Climbing at the Shawangunks

Ask any climber who lives in the Northeast about the "Gunks" and most will speak fondly of it, they might even "wax poetic" about it. This area, since it's discovery in the 1930s by the German Fritz Wiessner and Austrian Hans Kraus, has thousands of developed routes. One might compare it to Yosemite in California, indeed its cliffs are not near as tall, but the complexity of the rock and exclusive traditional routes make it just as challenging.

Of course all this was on top of my mind when I knew I would be working in the Catskill mountains, immediately northwest of the gunks. I underestimated my commitment to work up here, so an opportunity to climb did not present itself until recently. I enlisted my colleague and friend, Dave, to come with me. He currently lives in Idaho and as I write this he is getting happily married in his home state of Tennessee, congratulations! We spent the labor day holiday at the gunks, with near perfect weather, albeit a bit on the humid side. It was a real bummer to pay to climb though, $15. Most of the climbing areas at the gunks exist on private land, I am of the opinion that one should never have to pay to recreate, I will gladly pay higher taxes if it means that money is allocated properly to conservation and management of public lands.

We did perhaps 4-5 different climbs, and from the first to the last I was impressed by the quality of the rock. Dave climbs at a lower ability than me, but that was ok because we were there for climbs rated 5.fun, not anything else. In a landscape as beautiful as the gunks, it was hard not to smile at the top of the climbs.


It was a real pleasure to climb with someone who was as happy to be there as me. I lead all the pitches and Dave followed, pulling gear and gaining valuable experience for his future climbing career.

Climbing is such a novel experience for beginners, I couldn't wipe the smile off Dave's face even if I tried.


Our nice day off ended with us having to return to the motel, to get ready another week spent in the forest doing stand exams. It was beautiful to be paid for our day climbing at the gunks, another perk of working for the feds!

Catskill Mountain Keeper

On my daily commute into the New York state Catskill mountains I encounter any number of adopt-a-highway signs. One that sticks out along the cluttered curbside is the Catskill Mountain Keeper. I am always happy to notice a local citizen group that is striving to preserve the beauty of the mountains. Far too often these days land is developed willy-nilly, with little regard for long-term effects on the landscape. Such an alarmingly large amount of America looks very homogenized with shopping strip centers and cookie-cutter communities. We must look longer term and preserve existing natural areas, areas reclaimed by (new) forests after our previous couple of pillages. Anyway, that is neither here nor there, this blog is about the awesomeness of my new job working for the USDA Forest Service.

TEAMS Enterprise Unit, the entity in the FS that employs me, was granted the contract to conduct a forest inventory for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection watershed land holdings. The NYC DEP wants to know the health of their forests, most parcels were purchased very recently. An assessment of the health of the forests is necessary to evaluate the filtering capability of them for the water which wins awards and eventually ends up in Manhattan. After conducting the inventory, the bright folks working for TEAMS in CA will write a management plan to try to best preserve the status of NYC DEP forested lands as excellent natural water filters.

We do our work by watershed, or more specifically, by reservoir. Each reservoir is divided into areas, areas by stand and each stand is then finally subdivided into plots. The GIS techs in CA delineated the stands to identify where to put in the plots in the most statistically un-biased manner. At each plot I am doing an overall vegetation survey; the understory, overstory and plot invasives. To get to my plots, I use a GPS field navigator, but this merely points me in a straight line towards the plot I'm aiming for. What most regular people, and even some nature lovers don't realize, is how unbelievably rugged it is to walk when there are no trails. Sometimes I get lucky and can walk a road, like this one:


Other times, like yesterday, I am walking through a recently felled even-aged stand of oaks:

Honestly though, I really have no reason to complain. What other job do you know pays you to walk around in the woods and observe nature at its best? And yet, the previous day, I am in paradise with my plot "perched on a pedestal" like this one:

Unbeknown to the reader though, this rock perch was more than a half mile of bushwhacking up 600 feet of elevation gain. I think that will safely thwart any unsuspecting people from discovering my hangout spot.

Of course days when it is rainy, cold and miserable, I wish I had an office to escape to. These days I can't really ask for more perfect weather though; blue-bird days and temps of 70-75 and nighttime in the upper 40s, the weatherman on the radio calls it "seasonably mild."

A quick word about the USDA FS TEAMS EU, they are an entity that provides consulting services to other government agencies (the NYC DEP for instance). Since TEAMS is conducting studies all over the USA, the personnel are always on the move to the different job sites. This is unique in how it allows the people who for TEAMS to be exceptionally well-rounded, simply because they have had opportunities to be exposed to forests all over the country.

Book review: Teewinot by Jack Turner

Few books deserve the credit as having changed my life, in however small way. This book, written by a former professor of philosophy is a chronicled journey of a man who follows the release and then subsequent return of snow in the Teton mountain range of Wyoming. Through his wonderfully crafted narrative, the author makes astute observations of natural processes, provides insight into an exciting climbing environment and reflects on achieving a life bulging with satisfaction bound by connections we create with the cycles and seasons of the land. He speaks deeply of the first snows in Lupine Meadows, which areas melt out first and hence have a head start on the growing season, the wildlife that greet him regularly near his cabin during the short summer season, and a final walk around Jenny Lake to end the season.

The name of the novel comes from the mountain that the author is able to view from his cabin daily. Over 40 years of living and guiding in the Tetons has enabled the author to connect with his surroundings in such an intimate way, he knows his mountains better than anyone. As a naturalist he is keen to recognize the crowding that his work puts on the wilderness, but somehow he is able to justify it by blocking it from his mindset. However, he does a superb job of astutely contemplating the tranquil nature of the mountain landscapes.

For anyone who wishes to boost their foresight of recognizing mother nature's little gifts, this book is for you. One thing that I struggle with, and surely many others do as well, is to find meaning in my life. To observe the raw and rugged landscape of the Tetons or any other alpine arena for a lifetime is priceless. Important lessons were taken from this book. Simple pleasures as well as clarity, in life I believe, is found from developing a strong sense of mountain place and creating meaningful connections to it.

Cirque of the Towers

In the many places I have lived in over the years I have always hung a spectacular 380 degree panorama poster of the Cirque of the Towers at the Wind River Range of Wyoming. It has been a secret dream of mine to visit this alpine playground and climb my heart out. I was hoping one day to have the chance to go there, and my drive home to VA from CA provided an excellent opportunity, but not without some big hold-ups. I learned few important lessons from this trip though, in a dramatic setting.

I did not realize how important it is in choosing who you go with for extended trips into the backcountry, my usual trips are only a few days long. Your climbing partner and yourself must have a level of understanding that is often beyond friendship, everything needs to jive nicely. Anyway, the Cirque is a spectacular place and having been there now I can relate to the generations of alpine climbers who have a soft spot in their hearts for "The Winds"...

It is an amazing range from the approach standpoint. We drove about 350 miles from Fort Collins, Colorado and the last 50 or so were within view of these tantalizing peaks, they just seem to rise above the plains out of nowhere and it was astonishing:

(photo courtesy of Dan Stone)

It was amazingly dry, warm and windy on the high plains and as we headed higher and into the Winds the landscape changed dramatically. We parked at around 9,000 feet and as soon as we got out of Dan's truck we got attacked by the damn skeets (mosquitos) until we went to sleep that night in the shelter of a tent. I mean those little skeets were dive bombing almost continuously as we hiked in the entire time. Aside from that, the approach to the Cirque went pretty darn smooth. I knew it would be a miserable slog in, and it was, so I packed as light as possible.

We hiked in as far as we could the first night after arriving in the late evening, racing to utilize the sunlight as it faded. We made it to Big Sandy Lake, 6 miles from the trailhead and about a thousand feet higher in elevation. We awoke to a magnificent view:

After getting up a bit later than I'd hoped we hit the trail to go higher. We paused for a moment to filter some water and admire the increasingly alpinscape we were encroaching into:


We rounded a bend and caught our first view of a Cirque peak, Pingora (it is the rounded summit in the distance)

When we got over Jackass Pass and entered into the Cirque it was quite a surreal landscape:

Just endless possibilities to climb, scramble and wander amongst these giant pilars and spires.

I could hardly contain my excitement to be there!


Not only was the rock of world class quality, but the snow was excellent, we even saw some cool effects as it recedes into the lakes and streams that foster life in a typically barren wasteland.

It really was like a dream come true...

The subtle rugged, beauty of the landscape quickly made me forget many insignificant things, like how heavy my pack was, money, material goods, drama with people and other silly mindsets that waay too often clutter our thoughts. It was so darn refreshing to have my mind corrected by such simple splendor.

Dan and I were both pretty knackered by the time we found our campsite. It was quick work to make a delicious pasta dinner and take in our new surroundings.

That night we were treated to a superb moon rising. I love how nearly everything about mother nature seems to be amplified in alpine arenas.

So I laid our attack plan to climb Pingora Peak the next day as an introduction for Dan to alpine climbing. We awoke mostly refreshed and I rushed Dan to get ready so we could be on and off the mountain quickly, Pingora from our campsite looked so darn sexy in the morning sun:

When we awoke it was quite cold, but after hiking for awhile the sun got quite hot and we paused to take off layers.

It did not take long to eye-ball our route up, but I made sure we didn't start before I got some alpine swagger.

At one point I had such a stunning little belay station, certainly reminded me of climbing in the Austrian Alps with a little alpine garden beside me.


The view from the top was spectacular, I took a quick video to get it all in, don't mind my silly commentary.



Even the view down towards Lonesome Lake was amazing, I felt like I could watch everything thaw out and a proper spring begin!


It wasn't long before we had to come down, even so I just could not wipe the smile from my face!

As I waited for Dan on one rappel, I could not resist a self-portrait with such a backdrop!

The descent provided an excellent view of Wolfs Head and many of its routes. This peak was next on my list to do in the Cirque, unfortunately Dan wasn't up for it, or climbing anything else for that matter. The proposed route was to follow the awesome knife edge ridge line that doiminates the right side of the photo below. Still, a man can dream, I am sincerely glad these mountains aren't going anywhere either because I will be back for Wolfs Head- fo realzies!

That night was a real bummer of a night. Dan said he would not climb anymore, he was simply not prepared. I was pretty bummed about it.

Anyway, aside from that, I could not think of a better place I'd rather have been (even if Dan differed). The morning before we left I hauled ass up a snow slope to the beginning of a couloir, mainly because I wanted to get out of the bright sun and into the shade. Yet another sweet view from high up.

I had some fun front-pointing in my crampons up a small rocky outcropping to relax for a minute.

I glissaded a long way down from there, it took about 15 minutes of nearly non-stop sliding!

It made really sad to leave the Cirque, I took one last look to try and save it all between my ears.


The next photos were all taken on the hike out, while Dan was being miserable with his heavy pack, I took the time to try and capture as much of the landscape as possible with Kodak moments (-:


I will always remember the "Winds", maybe one day I can live nearby or become a backcountry ranger there- one can only hope...

Matterhorn Peak

For those who know "The Dharma Bums" by John Kerouac (an all-American classic) then you might recognize Matterhorn Peak from the book. A good friend in Vienna, Austria gave me that book and I thought it to be an excellent read. Since I was leaving California, I knew my last chance to climb Matterhorn would need to be soon. So as my last hoorah in the state I climbed it! Below is my first view of it amongst other splendid peaks of the eastern Sierra:

This climb entaled an elevation gain of over 5,000 feet, so I developed a plan to conquer it. I decided to start the climb in the evening and go as high as possible and then make camp. Doing just that I hoped to increase my chances of success. My first view of the peak by itself came in the late evening as I rushed to gain altitude and make the next day easy:

It was such an awesome approach to the mountain, I had a lovely snow-melt saturated stream to listen to and accompany me nearly the entire time. It was even cooler to hike to the snowy source, and then above it!




Looking back down the valley:


A quick pano shot as I climbed upwards:


It was spectacular to start my climb in a dry forest, move up through different ecosystems and into a sub-alpine arena just budding into a new spring. I climbed an amazing couloir, but before that some nice, average snow travel:


The adjacent peak, Whorl, was also on my to do list as well, but at the time I did not think that I would have enough time to climb it too. Besides the ascent looked quite technical and I had neither a belay partner nor proper gear.


In the book "Dharma Bums" those dudes climb (or attempt) Matterhorn Peak and they describe this small alpine lake and super loose rock. The loose rock was actually covered in snow and climbing it turned out to be a ton of fun with crampons and an ice axe.

So after leaving my high camp near the stream around 6am I summitted at around 10:30am and was greeted with perfect weather the entire way. I was certainly glad that I climbed as high as I did the night before to make summit day easier. This peak was certainly no easy task, it involved serious elevation gain in a short distance- only 4-5 miles, thats over 1,000 feet per mile.

A stunning view from the summit of Matterhorn Peak looking south into Yosemite National Park and the magnificent eastern Sierras.


After spending some half hour or so on the summit admiring the views, I made quick time going back down. I accidentally went down the wrong gully and ended up on the wrong side of a ridge. So a bit of time and effort was wasted in gaining this extra ridge, but I was quickly rewarded... For on the other side of the ridge was the beginning of an awesome long snowslope, not too steep, and I was able to glissade for several hundred feet on the snow. This saved a ton of time and effort, but made my butt go numb from the cold snow!

I caught one last view of Matterhorn on my way out, such a majestic peak it was, I would recommend it to anyone keen on climbing a mountain that provides the complete package of cascading waterfalls, astonishing changes in ecoregions and an authentic alpine experience like no other.