Gunks Climbers, You May Find This Of Interest
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No slime wall? That's some of the best consolidated harder climbing in the trapps... |
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The Slime Wall is there but not Sleepy Hollow. WASP is the final climb listed. So no Casa Emilio, no Casablanca, no Moondance/Sundance, no Art's Route, Tennish Anyone, Wegetables or 10,000 Restless Virgins. |
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SethG wrote:The Slime Wall is there but not Sleepy Hollow. WASP is the final climb listed.Whoops misread. But still, some good climbing down at the end of the cliff. Haven't seen the app but curious to see their photography. |
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The app is really nice, very nice pics and lines that shows the path, but it should be more upfront that a lot is missing. The description of the routes are one liners (so don't expect anything there), and they changed the grades on many. |
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Wake me when they come to their senses and release it on android. They're only getting the gumby purchases releasing it as Apple-only. ;-) |
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Man, you guys are a tough audience. The app has plenty of climbs, just not every climb. The amount of work that went into the production is mind-boggling. Among other things, Chris taught himself iPhone programming from scratch just to do it. They either climbed or top-rope soloed the routes to make sure they were drawing the lines in correctly. These guys aren't a corporation, they are two climbers with full-time jobs. So jeez, give 'em a break. No doubt they'll fill in some routes and make some corrections in the lines as time goes on. Meanwhile, think of it as an extensive Gunks select; it's worth it on those grounds alone. |
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Amen Rich |
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To answer a few questions: |
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Is Sleepy Hollow absent from the app by design or can we expect to see it in the future? |
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We originally considered treating it like Lost City so it was intentionally left out. With that said we have not made any final decisions. |
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Love the app, but really wish that the descriptions were better. I can understand the incredible amount of work that went into the app, and the pictures are incredible, but most have incredibly minimal route beta. I can see how climbing a new climb without the mountain project app or dick grey book could end up with climbing the wrong route after the start. |
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The app could have links to the mountain project pages for beta :) |
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Rob Davis wrote:Love the app, but really wish that the descriptions were better. I can understand the incredible amount of work that went into the app, and the pictures are incredible, but most have incredibly minimal route beta. I can see how climbing a new climb without the mountain project app or dick grey book could end up with climbing the wrong route after the start. Adding rapp stations, even those that aren't bolted, was a really smart choice. It's MUCH clearer where you can rapp from. Not knowing where all the stations are has left me walking along the cliff top more than once and the dick app is sometimes unclear about where rapp stations. For sure ended up walking to uberfalls from wayyyyyy down in the trapps.If I recall they purposefully left out major beta in order to keep any form of adventure in trad climbing in the trapps. 037200b.netsolhost.com/blog… With all the beta, photos, and spray one has access to on the internet people no longer have to take responsibility or risk in their Gunks adventures. I think the lack of beta was an act to prevent the Gunks from feeling more like sport climbing with gear than an actual day of trad. |
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Rob Davis wrote:Love the app, but really wish that the descriptions were better. I can understand the incredible amount of work that went into the app, and the pictures are incredible, but most have incredibly minimal route beta. I can see how climbing a new climb without the mountain project app or dick grey book could end up with climbing the wrong route after the start. As I said in an earlier post, there seems to be no limit to the insatiable public desire for more and more beta. Someone will eventually complain that the holds haven't been marked (as they famously were in an alpine guide book) and that the party could end up climbing the wrong sequence after the start. The fact that the cliff pictures are zoomable means, as long as the lines have been drawn in accurately, that there is essentially more beta than could ever be adequately conveyed in words. Not to mention the fact that the relatively homogeneous structure of a Gunks cliff often makes it very challenging to describe verbally where to go. Congratulations to Chris and Tom for not burdening their fine implementation with additional and almost certainly redundant verbiage. Rob Davis wrote:Adding rapp stations, even those that aren't bolted, was a really smart choice. It's MUCH clearer where you can rapp from. Not knowing where all the stations are has left me walking along the cliff top more than once and the dick app is sometimes unclear about where rapp stations. For sure ended up walking to uberfalls from wayyyyyy down in the trapps.Cliff-top walking---oh the horror! I think the addition of some of the rap stations in place when the authors did their surveying is the most problematic aspect of the guide. Rap stations are not a permanent feature of the cliff and are subject to degradation and other types of changes. They may not be there when you try to find them, or they may have become dangerous. Moreover, the traffic on these stations is likely to increase significantly as a result of the app, which means the problems associated with them will accelerate. This comes at a time when the Preserve is struggling to figure out how to deal with the profusion of rap stations and their associated ecological and safety issues, and I'm not sure this is at all helpful in that regard. |
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I miss many second pitches, but maybe because they are less commonly climbed? But one big complete omission is Hans Puss, my favorite 5.7. What happened to that one? |
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I spent only 2 days in the Gunks about 16 years ago, and did not have any issues finding rap stations. That said, I think that it is a major mistake to not include descent and trail information in various guides for the sake of "maintaining adventure." Yes, established trails and rap stations will get beaten down, but that is preferable to countless social trails going every which way, trampling vegetation. |
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the schmuck wrote:I spent only 2 days in the Gunks about 16 years ago, and did not have any issues finding rap stations. That said, I think that it is a major mistake to not include descent and trail information in various guides for the sake of "maintaining adventure." Yes, established trails and rap stations will get beaten down, but that is preferable to countless social trails going every which way, trampling vegetation.I don't think decisions regarding the information that is or is not present in any guide to the Gunks ever had anything to do with "preserving adventure," so let's begin by putting that angle completely to rest. Grey Dick started the process of describing descents by including information about the Preserve-bolted rap routes on the cliff photos, and now the Gunks App improves on that by indicating how to head to those Preserve lines from the tops of nearby climbs, so some things are heading in the direction you advocate and not the other way. On the other hand, ad hoc rap stations are essentially also social trails, and institutionalizing them in the app seems, at least to me, to point in the direction you criticize. |
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I bought the app. It's a great tool for my wife and I. We went for our first time last month and really enjoyed New Paltz and the climbing at the Trapps. We plan to make a stop this week and any other time we're headed further upstate to the Adirondacks. It's nice to have information that fits in my pocket but isn't on paper. Thanks for creating the app! |
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Christian Fracchia wrote:We originally considered treating it like Lost City so it was intentionally left out. With that said we have not made any final decisions.I'm digging the app. For me it's welcome and worth the price for the route location and descent beta alone. It's never been an issue with the book but this will be a lot faster and easier. ~300 routes is enough to last me a while, and if i really needed to get on something that's not represented in the app i could always just ask someone (Or look at the book... Or check the mp app). The limited route beta is different. Might take some getting used to. I'm kind of liking the concept because I'm one of those people who still thinks "onsight, ground up" is a thing. With this app you can look up the location of a route, get to it definitively, see the general direction in which to climb, and have at it. No step by step directions to sully the experience. I really enjoy not knowing where the crux is, and for whatever reason, I climb better that way. That said, my two cents is that the limited route descriptions and the fact that it doesn't contain all the routes at the trapps should be made clear so that people don't buy it and then bemoan the lack of beta. I'm willing to bet that most people are looking for more, not less info. |
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Chris Duca wrote:Quite polished looking App. Does it climb the route for me, as well? In all seriousness, having climbed in the Gunks for 20 years now, I could still see using this handy app for The Bank, Bonticou, or even Lost City (Gasp!), if those became available at some point.I wonder what would happen to the person who finally begins posting Bonticou, et al. routes. This is an interesting conversation I often have with Gunks climbers, and we've come up with some pretty nasty things that could happen. All I know is that it won't be pretty. |