Shawangunk Ridge

But then also when I was out on Monday, I didn't really hit any water because it was so cool and shaded where I was.

But all things considered, whether it's hiking or walking in the Gunks, the place is spectacular.

There's just a lot of beautiful sites there, a lot of history there.

You get a very different breed of outdoors person.

No, I can relate to that.

I mean, I grew up climbing at the Gunks.

That's where I cut my teeth as a teenager and same story, you know, rated our stuff in the Gunks, you know, then going to Eldo or a lot of other areas didn't feel so bad.

But, uh, But on the other hand, you know, what you're doing now is like almost a whole nother sport, of course, because the element of danger is largely removed with sport climbing.

Yeah, you can still get yourself killed if you do something stupid or your belayer drops you.

I always cared about history.

I think the things that have happened at Smith have, even though it's in miniature compared to someplace like Yosemite or the Shawangunks or Boulder Canyon, it's mirrored everything that's happened and sometimes even led to what's happening in modern days.

So that's why I personally wanted to document it in some of the films that I've done.

That's all the time we've got left on the Explore Oregon podcast.

Kim grew up on Long Island, close enough to Jones Beach that her whole childhood happened outside.

A visit to a friend at SUNY New Paltz introduced her to the Shawangunk Ridge, and she never really left.

Over the past 25 years at Mohonk, she's shaped the lives of thousands of students and community members through hands-on, place-based education.

In this episode, we talk about Kim's path from teaching kids with dyslexia at a school in Armenia, New York, to spending an entire academic year traveling the world as a teacher to one of her students.

This new climb, which they've named the Hologram Wall, follows 60 years of fascinating history, leading up to the adventurous first ascent in July of 2026, when Eli Spitolnik and Michael Telstad made it to the summit and back over a four-day alpine-style push with only seven total hours of sleep, requiring endurance and resolve through a tight weather window on one of the last great unclimbed faces in the country.

We'll dig into the infamous hoax from the 1960s when a group of climbers submitted a photo of the Kachatnas to Summit Magazine under a false name and location to spoof the climbing community, which went on to inspire the first expedition to the zone in 1965 by a collection of climbers from the Gunks.

We'll hear from two of the climbers on that first 1965 expedition, Al DiMaria and Peter Geiser, with more insights on this wacky chapter in climbing history.

We'll also learn about the more modern history in the Kachatnas from Conrad Anker, whose first major expedition as an alpine climber was flying into the Kachatnas on an American Alpine Club grant in 1987.

I'm a filmmaker as well too, so kind of get to travel a bit for that, which is fun with climbing.

But yeah, these days I live in New York City, so I pull on a bit more plastic than I used to, but you kinda make it all work and get to go up to the Gunks and things like that as well too, so it's a good time.

Okay, let's get an overview of Horseshoe Hell for the absolute noob.

And, and honestly, Chris and I [laughs] could just still be put in this category, 'cause the amount of actual research I've put into this is, is pretty slim.