This is a great accomplishment for a number of reasons:

1. The new trail stays entirely in Rothrock State Forest. It’s finally possible to get to the rocks that are on public land without trespassing.
2. The old trail was an erosion disaster. The new one drains properly and shouldn’t require much maintenance.
3. The new trail is a heck of a lot easier to hike up with a crash pad and cooler.

Finally, a huge thank you to the Standing Stone Trail Club. They’re the ones that handled all of the paperwork involved with building a new trail in Rothrock State Forest, and they provided all of the planning, instruction, and tools.

One last issue: parking. It turns out that it’s faster and easier to park at a small pullout across from the group camp site that’s about 1000ft before the end of the road (the usual parking area). From there you can cross the stream and pick up the new trail after a few feet. If you use this small pullout, please make sure your car is completely off the road. We’re going to check with DCNR to see if climbers are allowed to park at the group camp site during the day.

Here’s a really rough sketch of the new trail and the parking options.

The movies are usually pretty diverse; some are primarily cultural, some are conservation oriented, and some are all action. All of them are usually excellent.

The Sierra Club Moshannon Group has more details on their site, including a PDF of the films that will be showing. In terms of climbing movies, there’s a section from “King Lines” on Sunday with Chris Sharma deep-water soloing in Mallorca, Spain. On Monday there’s a film about climbing photography, and a film with Will Gadd climbing ice in underground mines in Sweden (!).

These nights are also a lot of fun because it brings together so many people in the local outdoor community. It’s a great place to meet people and see old friends. Oh, and there are some great door prizes too. Buy your tickets in advance from one of the places below to save a few bucks.

C3PA will have a booth there both nights. Stop by and say hi!

Here are the details:

When:

7pm on both Sunday, April 27th and Monday, April 28th

Where:

State College High School, North Auditorium on the first night, South Auditorium on the second night.

Tickets:

• Appalachian Ski & Outdoors: 123 South Allen Street, State College, (814) 234-3000
• Mt. Nittany Wheelworks: 106 Village Drive, State College, (814) 235-6220
• Rothrock Outfitters: 418 Penn Street, Huntingdon, (814) 643-7226
• Tussey Mountain Outfitters: 304 West Linn Street, Bellefonte, (814) 355-5690

C3PA and the Standing Stone Trail Club are building a new approach trail to Hunter’s Rocks. We need your help!

When

This weekend!

Saturday, April 26th from 9:00am – 3:30pm
Sunday, April 27th from 9:00am – 12:00pm

Where

Park at the usual parking area for Hunter’s Rocks. Here are the directions from State College.

The whole story

It turns out that the Standing Stone Trail Club is going to relocate the old Link Trail (renamed to the Standing Stone Trail) to the ridge line that includes Hunter’s Rocks. Coincidentally, this new trail follows the exact same route that we were picking out for a new approach trail to the rocks. As a result, C3PA and the Standing Stone Trail Club have teamed up to construct this portion of the trail.

Why we need a new trail

Basically, the current approach “trail” is a total disaster. Not only is it quite steep and extremely prone to erosion, but it also leads climbers directly to the privately owned portion of the rocks, which is currently closed.

In the past, the landowner has been displeased by climbers using the existing trail to access the public portion of Hunter’s Rocks. We anticipate that the new trail will help to avoid the trespassing issues that were hurting climber relations with the landowner.

Where the new trail will go

The Standing Stone Trail crosses the same parking lot that we use to access Hunter’s Rocks. It will diagonal up and right across the stream, following the old Standing Stone Trail. It will then switch back left and continue up hill to arrive at the Incredarete / Standard American Accent boulder, about 100 yards to the right of the end of the current approach trail. From there, the Standing Stone Trail continues to the right along the ridge line towards the power cut boulders.

Who should come

Anyone who can do some manual labor! You don’t need to know anything about trail building, since the Standing Stone Trail Club will be providing instruction.

What to bring

• Lunch
• Water
• Bug repellant
• Sunscreen
• Long pants
• Closed-toe shoes
• Rain gear (just in case)
• Stuff for climbing afterwards!

We’ll have some extra water there, but it wouldn’t hurt to bring some of your own. There shouldn’t be a need to bring any tools – the Standing Stone Trail Club will be graciously providing everything that we need.

RSVP

We need to know how many people will be coming so that we can give the Standing Stone Trail Club an idea of how many tools to bring. However, you don’t need to RSVP to go (but it would be nice), and you don’t need to commit to a certain amount of time – just come along for as much time as you can spare.

Simply drop us an email to let us know that you’re coming. Please include:

• Your phone number
• How many people will be coming with you
• Whether you can provide transportation for other people

Getting there

Hunter’s Rocks is about 25 miles away from State College, on the way to Huntingdon. Here are directions from State College to the parking lot.

Let us know what your ride situation is; whether you can fit extra people in your car, or whether you need a ride. We’ll try to get everyone connected.

What about the private land?

A large portion of Hunter’s Rocks is on private land, and the landowner does not allow trespassing. As you go up the current approach trail, you cross into the private land about halfway up the hill.

The new trail stays well away from the private land, and it leads directly to the best boulders that are on public land, in Rothrock State Forest.

Reply, then show up

Drop us an email to let us know that you’re coming, and we’ll see you this weekend, on Saturday the 26th and Sunday the 27th!

The exhibit will be on Friday and Saturday, May 11th - 12th, at the Penn Stater Conference Hotel, just north-east of Beaver Stadium. Here are directions, if you’re not familiar with the State College area.

Stop by our table if you have a chance! It’s a great way for us to meet up, hear about what you’d like us to be working on, and for you to catch up on the nitty-gritty details of what’s been going on with the local climbing areas.

Otherwise, we’ll post another update when we have more specific information about the individual climbing areas. We’ve started emailing out the first of our regular newsletters to keep you up to date on what’s going on.

If you sent in your contact information, or if you sent in a donation, and we didn’t get back to you immediately, we apologize. It’s been a very busy few months, and it’s only with the help of our newest volunteer, Tara Leas, that we’ve started to get caught up on these things. Thank you, Tara!

Don’t hesitate to call or email us if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks for your continued support, and your patience while we’ve been getting things off the ground here.

• Donation Rocks
• Bellefonte Quarry
• Hunter’s Rocks
• The Power Cut

We’ll include more details in a later post or newsletter, but the current status is that only the Power Cut is legal right now. Hunter’s Rocks is legal only from the Incredarete boulder and further right towards the Power Cut. In particular, the current trail to the top of Hunter’s Rocks is off limits — it crosses into private land about halfway up the hill. We’re working towards improving the trail up to the top of the hill so that it stays on State Forest land, and goes straight towards the legal climbing.

People who have spent time exploring this area know that central Pennsylvania contains some incredibly high-quality rock for climbing. Unfortunately, they also know that almost all of it resides on private land, without legal access for climbers.

In the past, we’ve taken the approach of quietly climbing at the areas where the landowners don’t seem to mind, and if absolutely necessary, staying away from the places where we’re obviously not welcome. This approach has worked fairly well here for decades, and on the whole climbers have kept a fairly low profile. This low profile usually rewarded everyone with fairly consistent access to our favorite areas.
Graph of Centre County population growth

However, the population in Central PA is growing quickly, and it’s not going to slow down any time soon. At the same time, the popularity of climbing is increasing. With stories about rock climbing (both good and bad) appearing in the local newspapers, it’s getting harder and harder for climbers to stay under the radar. As climbing becomes more visible, landowners get weary of the increased travel, and low-profile access becomes unworkable.

This past year has been a bad one for climbing access here. We’ve seen at least two of our most significant climbing areas fully closed to climbing.

Even worse, as property values increase and open space decreases, what used to be quiet climbing areas will now become increasingly attractive as properties for housing and commercial development. We need to let people know that the recreation, parks, and forests here are some of the best things that make this region great to live in.

It’s become apparent that no one is going to swoop down and preserve our climbing areas for us. No one else is going to figure out how to save the Bellefonte Quarry. That’s why we needed to form C3PA. The central PA climbing community needs to form a common voice along with other climbers’ coalitions and the Access Fund. We’re not some outside group of climbers that will be able to take care of this for you; we will need your help.

Fortunately, we have a fantastic climbing community here. Whether you’re a regular climber here, or are just getting started, you need to be involved with C3PA! We also encourage other outdoor enthusiasts, townspeople, and landowners to sign up to receive information from us as well; we’re interested in finding solutions that work for everyone.

So sign up to get more information! We’ll keep you up to date on what’s going on, and what you can do to help.

It’s time for us all to start working together to preserve the great climbing areas here. We’re only going to get one shot at it.