Gunks Climbers Coalition Adopt A Crag SKYTOP December 5 2009

We're giving back to the earth-let's give to each other!
Please join us on December 5th for our SkyTop Adopt a Crag/Winter Solstice Grab Bag Event.
Meet at 10 am in the Mohonk Mountain House parking lot, bring work gloves, a bag lunch and if you'd like a small gift (under 20 dollars)
for the grab bag.
We'll do clean up, find a beautiful location to have lunch and then start the holiday season off right with a grab bag.
Please join us and do your part!

Any questions please contact dana@boldesign-media.com

I know i'm gonna catch some $hit for this but...

why adopt a crag at Skytop? I mean i'm all for the adopt a crag program but why choose a place that is all but off limits except to a select few? It's my understanding that the only way you can climb there is as a guest at the mountain house and with their approved guide service. I don't have the money to stay there so i don't think i'll ever get to climb there unless they relax the restrictions. As such i can't see volunteering to do work for a place that is so off limits to everyone else.

I certainly agree with you Scottie. I've never ventured over to Skytop, and I was a bit surprised to see that the adopt-a-crag was at skytop instead of somewhere like the trapps, nears to peters kill, places that see a lot more climber traffic, because we're allowed to climb there. I think that an adopt a crag event may help to show the Mohonk Mountain House folks that climbers can be a very good thing for a natural area. Check out the video: Southern Climber's Coaliton "Heart of Stone"

In the video they talk about how they have been able to work with landowners because of the good work that adopt a crag events have done, cleaning up areas and respectful climbing. This may be the angle of the GCC.

I also agree since skytop is on private land and they make you pay to use there guide service shouldn't trail work and keeping the land clean be there responsibility.

I bet they'd get a decent turnout if you got to climb the next day.

This seems rather peculiar. What exactly is going to be cleaned up?

The Mohonk Mountain House has agreed to let a special-interest volunteer organization whose special interest they currently ban come in and "clean up" grounds that the Mountain House would otherwise pay their own employees to clean up?

(And by the way, how do said employees feel about people coming in and doing their jobs for nothing, I wonder?)

Or is the "cleaning" going to involve things the Mountain House wouldn't ordinarily clean up, and if so, what kind of "dirt" is this?

Dana Marie wrote:We're giving back to the earth-let's give to each other! Please join us on December 5th for our SkyTop Adopt a Crag/Winter Solstice Grab Bag Event. Meet at 10 am in the Mohonk Mountain House parking lot, bring work gloves, a bag lunch and if you'd like a small gift (under 20 dollars) for the grab bag. We'll do clean up, find a beautiful location to have lunch and then start the holiday season off right with a grab bag. Please join us and do your part! Any questions please contact dana@boldesign-media.com

I'm pulled both ways on this suggestion. I started climbing at the Gunks back in '79, and spent many a wonderful day at Skytop. Loved the Mtnhouse, spent a couple weekends of my honeymoon there (more than we could afford, but it was worth it). Went there for an annual breakfast and hike with my wife for several years. Then they banned climbing there. Haven't been back to the Mhouse since. It just didn't make sense to support a business that wouldn't tolerate climbers.
Unless revolutionary changes have occurred, this ban is still in effect, with the dismissably lame exception of those who pay to stay and be guided there.
Does it make any sense to support this mentality? I suppose for the company that has guiding privileges there, it does. No one else.
Might I suggest an alternative, that may provide a bit more visibility for Mtnhouse admins to see what climbers can do? Clean up at Bonticou. The place gets trashed by tourists - there are bottles, name tags, and bits'o'lunch scattered all over the yellow trail - and if we invited some Mtnhouse admins to see the activity, (since it's close to the Mtnhouse grounds), they might take a real step in our direction. Like for example, offer a day of climbing for those who help clean up. I would jump at that deal!
Climbers make it possible for the Mtnhouse to remain surrounded by a huge, undeveloped forest, instead of having that land piecemealed into megalots for houses, replete with posted signs every ten yards. Nix our annual fees and it's quite likely the entire Mohonk Preserve couldn't make ends meet, certainly not without drastic changes. I haven't ever felt the need to make a nasty political campaign out of that fact (thank God and a State Constitutional Amendment the Adks has free access!); but I get terribly annoyed that no one seems to respect us.

Dana Marie wrote:We're giving back to the earth-let's give to each other! Please join us on December 5th for our SkyTop Adopt a Crag/Winter Solstice Grab Bag Event. Meet at 10 am in the Mohonk Mountain House parking lot, bring work gloves, a bag lunch and if you'd like a small gift (under 20 dollars) for the grab bag. We'll do clean up, find a beautiful location to have lunch and then start the holiday season off right with a grab bag. Please join us and do your part! Any questions please contact dana@boldesign-media.com

slightly less politically correct than the others

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA....... HAHAHAHAAAAA No...

clean "your" area your own damn self

It seems good will and logic have done no good in changing the stubborn minds of those who banished us from Skytop long ago. I last climbed there about '83'. It was a real experience even back then; we dirtball semi-hippie tie dye climbers walking their trails and past the tennis courts to scramble on dirty rocks. Talk about getting some vicious looks back then. I'm all for volunteer-ism but certainly not for a place that has looked down on us as a lesser breed of people for decades. Let them clean up their own crap I say.

Y'all left me hanging!! What ended up happening?