Climb At Chickies Rock

From parking at the fairly new lot on Furnace Road, head down river on the walking trail about a half mile to an obvious large face next to the train tracks. From here you choose from a variety of routes including some two pitch routes like Witches’ Brew 5.4 to Main Street 5.5 over to some of the overhanging routes to the right. The right side is better protected for leaders, but all routes can be lead and have been. The face climbs can have little to no gear though. Most routes can have a top rope set from a ledge. If you get bored with those, you can set top ropes on the “second pitch” by going to the top and putting some webbing on trees.

Other routes can be found up the trail from where you came. Some two to three pitch routes can be found along the trail by the cave over to the buttress where you will find what I know to be the hardest route – Great Expectations 5.11 X. Around Great Expectations are some other routes that can be led – Hit and Run is well protected. Solution Crack is a step up and run out at the top but easy climbing.

Chickies is a great place to explore! Some things to note…

Watch out for flying rocks from the hikers above. Kids can hang out at the top of the rock and throw things down.

Don’t bolt – that’s lame and can only be done if approved by the South Central Climbers and the park.

If running up on terrain that you have not been on before expect shoddy protection and runouts at times! I know we ran into it multiple times while climbing around this place in college.