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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jun 4, 2009 - 01:22pm PT
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In its Feb 2003 issue, Climbing ran a Matt Samet article about the country's five best and
five worst crags. Opening the issue, I skipped past the "Five Best" part (JTree, Gunks, yada
yada) to read about the five worst: Virgin River Gorge, Mount Potosi, Jacks Canyon, Sport
Park, Seward Highway. At the time, I'd only ticked two of these, leaving three more to go.
This week, I was reminded of the article when I visited a cliff and a local proudly said,
"This is one of the Five Worst Crags!"
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rick d
climber
tucson, az
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oh so easy, #1 is Chickies Rocks in Pennsyltuckey.
must be the worst "climbing" cliff in the US- when I lived there actually someone died on it- ugh, what an epitaph.
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MisterE
Trad climber
One Step Beyond!
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I've climbed at a lot worse crags than Jacks that aren't on the list...
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couchmaster
climber
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Who will be the first to tick all 5!
The race is on...think 'Seven Summits' of choss here.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Florida and Delaware are probably worse than any of the five!
Really, the worst crag? The worst crags that are actually called crags.
How about Bunker Hill?
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anointed one
Gym climber
my mamma
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Samet can't even climb the warm ups at Potosi or VRG, no wonder he hates them.
I'm surprised he doesn't like Jack's though, where any 5.10 climber can onsight 12a's as long as the drilled pockets are ticked.
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handsome B
Gym climber
SL,UT
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wait, are you deriding drilled pockets and extolling potosi in the same breath?
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anointed one
Gym climber
my mamma
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no, I'm subtly illuminating the difference between absurdly retarded pocket drilling and masterful sculpting a pile of choss into something useful.
Joe Brooks is my hero.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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oh so easy, #1 is Chickies Rocks in Pennsyltuckey.
must be the worst "climbing" cliff in the US- when I lived there actually someone died on it- ugh, what an epitaph.
Some criteria there, but for a one-pitch quartzite nubbin you could do worse. When I lived there (up the tracks in Marietta in the early 80s) it was fun and easy access. Most deaths (pretty much annual events) were frat boys and rednecks swilling beer at the top who managed to stagger over the edge.
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jsj
climber
Boulder
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In my opinion, the VRG has some of the BEST climbing in America... it just has the WORST ambiance.
Oh, and annointed, I'm pretty sure Matt Samet knows how to climb.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Exactly right jsj.
VRG has fantastic climbing if you can climb .11+ and up.
Good enough to offset the crappy ambience.
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Evel
Trad climber
the cliffs of insanity
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Chickies certainly gets my vote. Some other stuff near Shamokin Dam, also in PA is pretty bad too.
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martygarrison
Trad climber
The Great North these days......
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wow, it really is hard for me to name a worst crag. I always seem to find fun in almost any boulder scree. I have found myself having fun on a highway under pass.
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Gunkie
climber
East Coast US
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Lots of crap rock in Pennsylvania, but as far as established climbing areas:
Ralph Stover State Park -- PA
Safe Harbor -- PA
Delaware Water Gap -- PA
Bellfonte Quarry -- PA
Chickies Rocks -- PA [never been there, only from this thread]
All of these areas make Connecticut Traprock look like El Cap; and Traprock sucks.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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don't all shale based Canadian peaks fall under the category of
"Seven Summits of Choss"
??
*not having climbed El Canadia peaks, I'm just posting out loud here.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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I'm suprised Locker hasn't chimed in.
I know for a fact he knows where some of them are.
GHOST ROCK!!!!!!
But then it hardly meets the definition of a CRAG!!!!!!!!!!
Road side dump maybe'
;-\
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Rock!...oopsie.
Trad climber
pitch above you
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Gunkie,
Hah, I'll second Safe Harbor! Gotta love the slippery starts to the climbs where you have to get past the neo-nazi graffiti before the rubber meets rock... and then it's rail-road cut blasted basalt, what's not to love? I will say it has the (single) redeeming quality that you can climb rock in mid-winter in a t-shirt due to the south exposure and dark rock.
-Bob
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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John Harlin III always wants to hike up to some piece of sh#t rock telling me that we might find the best moves we've ever done. I tell him that just because it's rock doesn't mean there is rock climbing.
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Evel
Trad climber
the cliffs of insanity
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I take umbrage at calling Bellefonte a choss pile. It's a chossy sh#t-hole, now closed to the public.
Possibly one of PAs best crags though........just sayin.....
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Porkchop_express
Trad climber
the base of the Shawangunk Ridge
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Shouldn't Quincy Quarries be on the "worst" list? I have to say I am surprised that Jacks is on there...I only went through there once but it is a really pretty area and relatively secluded. Also the camping is first rate in terms of no fees and an outhouse...
I had heard some noise about chipping and such there and that their grades are soft...but I also got it on pretty good authority that the reports of such elicit activities were much exaggerated.
I liked it(Jacks). Other people love Tensleep canyon in WY- I thought it wasn't great. Its sort of unfair to measure places that are small time (relative to traffic) against places that are zoos; flooded with climbers 9 months or more out of the year.
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