Recently, Minnewaska State Park in New York opened up the Peter's Kill area to rock climbing. This is great! Excellent gunks rock without the annoyance of guidebooks or crowds.
By the way, if you're thinking about writing a guidebook to this area, don't. Fred and I enjoy it without crowds of New York City weenie-climbers who don't know how to climb safely or politely.
Finally, I should say something about this particular climb. When you're in the Peter's Kill parking lot, you get a great view of an enormous roof. This is that roof. If you go up the corner and traverse out the hand crack under the roof, it's about 5.6 or 5.7. :( I was hoping for something tough!! (The pinky sized crack to the right of it is just too tough, though.)
While this certainly wasn't a first ascent, there's still a chance that I can name the climb by putting the climb on the WWW. So, I'll call it "Sheepish", after my friends and my disappointment over the climb.
However, just to the left of this crack is another one. (You can see it in the bottom of the picture.) This is a real climb. It's 5.11. No, I didn't flash it. :( One of the holds broke off! Rather than squish poor Fred down there, I fell with the hold in my hand. The rock underneath the original hold is okay, too, though, so the climb is still good.
Incidentally, because the key hold was so fragile, we suspect it was a first ascent. Cool! We'll call it "Holy Sheep!".
On the other side of the sheep roof (to the left a bit more) is another, much lower roof. It's got a truely excellent start. (Jump up to the lip of the roof.) Fred scampered up it and gave it a 5.8 rating. "Hop to it" is our name. After the roof, just follow the small crack til the top.
To the right of the sheep roof, there's a cool chimney system. There's two chimneys which meet at a corner. Both the chimney and the crack in the corner are good climbs to do on a hot day. They're both 5.easy, though.
