We camped out at Pok-O-Moonshine in Dave's tent, but we were all too tired to care much about the cramped quarters. Craig, in a fit of sheer lunacy, again showed up on time for our 7am rendezvous and we all went to breakfast in Keesville. This is as close to Plattsburgh as I had been in 13 years, and it was really amazing.
Dave and Craig outside of the breakfast place in Keesville, New York.
Pok-O-Moonshine is really the cradle of my development as a climber. In the fall of 1989 I would come here several times a week with Dave and we would tool around and climb easy things. It was only a 20 minute drive from Plattsburgh, we didnt know how good we had it!
Summer, Craig, and Dave enjoying the sun at Pok-O-Moonshine.
Since that time the Air Force base has closed, and I have lived almost twice as many years, and we have all grown older, but Pok-O has remained as forbidding a place as I remembered it. It is steep, solid, and wicked hard East coast climbing at its finest. Pok-O is the home of some notorious routes, like Summer Soltice and the Sky Traverse, and the ultra classic NEI5 ice climbs Positive Thinking and Jeff Lowe's Gorillas in the Mist.
Summer works 11a. Summer worked tenaciously on this 11a problem and got most of it worked out by her second try.
We set up a set of top ropes on some nice half-pitch climbs below the Summer Solstice roof on the Nose Apron. These are climbs I had never climbed before, and they were solid and fun. In many ways, they reminded me of Smith Rock, with cruxes coming off the ground and thin face climbing.
Craig climbs the 9 while Summer works the 11a.
In the afternoon, Dave headed into Plattsburgh to visit and old professor while Craig, Summer and I hiked the mile and a half to the top of Pok-O-Moonshine. At the summit the winds were gusting to 40mph, and it felt great to be Upstate!
Autumn colors from the top of Pok-O-Moonshine, looking towards the High Peaks.
We finished off our trip with a ride into Plattsburgh in the afternoon. I gave Summer a brief tour of the Plattsburgh campus by car, showing her Moffit and McDonough halls, my residence halls during Freshman year, and the main campus and Kehoe building. There was the library, and the gym. Who could forget the endless games of Cabal? Who could forget the ultimate Ultimate frisbee games, the Ben and Jerry's? The getting wasted at Finnans?
It rained all afternoon, and Summer and I wiled our time away in a coffeeshop. The town was deader than dead: all the students were gone since it was Columbus Day weekend, and all the flyboys were gone. Yup, Plattsburgh is just about as far away as you can get, I sure missed the place!
On our drive down the Northway later that night, Summer and I planned on coming back next fall and climbing here again!
