20 years of Adirondack climbing

Will Roth of the Adirondack Climbers’ Coalition looks back at changes to sport over the past two decades

By Mike Lynch

Saranac Lake resident Will Roth is an avid climber, backcountry skier and president of the Adirondack Climbers’ Coalition. 

The Explorer caught up with Roth recently to learn more about his experience, the coalition and some highlights from this past winter. 

(This session has been edited for clarity.)

How long have you been ice climbing and backcountry skiing in the Adirondacks? 

I moved to Keene Valley in January 2005. A Climbing magazine article about the ice climbing scene going on here was a big catalyst for that move. I was lucky to get wrapped up in that climbing scene very quickly after arriving. This was mostly due to meeting local climbing legend Joe Szot almost immediately after moving in and getting invited over to the Bivy, his unofficial climbing hostel, which was the epicenter of all things climbing at the time. Ice climbing equipment was evolving quickly, winters in the Northeast were really good for ice several years in a row, standards were being pushed (both in difficulty and boldness) and new routes were going up weekly. For a 25 year old, it was a special time to be here. 

You are the president of the Adirondack Climbers Coalition. Tell us about the organization and why it exists? What is its mission? 

The ACC is a climbing advocacy organization. In 2018 the High Peaks were undergoing an update to the unit management plan (UMP) that guides how the area is regulated. There was some language included in the UMP that could have affected climbing access. So the coalition was started to try and make sure that climbers weren’t left out of the conversation. Today we continue to advocate for climbing throughout the entire forest preserve. 

Our mission is to include advocacy for all technical climbing pursuits (e.g., technical rock climbing, slide climbing, scrambling, bouldering, ice and mixed climbing, and technical mountaineering); work with land managers to: preserve access to cliffs, boulders and slides; maintain sustainable approach paths; protect cliff tops and bases; provide educational resources and historical information to the public; conserve and protect local flora and fauna and their habitat; serve as a liaison between climbers, land managers, policy makers; and prioritize and protect lands important for climbing by pursuing land acquisitions, easements, or other use agreements.

During the time you’ve lived in the Adirondacks, winter conditions have changed. How has that impacted not only climbers and skiers but guides and the tourism industry? 

The winter season has gotten shorter. So there are less days to guide ice. In the last few years we’ve lost about three weeks of winter. I used to tell folks that by mid December ice was climbable, now that’s been pushed back to the holiday week at the end of December. The same goes for the end of the season. Typically there was still roadside ice to climb the second and third week of March. We didn’t even really make it that far this year and everyone felt like it was a good old fashioned winter. The number of thaw/rain events and the extreme temperature changes associated with those events is also increasing. There have always been thaws and rain throughout winter in the Adirondacks. However there are now multiple thaw/rain events like this every winter, not just one or two. And the temperature swings of these events seem to be getting larger. Just recently there was a 24 hour temperature swing of over 50 degrees Fahrenheit! It’s getting harder to plan in advance a day out ice climbing due to these weather events on top of the shorter season.

Related reading: The end of ice climbing?

What adaptations are the climbing and tourism industries making to adjust to the seasonal changes happening to winter?

It’s been hard for climbers in the Adirondacks to adjust. There is a chance that the rock season gets lengthened, while the ice season is shorter. But that doesn’t really seem exactly to be the case. The temperatures and precipitation often don’t work out to allow rock climbing when ice climbing was traditionally happening.

We’ve experienced a throwback winter this year with cold temperatures and a deep snowpack. For fun, can you share some experiences you’ve had in the backcountry, particularly related to the trip up Colden you took later in the season?

This winter, the snowpack in the High Peaks was huge. I’ve been on top of Mt Colden in the winter a lot (four times a season for the last decade), and I’ve never seen the summit trees completely buried in snow. Essentially the top of the peak was above the treeline. There is a large boulder just below the summit that in the summer, if you’re coming or going to Lake Arnold, you walk under. This boulder in the winter is typically covered in snow, but you can still tell it’s there. On a recent trip to ski off the summit this boulder was not only completely buried, a 9-foot avalanche probe couldn’t reach the top of the boulder! I’d estimate that there was 20 feet of snow there.