Welcome, climbers! It's warm and sunny outside! It must be time to drive for 7 hours to get to the Gunks and back. No? Don't have the time? Well, then it must be time to go inside and sweat on the same old Lindseth climbing wall. No? You want something more exciting?

You've come to the right place!

The Ithaca area has a large number of excellent outdoor climbing gyms. Why don't climbers use them? I suspect most people feel they've outgrown jungle gyms.

Whatever! The routes are steeper than Rifle, the holds are huge and tendon-friendly, and you don't need any more gear than your Tevas. Furthermore, some of the best gyms are practically right outside your door, you get to be outside, neither lacrosse teams nor cheerleaders will interrupt your workout, it's probably legal, and you get to hang out with little kids.

Convinced? Well, we have been for a while.

So, here's a compilation of advice and boulder problems from Mark and Fred:

Copyright © 1997 Fred Bertsch All rights reserved