Ice climbing is not for the faint-of-heart. Just being outdoors on your average winter Catskills day can be bad enough, let alone outdoors hanging by your fingernails from the underside of a cliff 85 feet up.
But lots of people around here love the sport, and several of them -- notably Ryan Stefiuk at Bigfoot Mountain Guides and a rotating cast of climbers at Alpine Endeavors -- chronicle their adventures clambering up the ice in excellent blogs.
Those blogs were a-flutter recently over a nerve-wracking video made by recent transplants to New Paltz from the Rockies of their ascent up a new route in the Kaaterskill Clove dubbed the "Palenville Coronary."
With Chris Lamme videoing the climb and Kyle Gay belaying, Brad Heller made the ascent with the help of some sophisticated climbing tools and Gay to catch him if he fell.
The video of the climb is worth watching in its entirety -- especially around minute 4:15, when Heller loses his grip, falls, and gets caught by Gay's belay rope:
According to The Alpinist, a climbing website, that was just one of Heller's falls that day.
The site reports that it took Heller three hours and five falls to finish the climb, and that he broke a finger and sprained his ankle in the process.
Another climbing website, Climberism, has a little more detail about the route Heller blazed:
The route is currently rated, at what they believe, WI6 M7, “it’s about 85′ tall with a 15′ roof,” Chris Says. Heller attempted to onsight the climb but took a few burly falls; it still awaits a ground-up ascent or Heller’s redpoint. The route is about 50′ to the right of the Palenville Corner in the Kaaterskill Clove area of the Catskills.
On his blog, Stefiuk lauded the team for its bold approach:
For anyone who’s wondering what the hard mixed climbing in the Catskills is all about this video will convince you that you need to come scrap around on the steep crags in the Cats. Just thinking about placing my hand over the pick of a wobbly tool placement makes my palms sweat ... Brad Heller and Chris Lamme are both recent New Paltz residents that have moved east from the Rockies. Sometimes it takes a new pair of glasses and a strong set of forearms to show people the possibilities that await.
But other climbers are dubious about Heller's feat. Several posters on a forum for climbers at the University of Washington think that the climb was too risky:
This is one of the crazier (scarier) climbs I've ever seen. Glad I'm not this guy's belayer.
This makes me wonder if he's just stupid and lucky or got good and hard fast. I mean, is it conceivable that he was just unaware of the risks of what he was doing. My guess, and sincere hope, is no, but that did seem rather reckless. Anything for publicity right?
