Rock Climbing in Haiti?

It looks like I'm headed to Haiti for the rest of the year. Does anyone know if there is any rock? ...deciding if I will take my gear with me.

Thanks.

Also-If not Haiti, D.R.? or other nearby islands...

Shoot Darren Knezek an email. Can't recall, but, I think he's been in that neck of the woods.

When I was in Haiti earlier this year I saw climbable rock both at the sea shore and in the hills above Port au Prince. I didn't see any development though. There isn't much tourism in Haiti and most of the people don't have disposable income so I'd be surprised if there were many established routes. The DR may have some and I know that Puerto Rico, one island east, has a lot of climbing. The islands are mostly made of fun, pocketed lime stone. It reminded me alot of American Fork Canyon. Have fun. You'll love Haiti. The culture is very cool and the people are amazing, very embracing.

I climbed in the northeastern part of Dominican Republic, about 8 hours from where you'll be.
Bring your drill and Titanium Glue-ins for Haiti. Anything else will be super rusty and worthless in a couple of years.
I don't know about any climbing in Haiti, I would agree with Mike that you'll probably have to put up your own climbs.
The rock in DR was some of the best limestone I've ever climbed on.

Wow

Thank you all for the beta. I'll take my gear with me!

Hi Kieth

I've been to Haiti several times. The only thing I've climbed or seen that is climbable is the water tower at HAS. The rock is all limestone and seems crumbly, and I didn't see anything very steep. The good thing is ("good" in a twisted sort of way) is that there are almost no trees, so you can see everything. I've been in the interior mostly, and haven't been to the shore much so I don't know about any sea cliffs.

Your best bet would be to ask around, the locals might know of a steep cliff somewhere, especially if you get out of Port and into the mountains. Where are you going to be stationed? Golly, I can't imagine climbing in Haiti.... you'll gather a crowd of onlookers for sure!

Google recently added a translator feature for Haitian Creole. There's also a couple of OK books to learn the language. Many of the younger crowd speak decent English. translate.google.com/#

Also, find a youngster to be employed as your case o' beer delivery boy. They can negotiate much cheaper prices on the Prestige and Guinness, and the rest you can give as a tip! Good luck

Eric

Eric,

Thanks for jumping in. I really appreciate the tips. I think I am going to be in Sarthe. From what I understand (and thats not much) It is a neighborhood in PaP near the airport. I will be working with Doctors w/out Borders.

I will drag my rack with me either way. I will probably get a week off at some point, & can always travel to the DR to climb....

What were you doing there?

Keith,
I just returned from two weeks working in a hospital in Port au Prince and I would not recomend taking anything non essential and I wouldn't take anything to Haiti that I wasn't ok with leaving in Haiti. Many people that I worked with had things taken from their bags before they claimed them at the airport. The conditions are more challenging than most people are able to imagine. As much as I love climbing the closest I came was cranking out a couple pull ups everyday. As hurricane season has just begun I have a feeling that if you are working with Doctors without Borders you will have your work cut out for you. Even after four months Port au Prince is still an evolving disaster area and I expect that it will only get worse in the months to come. Expect the temps to be high and the humidity to be equally high. The Haitian people are amazing and their strength is incredible, however so are the obstacles they face. I think I'm heading into a tangent so I better finish up, but if you or anyone else has questions about working/volunteering in Haiti feel free to drop me a line. Good luck.
Dean

Keith, I was working at HAS in Deschapelles and another small village called Jumelle on water supply and quality, sanitation, and composting latrine.

I would agree with Dean's post, don't take anything nonessential (but I would feel OK bringing old rope and harness and trying to find somewhere to top rope). Any bolts you put in will never be clipped by anyone but you. It is not a vacation destination and nobody climbs.

I haven't ever had problems with looted baggage at the airport, but I haven't been there since before the quake.

Another thing I agree with Dean is that you're going to have your mind full of work. There is so much work to do, so much to see, and your heart will get stomped on so often that you will probably forget about climbing. That was before the quake.

The air is so bad in PAP that at the end of the day you'll have a layer of oily greasy slime on your skin. I can't imagine how people live there 24/7 without coughing up a lung. But, diesel prices are so much higher now maybe it'll be a little better. You'll never forget the smell. Urine, shit, diesel, wood smoke, garbage. Photos only give you half of the picture if you can't smell it.

Things to bring: lots of $1 (US currency works about everywhere), acrylic paint for an artist you might meet (hard to get there, lots of painters), earplugs, gum to give to the kids, leatherman, wet wipes (personal sanitation), GPS (being lost in PAP would be worse than being lost on the moon), seven ton of condoms (to give away - I once saw a woman washing condoms in the stream), seeds (you might want some fresh spinach or give them away with instructions).

Speaking of spinach, be wary of eating anything uncooked that has high surface area (easy to wash a tomato, hard to wash leafy greens). I'm guessing Doc w/o B has good water to wash veggies with.

Now I'm getting all excited to go back. Why do we have to work meaningless jobs when there is so much real work to be done?

Here's a letter from my friend Jimmie the hospital engineer:

It’s been 13 day’s after the earthquake. I looked at my emails, and was surprised at how many emails I did not send. In one of the tent cities or perhaps a few combined over 1.5 million people. Last Thursday 20,000 deaths in one day, from injuries during the earthquake, and this will continue.

I went in to Port of prince to connect with the UN and the PAN American health Organization to get supplies for the hospital. I meet with the 82 Airborne to see if the could drop ship us some supplies, because road transportation is very difficult, some bridges out , but all the roads are clear. Even before the quake the roads were impossible. The people are very calm, even with little good drinking water and hardy any food it’s the same as before. The hospital is doing a great job, but here they only have tropical medicine, that means no medicine at all the strong live and the weak died. We were able to get some diesel fuel for the generators and transportation. 6000 gallons, good for 24 days.

The effort in Port is amazing, all the counties helping out; it’s a sight to see all the plane and helicopters, ships and a million tents. The best thing to see is the US Army they are working with everyone. I feel left to the UN not much gets done, or too slowly.

The seriously injured people had died, now we are trying to save the people with bad injuries, that should not be life threatening, but here if not treated we will have to amputate, we are burning the dead and the body parts, it sounds bad but that is life. Low on food trying to get blood and med’s, there is no pain med’s for now. The people are incredibly strong and can endure pain. When the doctors come here after a while they all ask, why do the babies not cry, they learn from the beginning it does not help so with pain they just endure. What they will do is whale, if someone dies, that is how the grief. They will also sing all day and night, it sounds like angels.

I ‘m losing a lot of weight but that is good, eat well rice and beans some Goat.

Its seem as you hear all the information of what is happening life is unbearable in Haiti, I do not see it that way, everyone in the world has the same basic problems, we are born and we died we share life with our love ones and than we loss them, we still love them even if they are gone, we still have to live on. C’est la vie: (such is life).

jimmie

Traveling to exotic places for climbing is the best, but having just heard a long feature on NPR about how the situation in Haiti is still pretty desperate, I'm imagining how it would feel carrying around a rack of draws and a rope. People are living in tents in parking lots in Port au Prince, with no means of sanitation available. Many people have suffered the trauma of losing their families.

Just seems insensitive to go to a place as devestated as Haiti for any reason except to help. Maybe check it out, and then plan a future trip after things have stabilized in a few years. Traveling in poor countries always presents a similar dilemma, but it just seems now is not the time to go to Haiti and recreate.

Thank you all for the great dialogue on Haiti. I'm headed down there with an NGO in three weeks for 2 months. Going to Limbe, Haiti with Helping Hands Noramise to help with agriculture and getting the food to market. Also hoping to use my engineering to keep the hospitals, schools and churches up and running. Don't think I could handle PAP so I am headed north to a town of 50,000. Trying to get them sustainable as the population returns from PAP.
I will scout the north and send any feedback.
I really appreciate the gift ideas as well, lots of 1s, gum, pens and art supplies.
Watching all of this stuff on C-SPAN has got me ready to go but I would appreciate any more advice that comes to your minds over the next month. There is a UN base and the Fonkoze, microloans, operating in the area so I hope to help them develop their own infrastructure.
Mesi,
Matt Weaver

Thanks again everyone for the conversation. A lot of great contributions. I did drag my gear down there with me. Ended up staying 1 month instead of 6 so didn't get a chance to use it. I'm back in Kenya now & getting out a bit more. Wishing I wasn't missing the entire Colorado Front Range season this year...

As for Haiti, it is still a desperate and grim situation from my experience. The context in PAP especially Cite de Soleil is heartbreaking. Most of the Earthquake/Emergency is over, but the extreme poverty & psycho/social issues left from the emergency will be felt for a long time. Violence & instability is still a major issue, & the threat to relief workers makes operations & life in general much more difficult. Please continue to keep the Haitians & Humanitarian workers in your thoughts.

Working in Humanitarian Assistance I have had to wrestle with the issue of trying to find recreation during missions. I agree that it is imperative to be sensitive to the culture & conditions that surround you. On the other hand. I could not continue to do this work or live in these places if I did not take time to recharge myself. Sometimes this is a book, a jog (if conditions allow), or even just a movie on my laptop. Being a climber, I try to never travel without my rack (or my shoes at a bare minimum). Climbing is the fastest way for me to feed my soul, clear my mind, & stretch my muscles.

Thanks again everyone!
Keith

I was in Haiti in March, didn't see much rock to climb, but there's amazing potential for some epic trekking in the mountains. It's gorgeous and varied, plenty of roadside food stalls,and nobody's going to fine you for camping somewhere you shouldn't, because, at least when I was there, the countryside was pretty much in a state of anarchy.

I don't know what the situation is like in the hills now, but if I were going on this epic trek, I'd bring a pistol. The Haitians in Port Au Prince are great and generally love Americans, but in the hills, where the aid has been scarce, they can be resentful and even hostile.

Some Haitian men had built a road block on our way down the mountian, I don't know what their motive was, because it happened really fast, but our translator had to pull his gun to get them to move the rocks, and a few minutes later we drove through a village where the locals started to bang on our bus.

Don't take this as me being down on the Haitian people. I stayed at an orphanage right outside the PaP airfield, and fell in complete and udder love with the children there. I'm doing my part along with a few other Americans to help one of the orphans immigrate to the states. It's just that, in horrible times, not everyone is going to gather together and sing kumbaya with you. There are predators in every society, and to them, you're just another target.

You'll have fine security with Dr. w/o borders, but if you want to go have a solitary adventure, I just really think you need a gun. You won't have to use it, because almost NO ONE in Haiti owns a firearm, it's simply a deterrence, and a smart one at that.

Just my $0.02

Is this thread still alive? Has anyone found any nice limestone bluffs around PaP yet? I arrived 2 weeks ago in Haiti to work for an unknown time period, and have barely begun to explore those mountains above the city. It's so beautiful up there, though...so much cooler than down here.

Gordon,

I don't know if this fall within your boundaries of "around" PaP", but since you're in the vicinity you might take a look at Cayman Brac. climbcaymanbrac.com has an up-to-date free climbing guide.

Perhaps the most meaningful thread I've ever read here on MP. Inspiring, thanks to all the volunteers for making an effort to help where help is needed in the world. We as climbers could and should do more to make the world a better place rather than arguing over permadraws and tic marks.

Well put...

germsauce wrote:Perhaps the most meaningful thread I've ever read here on MP. Inspiring, thanks to all the volunteers for making an effort to help where help is needed in the world. We as climbers could and should do more to make the world a better place rather than arguing over permadraws and tic marks.

I lived in Haiti for a year and had to give up climbing for the duration, but there is definitely some potential in the Central Plateau, as well as in the South near Jacmel. There are countless limestone caves throughout the Central Plateau with lots of potential for some steep sport, although some of it is pretty crumbly. There are also a lot of boulder fields, some with some really cool stuff that I have played around on. Also, there is a pretty large cliff near Pignon in the Central Plateau off Route National #3. Didn't get a good look at it, it looks big and slabby.

I'm a bit late to the party, but here's a link to my trip report on a little bit of climbing we did in Haiti and it's potential as a climbing area:

mountainproject.com/v/climb…

Hey y'all,
I just moved to the Cap Hatien for work and I'll be up here for a while. If anyone is still checking this thread after nine years, please reach out.

Cheers,

Patrick