The Hang Gang

Sun, Apr 26, 2009

The Northeast may get overlooked as a climbing destination, but it has produced some world-class rock jocks. We asked five of them — guys who have scaled walls from New York to Nepal — to put the latest climbing duds and activewear to the test, and reveal their choicest routes.

Text by Josh Fulmer

Fashion by Patti O’Brien

Photographs by Michael Dwornik

The Prodigy: Brian Kim

What’s it like to be 21 and already have a decade’s worth of climbing under your belt? Ask Kim, who wandered into a local rock gym at 11 and has climbed at least five times a week ever since. By 15 he’d earned a spot on the U.S. junior team, followed by a national bouldering title in 2004. A climber with an impressive résumé in bouldering and traditional and sport climbing (which relies on permanent anchors placed in the rocks), the New Jersey native climbed his way across the U.K., France, Switzerland, and Austria last year, but he maintains a particular fondness for his old stomping grounds. “I grew up climbing in the Gunks,” he says, referring to New York’s famed Shawangunk Mountains. “I love to climb anything up there because the area has so much history, and it’s got a lot of great moderate routes that you can do without wearing yourself out.”

Favorite Route: The bouldering spot Magic Wood, in Switzerland. “The name is appropriate. You’re surrounded by perfect granite boulders scattered among trees in a Swiss forest.”

The Crowd-Pleaser: Obe Carrion

Carrion recalls skipping high school to climb after a gym opened two blocks from his Pennsylvania home. His delinquent behavior served him well, and he soon found himself starring in pioneering climbing flicks like Rampage and Free Hueco! By 2000 he was the number-one-ranked boulderer in the country, had set up dozens of cutting-edge routes — or “problems” — in New York’s Shawangunk Mountains and Texas’s Hueco Tanks, and represented the U.S. in world cup competitions across Europe. He eventually landed an instructor gig at the Rock Club, in New Rochelle, New York. City life suits Carrion, 32, who brings a decidedly metropolitan vibe to a typically earthy sport. During bouldering competitions he blasts rap and dances on the walls between holds. “I like to get the crowd mad hyped, to make them feel like they’re part of my climbing,” he says.

Favorite Route: One he established in the Shawangunk Mountains. “It’s called Kajro, and it was one of the most difficult problems in the Gunks when I put it up. It’s beautiful — you’re doing so many things at once to stay on nonexistent holds.”

The Problem Solver: Peter Doucette

Doucette spent his childhood hiking the White Mountains of New Hampshire, so climbing was a natural next step. He parlayed his skills into gigs with Exum Mountain Guides and Alpine Endeavors before founding his own guiding service, New Hampshire–based Mountain Sense, in 2006. Doucette, who has claimed first ascents in New Hampshire and Asia and done recent climbs in the Canadian Rockies and Italy’s Dolomites, is nearing completion of IFMGA certification — guiding’s most respected international credentials, bestowed on only 52 Americans to date. For Doucette, 29, the appeal of guiding is the responsibility that it demands. “To set off for a climb with only a small pack, knowing that the rest is up to me, that my team’s success will be determined by my problem-solving skills, is something I find exceptionally rewarding,” he says.

Favorite Route: Moonflower Buttress — which he and a partner completed in 41 hours — on the Alaska Range’s Mount Hunter. “It’s 4,000 feet of ice and mixed climbing, and you’re dealing with high winds and sloughs of snow falling from above. It forced me to become a better climber in the middle of the climb.”

The Veteran: Ian Osteyee

Osteyee owes a lot to the high school English teacher who, beyond the requisite 19th-century British prose, introduced him to climbing in New York’s Adirondacks. “I was attracted to the thrill of climbing,” says Osteyee. “I liked the idea of scaling a high wilderness cliff that seemed so unobtainable.” The Lake Placid, New York, native soon began bagging first ascents and making guiding trips of his own in the ’Dacks. After a stint in a marine reconnaissance unit that took him to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, he returned to New York and eventually founded Adirondack Mountain Guides. Besides his 25 years of experience in those mountains, Osteyee, 41, has guided and climbed extensively in the Himalayas, including last year’s ascent of Nepal’s 2,500-foot Losar WI5 ice route with blind climber Erik Weihenmayer.

-Favorite Route: Wilheim Jorge, in Keene Valley’s Chapel Pond Canyon. “It’s a mixed, poorly protected route with thin ice. Basically, it’s everything that’s difficult about climbing all wrapped into one route.”

The Teacher: Michael Feinberg

Feinberg didn’t let the lack of natural rock in the Philadelphia suburbs where he grew up discourage his vertical ambition. Instead, he hit the climbing gym every week and began competing indoors as a teen. Enrolling at the University of Colorado provided a convenient excuse to relocate to Boulder, where Feinberg honed his skills on real rock. “The level of climbing out West was much more difficult,” he says. “I was surrounded by better climbers who pushed me to improve.” His credentials include a second place in bouldering at the 2005 nationals. These days Feinberg, 24, teaches climbing at Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers while training for next year’s nationals.

Favorite Route: The Full Monty, in the climbing mecca of Hueco Tanks, Texas. “It’s very difficult and very dramatic — a sequence of hard, sustained climbing over two or three consecutive moves.”

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