:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/?p=899"},"modified":"2023-09-18T01:17:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T01:17:02","slug":"the-obscurist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/15\/the-obscurist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Obscurist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jonathan Baldassare \/ September 15th, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you ever just want to be left alone?\u00a0 To have your climbing experience to be had by just you and your partner?\u00a0 To get to a crag and not be greeted with any number of Patagonia clad gumbies with their pre-tied quads, belay glasses, and the ol\u2019 \u201chey, whatcha getting\u2019 on?\u201d question that may<\/em> be logisitical in nature\u2026 but also seems a touch like you\u2019re being sized up:\u00a0 I mean, how do they know you weren\u2019t planning to forge up an untouched area of the wall and put up a new route?\u00a0 They don\u2019t, and you weren\u2019t, but it\u2019s none of their business anyway\u2026but i digress.<\/em>.. Do you yearn to have your successes, and failures, far from the judging eyes of others?\u00a0 Well, what if I told you that right here in the Northeast, you could climb 5 star routes with high quality rock and have some of the best days of your climbing career without ever seeing another soul?\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s true.\u00a0 The catch?\u00a0 Well\u2026.as the saying goes \u201cthere\u2019s no such thing as free lunch,\u201d and there is usually a reason why these crags remain unknown to the majority of the climbing community.\u00a0 Here are a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most obvious reason is that the cliff is inconvenient, has a lengthy approach, or just plain sucks to get to.  You know Rumney?  Of course you do.  What\u2019s not to like about Rumney, except for the hordes of people (with their dogs and hammocks and belay certification cards)?  Well, 30 minutes from Rumney is Owl\u2019s Head in Olivarian Notch.  The cliff on Owl\u2019s Head is 600\u2019 tall, is mostly high quality granite, and has a ton of routes from 5.7 to 5.12 (heavy in the 5.10-5.11 range).  No one goes there, and all it takes to partake in this climber\u2019s playground is a long tick infested bushwhack through a swamp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Dallas” (5.11a, 6 pitches) is an incredible, well protected route up Owl’s Head in Olivarian Notch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes the locale is simply misrepresented by a guidebook author (who may or may not have ever climbed there).  Take, for example, Mt. Forist in Berlin.  A mountain shaped like an elephant with an impressive 600\u2019 slab shooting straight up from the center of town.  Up until just a few years ago, this cliff saw very little attention from climbers, as the only guidebook that mentions it states that the rock is ridden with soot from the smelly paper mill in town which blackens your hands and is slick to the touch.  Well, the paper mill is gone, along with its rotten egg smell and, truth be told, the rock is just black in color (no soot to be seen), it\u2019s loaded with moderates that are solid and fun to climb on, all mere minutes away from where you park your car.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or how about Wheeler Mountain, in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.  This impressively beautiful, and quiet, cliff has some routes that rival the best of what Cathedral Ledge has to offer.  And yet \u201cRock & Road\u201d (the climbing atlas of yesteryear) gives it a mere two stars out of five, while just a half mile away, it awards a 12\u2019 tall, lichen covered, roadside boulder (with one problem on it) four stars.  You can never really know about any given area without experiencing it firsthand, so go see for yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cindi following the last pitch of “Whine and Cheese” (5.11, 4 pitches) on Wheeler Mtn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What about the crags that aren\u2019t hard to get to?  Or misrepresented?  They are out there, hidden in the nooks and crannies of the northeast woodlands.  But, If you aren\u2019t keen on putting in the work of developing new areas, or know someone who is\u2026you may have to wait until it shows up on mountainproject, as these crags are in the early stages of development, and are kept secret from all but a trusted few.  These cliffs are not always choss-fests (though some are), and it is truly a special treat to spend time climbing and developing these yet-to-be-known locations, just you and your crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chino Mtn Club president Jon Garlough sending his new route at the once-secret Eagle Crag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Everyone talks about the same popular routes, and for good reason.  But over the years i have developed a penchant for the obscure.  Predator at the Orange Crush\u2026how about Predator on the Eaglet?  Recompense on Cathedral\u2026try The Great Book on Wheeler.  Atlantis on Whitehorse\u2026I think Across the Universe\/End of the Universe on Willard has it beat.  Fun, safe and convenient climbing may be just the ticket for most of us most of the time.  But for those willing to risk wasting a day of climbing now and again, just to roam through the woods looking for some little known spot; you are sure to find some true gems\u2026and best of all, you\u2019ll have the place all to yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jonathan Baldassare \/ September 15th, 2023 Do you ever just want to be left alone?\u00a0 To have your climbing experience to be had by just you and your partner?\u00a0 To get to a crag and not be greeted with any number of Patagonia clad gumbies with their pre-tied quads, belay glasses, and the ol\u2019[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanmountainadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}