Dear Gunkies,
My apologies for the mass letter, but I wanted to write you, and there are just too many of you to write personally. Some of you have slipped through the cracks of time and memory, but you know who you are, no matter where you may be now. You know where you’ve been and what you’ve done.
I am writing to say thanks.
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Lately, the Gunks has been heavy on mind. I live here. I have projects, a partner, a community here. Right now, I call the Gunks home. And I’ve realized something; you think you know a place, inside and out, by just simply spending time there. But you can’t really know a place until you know who came before.
Vulgarian Claude Suhl working onto the big High E ledge in the late '50s. Photo: Dick Williams
Eighty years ago this year, Fritz Wiessner scaled the cliffs of the Gunks for the first time, establishing his initial route in a list of many, Old Route, up the intimidating face of Millbrook using pitons, hemps ropes and boots. Since then, so much has happened. Just a few years after his Old Route ascent, Fritz established High Exposure with fellow bold climber Hans Kraus. The route is, to this day, a wildly exposed hyper-classic 5.6. A decade later, Jim McCarthy, a Kraus underling of sorts, hammered his way into the forefront of eastern climbing, establishing hard aid lines like No Glow, Double Crack and Foops.
Then, throughout the ‘50s, the rule-obsessed Appies and no-introduction-necessary Vulgarians duked it out to crown the ruler of the cliffs. The fallout from this battle came in the form of a mass of bold new routes. Among them were Pas de Deux, Birdland and, as 1960 crested, MF, which might be remembered as standing for “McCarthy’s Follies”…or, alternately, something more vulgar. And alongside the impressive new lines came the stories—drugs and debauchery. There was the short-lived, three-edition Vulgarian Digest (with the scandalous second edition cover of a shirtless Elaine Matthews) that remains part of the time's lore, and Dick Williams’ early-'60s nude ascent of Shockley’s Ceiling. Looking back, the Vulgarian period can seem a bit cartoonish, lingering in our collective memory, getting a little more outrageous with each retelling. But, at the time, these events were progressive. Anti-establishment. They were freedom.
And as it always goes, new, enlightened climbers continued to arrive. Like, the ‘60s. They were on fire; Yvon Chouinard visited, carrying with him fun new toys, and from there, climbing took off. Gobs of new routes appeared before the first calendar year of the decade was even rolled back. Goldstone and McCarthy snagged the first ascent of CoExistence; Dick Williams and Art Gran come up with the still-to-this-day intimidating Fat City. Hot damn! Then John Stannard, convinced all aid could go free, took the torch during a five-day effort to free climb Foops. Just like that, he spearheaded the clean climbing movement.
Jack Mileski climbs Clairvoyance. Photo: Dick Williams
"The Gunks may never again be the in-vogue crag, pushing standards and breaking rules."
The ‘70s rolled around, and with it came Stannard’s Eastern Trade and his all-nut ascent log in Rock and Snow. There were the yo-yo siege-style ascents of the ‘80s. And, of course, lycra. Teamwork makes the dream work, and Russ Clune, Jeff Gruenberg, Hugh Hurr and Lynn Hill put in a joint effort to complete Vandals, the dream to put up the East's first 5.13.
Of course there were the obscurities and outliers. Rich Romano relentlessly developed his love child, Millbrook, the site of the first route in the Gunks. There were the top-rope-only testpieces of Lost City. The late Jack Mileski and Jeff Gruenberg's Clairvoyance and Scott Franklin's Survival of the Fittest—two short routes that are still hard as nails and test pieces of their time. Then, Patrick Edlinger visited and did everything.
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But why am I telling you all of this, Gunkies? You know it all, because you were there. You made it all happen. You all make the Gunks what it is today. And this metamorphosis is more than just first ascents. More than just boldness and the evolution of gear. It’s the community that makes this place special. It’s the fact that the Gunks was, and hopefully always will be, made up of people like you. Of course, the band of bullet-hard rock doesn’t hurt, but it’s the people who climb it that give it its shape.
The Gunks may never again be the in-vogue crag, pushing standards and breaking rules. It may never again be the breeding ground for hard climbers, a pit stop between Europe and the mega cliffs of Yosemite. And it won’t be the site of an even cleaner climbing revolution. No, its cliffs and personal history just aren’t set up for that. You all gobbled that last savory slice of Good Old Day Pie.
But it will remain as a stellar destination. It will always have some of the best rock in the country. And it will always be known for boasting some of the most fun trad climbing—ever. Believe it or not, there is even still a new send here and there, ripe for the picking. The Gunks is a place where that old adage still applies: If you can learn to place gear here, you can place gear anywhere.
So I write to say thank you. I write to remind of, and for myself live for the first time, the glory days. This living, breathing history has only deepened my appreciation for and understanding of climbing. I can’t look up at Vandals without imagining the community that it took to create it. So forgive me if I ramble, but I needed to say thanks. Because you not only shaped the rock, but you shaped all of the future climbers who would touch it, and when was the last time you got a pat on the back?
No, no. Please. No need to write me back. Just take a minute to remember the good times. And take a minute to relish in the memory of your time, commitment and vision.
With much respect,
- Whitney B.
Learn more here. —Ed.
Dick Williams does a historic 20th-anniversary naked ascent of Shockley's Ceiling in 1984.
