Highest Elevation Crag/Technical Climbing East of Mississippi River USA

I am curious what the highest elevation climbing on the east coast would be? To be clear I am not talking about the tallest cliff/mountain (Laurel Knob or Whiteside would take that), just the highest base elevation. I know Mt Mitchell in NC is technically the highest point on the east coast but there really isn't any technical rock climbing there, mostly steep hiking. Does anyone have any input?

I would think somewhere on the Blue Ridge Parkway through VA/NC/TN or perhaps up in NY??

Huntington Ravine on Mt Washington or the Armadillo area at Baxter both have multi pitch routes that start at > 4K feet.  I am sure there are bouldering opportunities higher up.

I would presume that the routes in Huntington Ravine on Mt. Washington would qualify. I don’t have any topo maps handy to make exact calculations, but I believe that the routes are located between the 4000 and 5000 ft. contour lines. Several of the other peaks in the Presidential Range—and other high White Mountain summits, have rocky bits closer to their summits than anything on Mt. Washington, but none of them seem to offer opportunities for technical climbing. It is possible that some of the climbs in the ‘basins’ on Kathadin in Maine top out a bit higher than the climbs in Huntington, but I still think the former is the ‘winner’.

Some of the ice/snow gullies on Franconia Ridge top out at ~5000 ft, so might come close to beating out Washington/Katahdin. It might be necessary to define the "end" of a climbing route. Is it the end of the gully, where the climb joins the trail/summit, or where you take the rope off? If the latter, then unroped solo and bouldering are disqualified?

In the Adirondacks there many short rock faces near the top of the high peaks ...all over 4,000 ft ... such as The Bottleneck near the top of Giant, some nearly 5,000 ft (Algonquin) ... nearly all the faces will require a 2 hour + approach hike

Funny, I was just assuming OP was only interested in rock climbs ( he did mention rock in his post) but that is probably just unconscious bias on my part.

There are a number of slide climbs in the Adirondack High Peaks ( Marcy, Giant) that can be climbed in both summer and winter conditions, but I think they top out well below the summits—and they present the same ‘ where do the climbs actually end’ conundrum that Dave mentioned.

For clarity sake, yes I was more talking rock climbing whether it's trad or sport. I do not climb alpine or ice so I was trying to leave those out of the equation.

In the Daks the new (Irene) slide on Colden ends within a few feet of the 4700 summit.  That felt like low 5th class to this old man even though we weren't roped.

Here is a variant of the question - what is the highest elevation SPORT (not just something with bolts but something that a gym rat would call a sport climb) east of the Mississippi?

I’ll guess an answer to Eric’s question ( while also reaching my post limit for this thread today). I think it would be the routes on the summit cliff of Snowy Mountain in the Adirondacks. The summit is at 3899 and the single pitch sport climbs top out just a short way below it. Since it is reported as a 2.5 hour, uphill hike to get there, they are likely also the hardest to reach sport climbs—hats off to the equippers who hauled the bolting gear up there, then put in the effort to establish the routes. The climbs look good, but I’m too old and lazy to see for myself. Eric you like to hike uphill, as does your youngest, so go up there and give me a report.  

Edit to add; Some of the routes in Smugglers’ Notch in VT, could qualify,  but I think they are a good bit lower elevation than Snowy.

i think there are some technical climbs on the chin that are not documented that are above the notch and very near the summit of mansfield at 4300’ in the alpine but they are still likely less than huntington. no map or topo in front of me to check though. 

snowy is fun and i’d like to go back because the setting is without peer, but it was definitely more of a hike than i expected. 

devils courthouse on the BRP has been climbed once upon a time, and it sits at 5,700 feet (illegal now). and of course, some places in NC that we don’t talk about on the internet are probably pretty damn close to that as well. I would think that or the stuff in hungtinton ravine would have to be it.

NE Ridge of the Pinnacle in Huntington Ravine tops out at around 5,200-5,300 feet. Another option would be a route on the north face of Mt. Katahdin, which would top out on the summit at 5,270.

yeah pinnacle on washington starts at 4550 and tops out at just shy of 5200. on katahdin the armadillo , starts at around 4400 and tops out at the summit.  i doubt there’s stuff much higher than pinnacle though.