Rock Adventures - The Bullet Crag, Part 1

This past Saturday my partner John and I decided to take a chance on a little-known and probably long-forgotten crag.  Just under a 1 hour drive followed by a 20 minute moderate trail hike and a 10 minute uphill bushwhack led us to a series of large boulder-like outcrops with some truly fantastic climbing. 

The rock is a bullet-hard gray “conglomerate”.  The climbing is certainly unique and the rock is good quality although there is a possibility of some of the blocks being loose.  

 

The climbing felt a lot like “top-rope bouldering”.  The starting moves were usually very difficult with the feet hidden by an overhang followed by 2-3 pumpy moves before gaining purchase and balancing out.  But it’s good to rope up since beyond the V starts there’s at least another 15-20 feet of climbing.  If the ground was more level this would probably make for a fantastic high-ball crag. 

 

Our day was a mixed bag climbing on slabs, splitter cracks, or on what I can only describe as stacked flakes.  All of the terrains perfectly complemented style as most of the slab is low-angle, the splitters are steep, and the blocky “stacked flake” climbing is on bulging or overhanging rock with a lot odd vertical pinches.  Unique to this rock formation are the many arêtes which call for side pulls as well as razor sharp flake edges which were brutal on our hands on that frigid winter morning.  On account of the cold we finished early but plan on returning as soon as the weather is a little more accommodating to continue exploring and climbing these rock formations.  

 

The pictures I shared are the left and right sides of the main outcrops that we climbed.  The routes we climbed are the 5.5 Inside Corner with V-1 Face Start, the 5.7+Splitter Crack, and the 5.9 Right Side of Right Arête.  The routes marked with an asterisk are not listed or graded in the guidebook and contain my own opinion of their grade. Along with some scattered boulders there was another large outcrop to our left as well as a smaller one to our right that both have established routes but we didn’t climb either of them.

 

Left Side of Main Outcrops



Right Side of Right Side Block of Main Outcrops

Alcove "Middle" of Right Side Block

 

 

Far Right of Right Side Block



 

 

I’m not aware of any access issues at this location.  In the interest of not stirring up a hornets nest I will withhold publishing the name and location of this area.  However, this area listed in the Rock Climbing New Jersey Guidebook (and contains the same disclaimer regarding unknown access).  My personal guideline is to go quietly, climb quietly, depart quietly, and most certainly not leave a trace.      

Calm before the Storm

Late October 2012 Hurricane Sandy devastated my home state of New Jersey and much of the North East.  Weeks later many of us are still recovering as things slowly begin to return to normal.  My family and I were fortunate to be spared any severe damage but were still forced to deal with our own share of hardships.   

 

The weekend before the storm my wife and I had planned on an overnight camping trip to Stokes State Forest.  Saturday would be a relatively windless and dry day with overcast skies.  But late in the night the forecast called for high winds and rains that would only continue on.  Obviously camping was no longer the plan.  But, this lead to good fortune as my wife suggested we go climbing together.  Climbing with my wife is a rare privilege.  Early into our exposure to climbing, before her pregnancy and the birth of our son, my wife and I were dedicated gym rats.  In fact, my wife was actually a very strong climber before the priorities of motherhood took over.   

 

This would be the third time in nearly a year (fifth time in total, not counting two ice climbs) my wife joined me to climb outside.  We decided on Ricks Rocks, a 30-50 foot cliff band near the Delaware Water Gap, popular with the Boy Scouts (my partner Ashish ran their climbing program here back in 2011).  I put my wife on the Boy Scouts “test piece” known as One Bowl Gulley, a 5.0 climb that is mostly 4^th class with a few very safe but technical climbing moves.  For my wife the difficulty was the heights, not the climbing.  She would climb and be lowered off in 10 foot intervals, but always ending higher than where she left off.  For my turns, I could actually start a few feet to the right on a variation of the route called One Bowl Ceiling, 5.8.  There’s a bulge crux along with some slab sections that made for a good climbing workout.  Later, I set up a top-rope on Jason’s Crack, 5.7 but the route as well as the entire wall was very wet and muddy making it an unpleasantly filthy grovel and after I topped out I told her not even to bother.  She told me she had already made up her mind after listening to all my grunting and watching me scoop mud out of the crack.   

Looking down One Bowl Gulley

 

Looking up One Bowl Gulley



 

After lunch we decided to call it a day.  By then we could feel random drops of rain and the wind had picked up.  Despite only a few hours of climbing, I had a wonderful time with my wife and was happy to see she enjoyed her time there (although she’s not quite lukewarm to climbing with me regularly).  As we descended the trail I asked her about making salvaging the distance we drove by taking a short hike at The Gap.  But as she thought this over a snake slithered out on the trail in front of us and began to hiss loudly and I knew right there wasn’t even a chance.      

 



My Favorite Climbing Partner

The Snake that ended the day