Mosher cliff for sale

Good to know. There is some great bouldering on TNC land in southern RI

M Sprague wrote:Good to know. There is some great bouldering on TNC land in southern RI

And I know of some amazing bouldering and climbing on their land in CT... I think someone I know, knows a top dogg at TNC in CT but IDK if they cover RI. Maybe some climber shaped Christmas cookies to your local chapter are in order???

They actually have a person on a three person non elected Board that controls over 15,000 acres of state forest and prohibit almost all use of the land. Public land that the public is barred from accessing. They lost my support after an outright refusal to try to clean graffiti on their and another adjoining Land Trust property who wanted the area cleaned for their members.

Edit: nature.org/ourinitiatives/r…

Is an area owned by TNC and where climbing is allowed. Might help if you decided to approach a local office.

M Sprague wrote:Good to know. There is some great bouldering on TNC land in southern RI

Northern RI too, but you didn't hear that from me...

DanSwift wrote:I only know a little about it from older climbers that climbed it before the current owners when climbing was allowed. It is a 100' tall cliff band located in the town of Corinth, NY. 1 mile west of the Hudson River on West Mountain(saratoga county) not the west mountain 5 miles to the east in warren county. It is apparently as good as rumney for quality of climbing and has a 5.13 test piece that is suppose to be amazing. Access is from saratoga county route 10 (mosher rd). It is listed by lake luzerne real estate inc. I found it on their site being sold as several different parcels the 198 aces that the cliff is located on is listed for 219,000 though it is assessed by the county at 99,700, 60 acres of it is listed at 108,000 or all 264 acres for 289,000 if I am reading there listings correctly. Corinth is the far southeast boundary of the adirondack park.

Did you hear if the land has any moderate climbing? Like 5.4-5.8.

I see around here they usually hold the land till the state can afford to acquire it and add it to the forest preserve. I had not been on any nc land to see if there was restrictions

Bill I did not hear about everything at the cliff. It has been closed to climbers for some time now so there was no need to find out about all the climbs as I am not going to trespass and be one of those climbers that taint the public image of us.

Any chance of doing some sort of crowd funding to buy it and then donate it to the NYS Forest Preserve?

People raise hundreds of thousands for nonsense, if all the capital region climbers put in some cash, perhaps some access group could match it and we could buy it.

Seems like it's not prohibitively expensive.

For a short time, I had been somehow dubbed the access point-person for the Saratoga/Lake George region back when we were having the occasional Access Fund meeting up in Keene Valley. I believe the last update I had given was on progress at Potash Cliff, as well as set-backs at Huckleberry, at a party at Jesse and Emilie's yurt when it was behind the Mountaineer's other building in the big field...a while ago....actually almost 7 years ago.

The bing image looks right...and there's some spectacular ice and rock climbing back in there. A friend has better GPS coordinates including distance from the current DEC boundaries to the top of the cliff, etc. I'd be happy to get some other info for folks after this weekend. This is truly exciting news...

This (probably) goes without saying, but considering some of the stories about unfavorable interactions with the landowner 15-20 years ago, and with the property being heavily hunted from year to year, this is not a cliff I'd be checking out any time soon...

Psyched to help out with any community effort that may come about...thanks!

I believe crowd funding could work, especially if the local access fund was involved.

Regarding access to the property, call a commercial realtor--your own, not the seller's--and go walk around.
Without getting shot...

I climbed quite a bit at Mosher in the late 80's and early 90's. At the time there was a cycle of climber's having bad interactions with landowners.

This cliff is worth the effort if someone has the time and energy to start a campaign to secure it for climbers. Perhaps it would be worth contacting the Open Space Institute, they will often purchase and hold onto land to preserve it until another organization committed to protecting it from development can take it over.

The main rock climbing cliff is small but it is stacked. There are maybe 4 5.10's, 5 5.11's, 1 5.12, 2 5.13's. It doesn't sound like much, but they are on a slightly overhanging wall and they are all incredibly good routes all right next to each other. In fact the 5.12 overhangs at about 120 degrees for about 60 or 70 feet and it's trad. It would be an amazing resource for local climbers and attractive enough or travelers to visit. I think it is the best cliff in the Southern Adirondacks for harder climbing.

Off the to the left there is a larger cliff that is somewhat slabby that often forms a handful of decent ice routes. I think there's one 2 pitch rock climb on it (5.7ish?).

Christian Fracchia wrote:I climbed quite a bit at Mosher in the late 80's and early 90's. At the time there was a cycle of climber's having bad interactions with landowners. This cliff is worth the effort if someone has the time and energy to start a campaign to secure it for climbers. Perhaps it would be worth contacting the Open Space Institute, they will often purchase and hold onto land to preserve it until another organization committed to protecting it from development can take it over. The main rock climbing cliff is small but it is stacked. There are maybe 4 5.10's, 5 5.11's, 1 5.12, 2 5.13's. It doesn't sound like much, but they are on a slightly overhanging wall and they are all incredibly good routes all right next to each other. In fact the 5.12 overhangs at about 120 degrees for about 60 or 70 feet and it's trad. It would be an amazing resource for local climbers and attractive enough or travelers to visit. I think it is the best cliff in the Southern Adirondacks for harder climbing. Off the to the left there is a larger cliff that is somewhat slabby that often forms a handful of decent ice routes. I think there's one 2 pitch rock climb on it (5.7ish?).

Thanks Christian.

Good Job Chris on the description. I can be a little more precise on some of the routes if anyone is interested. I think I did all of them in the mid 90s. I was fortunate enough to get permission from the owners to climb there back in the day. It really is a great cliff if you're climbing 5.11 and up. The 12c trad (G)(loser magnet) is one of the best pitches you'll ever do at that grade. Reminds me of Gravity's Rainbow in the Gunks. That section of the wall overhangs continuously.

It would be great to get that cliff open again. Great climbs, Solid Rock and easy approach.

Yes Frank I was interested if the routes on the property were moderate. I think the property would a great start to build a home on IF I was able to climb there. Thank you for the detailed reply.

As the current owner has just finished logging it and there are skid trails through the property I am also thinking that it may be a great opportunity to also have some mt bike trails and cross country ski trails.

Am am up for putting in the time to try to make this happen. From my view point I think the more user groups we can get on board the better.

Putting together a concise plan of action and having a coordinated effort is the most likely way that this can happen.

Anyone else in?

I'd be interested in participating in some form. Not sure what specifically I can do, but sounds like you have some experience in this and could certainly use volunteers.

I live about 40 minutes from the area, and while I couldn't even hang up an overhanging 5.11, I think more options are better. Plus, you mentioned ice.

I don't have experience with this I am hoping that someone with experience and connections will be up for joining the cause or at least help direct us in the right directions. I have energy and would like to gain some experience.

Hey Dan - I've reached out to some AF folks who hopefully can reach out to you help coordinate and get you guys some info and a good idea of where to go.

Thank you!

Hi all,

Morgan gave me a heads up about the potential purchase and the thread here. Dan, Christian, et al., I'd love to explore this potential purchase a little further. We have some short term financing through accessfund.org/aflcc and we just wrapped up the acquisition/fundraising of Eagle Bluff in Maine. Depending on the conservation strategy, we can partner with other groups such as the state (hold and transfer) and Open Space Institute (potential short-term owner), or an individual climber (ie a conservation easement). Ideally, we would not involve a buyer's real estate agent and just work with the seller's agent. Also, I wrote that response about TNC- they are great partners in some states such as Tennessee and in others its going to take some time to build a relationship and effect change.

Best to shoot me an email as we don't monitor forum posts.

It sounds like a great Adirondack crag!

Joe Sambataro
National Access Director | Access Fund
joe@accessfund.org

For anyone who might still be interested in helping out with this - the listing for this property expired last year and I got in contact with the owner today. I am a rock and ice climber myself and also happen to be a licensed realtor. One of my climbing partners mentioned this cliff to me the other day when talking about possible new ice climbing destinations. I am going to check out the property on Saturday to see what it looks like there and if all goes well I will be the selling agent for this property, I'm looking to get a 9 month exclusive listing so that I can come up with a few different ideas on how to proceed. Best case scenario we crowd fund the money for the land and create an LLC to hold the land and protect everyone from any liability issues, basically our own mini Access Fund for Mosher Cliff. There are also other options like selling off the road frontage portion of the parcel to a developer or builder so that we can lower the cost that would be required for just the cliff and access, or trying to find climber friendly buyers. Open to suggestions here, feel free to contact me directly if you are interested in participating.