Tag Archives: Western Mass rock climbing

Sep13

Exploring and climbing a new crag – Hanging Mountain!

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Sunday, 21-Aug-2022

When I confirmed my flights, I quickly reached out to Daniel. I miss climbing outdoors, as does he, and late-August is definitely a good time to get onto the wall. It’s hot, true, but also minorly less likely to be rainy… so I’ll take it.

After deliberation, we locked into a destination – Hanging Mountain, a new crag recently opened to the public. I’d first heard about it last November, when flying out for Dillon’s bachelor party, but honestly didn’t know much about it, aside from that it was in Western Mass. We dove into some research, locked in the details, and headed out early on Sunday morning.

Well… early-ish. I mean, it’s Daniel, right? And me. We do mornings… but not really.

As far as new crags go, it was amazing. As far as established crags go, it was also amazing. The rock was solid, the trails well cut, and the belay areas tolerably sized. The areas were beautifully close together, and it was basically abandoned on the Sunday that found us scaling the heights.

It.

Was.

Awesome!




So what did we climb, you may ask? Well. We climbed all the things!

Acorn Face / Squirrel Wall:
– Lost and Found, 5.7, Sport lead
– Radiant Sky, 5.10d top rope, one cheat move… I admit.

Progressive Buttress:
– Green New Deal, 5.7+, Sport lead
– Nevertheless, 5.8-, Sport lead
– She Persists, 5.8, Sport lead
– Feel the Bern, 5.10, Top rope

Sep30

21-Sep-13 – Climbing at Crow Hill

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21-Sep-13 – Climbing at Crow Hill

  • I met up with Daniel, Erin and Meghan early afternoon on Saturday. They were supposed to be there earlier, but the extra time gave me a good chance to relax and explore the area.  Do a bit of shopping at the random yard sales, have a bite to eat, the usual slow Saturday stuff.
  • Once they arrived we moved onto the climbing – starting in at the far left wall
    • Usual two routes here: layback crack and the nice handcrack that runs up the center
    • Daniel and I led the center crack (once each), and I let Daniel take the Layback crack.  Was nice, and a fun relaxed set of climbs.
    • I tried to set up a small climb farther right, but unfortunately some other folks arrived just before I could actually go about setting the route.  Wasn’t that horrible, but I was looking forward to trying out a new face over there.  Getting a good lead in maybe.
  • From here we moved right, to the practice slabs.  It was getting late, so we only did a toprope of the first one.  I did take two runs on it though – one to try the straight-up and fun route, and another to try out a few harder slab moves that looked interesting.  They were, in fact, quite interesting.
    • And… that was it.  Not a huge amount of climbing, but it was fun.  The weather was great and we had a good time, which is really the key to it.