Continue with onX Maps
Sign in with Facebook
Name History
Aug 4, 2020:
"Shockley's Ceiling" was renamed "The Ceiling".
Suggested Page Improvements to The Ceiling
Description Suggestion
This route is considered to be one of the top three 5.6 routes at the Gunks, with [[High E]]105798994 and [[Madame G]]105799697 being the other two. The first two pitches can be linked up with [[105799704]] - climb past the first roof of Strictly, and make a traverse right to the belay just below the Shockley's roof. P1 and P2 can easily be combined.
The Shockley's access trail is located almost exactly where the East Trapps Connector Trail (the Stairmaster) meets the carriage road. This is about a 5-min. walk from the Uberfall.
P1: Start 25' right and uphill from Strictly in a large right-facing dihedral. Follow a chimney (or climb the face to the left) to an awkward step around a roof. 5.4, 50'.
P2: Angle up and right into a steep right-facing corner. Follow fun jugs to a lichen-y slab finish. Belay on the large ledge below the roofs. 5.5, 120'.
P3: The money pitch: Jam the hand crack through the roof. After making the crux move, place some gear for your 2nd. Continue through the second roof and follow a crack system to the clifftop. 5.6, 100'.
Communication from the clifftop is notoriously bad - plan accordingly (and also know that people on the carriage road will hear you and your partners much better than you'll hear each other - this is often quite amusing! -JSH).
Descent: walk left about 200' to the bolted rappel down Ribs. Three single raps with a 60 will get you down.
The Shockley's access trail is located almost exactly where the East Trapps Connector Trail (the Stairmaster) meets the carriage road. This is about a 5-min. walk from the Uberfall.
P1: Start 25' right and uphill from Strictly in a large right-facing dihedral. Follow a chimney (or climb the face to the left) to an awkward step around a roof. 5.4, 50'.
P2: Angle up and right into a steep right-facing corner. Follow fun jugs to a lichen-y slab finish. Belay on the large ledge below the roofs. 5.5, 120'.
P3: The money pitch: Jam the hand crack through the roof. After making the crux move, place some gear for your 2nd. Continue through the second roof and follow a crack system to the clifftop. 5.6, 100'.
Communication from the clifftop is notoriously bad - plan accordingly (and also know that people on the carriage road will hear you and your partners much better than you'll hear each other - this is often quite amusing! -JSH).
Descent: walk left about 200' to the bolted rappel down Ribs. Three single raps with a 60 will get you down.
History Suggestion
William Shockley managed a research group at Bell Labs, including John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, that invented the solid-state transistor. Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for "their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".
In later life, Shockley repulsively described his outspoken advocacy of eugenics, the effort to manipulate the human genetic stock by excluding those judged as inferior and unfit, as the most important work of his career. Because of this, his name is forever tarnished. The name of the route is now "The Ceiling" rather than the original "Shockley's Ceiling."
