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"All Things Holy": A New Rock Climbing Route on the Haystack Side of Panther Gorge

Posted by Kevin MacKenzie,
North Country explorer from
July 12, 2014

New Route created with Adam Crofoot: 505 feet, (5.7) YDS in the remote Panther Gorge!

When I was last in Panther Gorge during June, we had sights on a cliff on the western aspect below Little Haystack, something undocumented that I’ve started calling the “V” Wall on account of its shape and position between a gully on the left and basaltic dike on the right. The weather skunked us so we spent a couple days exploring the gorge and targeted a couple technical slides to the south on our last day. I never forgot about the unexplored terrain. Adam emailed recently and we set up plans to head back into the gorge with all guns trained on this area.

With a name inspired as a way to give Christ glory for such a beautiful creation, the climbing was on excellent rock and easy by technical climbing standards. Putting up the route didn’t require study of the face or cleaning, it was simply a matter of simply following the most interesting features to the top.

For the full story with video & photo set visit: http://www.adkhighpeaks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25436

Comments

Jacob Malcomb

What a bold, creative route. Haystack is one of my favorite High Peaks. I'd never considered this approach though. Thanks for sharing.

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Macky Young

I see that you have climbed a lot of slides. Any beta on the Gully Slide on Colden? I've been wanting to try it.

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Kevin MacKenzie

Macky,
It's my passion! The W Gully aka Cruciflyer is awesome.
I've got beta on about 100+ slides here: http://www.mackenziefamily.com/46/46r.html
The Cruciflyer is here (summer) http://www.adkhighpeaks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17850 or here (winter) http://www.adkhighpeaks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23392

There's a few tricky spots since it's a double fall line and it gets fairly exposed in some areas at the top. The whack to the false summit of Colden vacillates between moderate to thick depending on where you are. Enjoy!

Jacob: Thanks! It's one of my favourites as well. There's another route on a slide about 1/4 mile south that's worth it too. We rated that 5.3. I'll be posting on Nature Up north soon. It's also on my site above...look for Haycrack on the Technical Rock page if you're interested in another view of Hay :)

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