Maybe you should get out of the MF subjunctive you self-styled liberal whacko. It you want to climb along the river, do it. Express yourself and claim first amendment.

I have to agree with you Mike, the areas Near Sam's Point would seem to lend themselves to climbing as they are not 'pristine' probably don't support a lot of endangered species, etc. The problem is, if they allow climbing only there would climbers abuse this by climbing on off limits cliffs? A confidential report done for Sam's Point and other cliffs nearby does document several sensitive areas.
This same arguement could be made at Skytop, if the issue is only their guests' experience (and not liabilty, which may also be the case) why couldn't they allow limited climbing only past the staircliff for instance. Again, would climbers respect this rule? I doubt it since I have walked the base of the Skytop cliffs (and done some non-technical scrambling myself) and have seen illegal climbers and chalk on popular climbs. So I don't see the powers changing their minds right off. Boys will be boys.

Things aren't too bad currently and maybe that's all for the best. Certainly the Preserve is actively helpful to climbers --almost the reverse of PIPC--- and Trapps/Nears are the only place worth much anyway. (One hopes I'm at least a tiny bit wrong in saying so....)

But I don't think its an absolute certaintly that things currently are for the best---And do think it's amusing to speculate and ramble insanely about alternatives:

For example; maybe the Climber's Coalition could sponsor a trip by the Chamber of Commerce from that Mexican climbing town near South Texas to provide testimony to the PIPC......

In yet a third scenario, climbing becomes an Olympic sport...... and boys & girls from both SUNY & north Jersey win medals.....The park puts up signs everwhere.

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double necessary post

seems like ever since Thom Scheuer left; the prevserve started acting like an aggresive business. i wish Thom was still around.

West Point banned hiking on their lands around the time you mention. An interesting story. Why didn't Fritz W climb in Palisades? Or did he?

He did climb in the Palisades Park lands, though I don't think the 'Palisades' proper. In the 1930's, Wiessner and the AMC would regularly go to three or four cliffs in the PIPC lands on weekends. I think people started climbing in the Palisades in the late 1800s. One day he famously spotted the Gunks from the top of Breakneck Ridge and decided his next trip should be to go check it out - 1935, I think?
Once people discovered the nearly endless supply of rock at the Gunks - taller, better quality, and much more extensive than any crag in the Hudson Highlands, the climber traffic moved north. Maybe Arden Cliff had traffic a little longer since it was easy to get to by train (fewer automobiles back then; rail service to Arden was discontinued long ago), but as routes like High E were seeing first ascents, West Point training activities were taking over all the steep rock near West Point -- which was being conveniently abandoned by climbers.
You might be able to find the story in that book "Yankee Rock and Ice" by the Watermans.

Yah, it eez pozzibul.

Vee go climb upundzee der cliff, ya? Ya!


On a clear day, you can see the Gunks, and the lower Cats from on top of Breakneck, or Taurus, Mt Beacon, etc.