Central New Hampshire Climbing History: Part 1

Welcome to our three-part blog series on the climbing history of Central New Hampshire—a place where generations of local climbers have left their mark. This series dives into the local legends, backwoods crags, and hard-earned first ascents that define this region’s unique character. Whether you grew up climbing here or are just discovering its routes, come explore the stories behind the stone.

Central New Hampshire Climbing History - The Beginnings
-by Jay Knower

Until recently, central New Hampshire has seen little and sporadic route development, so in many ways, the climbing history in the area is currently being written. That said, a few intrepid rock explorers have headed into the hills over the years.  

Russell Crag was mentioned as a climbing destination in the 1963 Holderness School Yearbook, and some of the first recorded ascents here occurred in the 1970s. Tim Gotwols, along with Brian Brodeur, Mark Iber, and Doug Philipon, did some scrambling and exploring on the Russell Crag hillside in the late 1970s, most notably completing an aid climb up Iberian Crack on Russell’s Main Cliff. Interestingly, around this same time, Iber and Brodeu made the first ascent of Plymouth State’s Clock Tower, putting the pumpkin way up there for Halloween, a ritual that has been clandestinely repeated almost every year since.  

In the early 1980s another group started scouring the hills. In 1982, Ted Hammond, Bradley White, Gary Kinson, and Sam Smith climbed a buttress to the right of the main wall at Gorilla Head at 5.7. Called Brad’s Buttress, this climb requires a 4-mile approach, complete with a heinous bushwhack and talus scramble, just to reach the base. Not described in this book, if you want to repeat their masochism, locate Gorilla Head off the Greeley Ponds trail, and climb a buttress that may or may not be the line, thereby repeating their experience of wild adventure, or get  insufferably lost. It’s really a 50/50 proposition.  

About this time, Tom Bowker emerged on the scene. His first lead was Standard Route, completed with Bradley White, at Dickie Ledge in 1980. Bowker went on to be one of the most prolific explorers of the era. An early developer of Rumney, Bowker is known for putting up, with Jay Lena, the first sport climb in New Hampshire: Peer Pressure (5.10d) at Rumney in 1987. Quick to remind you that he put it up by hand-drilling the bolts on lead, when Bowker would bolt, he would do so grudgingly, and always with a hand drill.  

Drilling by hand is not easy. These days, in the age of lighter and lighter battery-powered hammer drills that can power a hole into granite in mere seconds, hand drilling seems like an arcane pursuit. But Bowker turned hand drilling into, if not an enjoyable practice, a meditative one. The ability to undertake mindless Sisyphean drudgery, all in the name of opening routes, was a perfect skill to bring to the hills.  

In fact, Bowker was drawn to the quiet of the area as a counterpoint to the more civilized Rumney. By the mid 90s, development had exploded at Rumney, and Bowker was looking for a way out. He said that “Rumney was getting developed so fast, I couldn’t just go up there and feed the rat.” So he started wandering the hills, looking for new rock. Bowker said, “I spent a lot of days in the woods, carrying climbing gear that I never used.”  

Nowhere is Bowker’s knack, or maybe perseverance, for finding new routes evident than at Journey to a Lost World. How Bowker found this crack is beyond us. You can’t see it from any vantage point, and even if you walk up the stream at the base, you can’t see the crack until you’re past it. But Bowker and Lena sniffed it out, and put up what may have been the first 5.10 in the region. Today, the first pitch remains one of the best cracks yet found. And the second pitch up a slab, past a single bolt for protection (of course hand-drilled on lead), but this time by Jay Lena, may be one of the boldest pieces of climbing done in the hills.  

Bowker went on to focus his development at Dickie Ledge, where he authored many bold slab and crack routes. Dickie had its own scene back in the 90s with Bowker, Lena, Glen Cilley, and Bradley White picking the plums up the pristine and soaring granite. However, no history, or frankly, no story, of Central New Hampshire climbing is complete without a discussion of Bradley White.  

In our next installment, we will trace the footsteps of Bradley White and learn more about the newcomers to the scene who saw potential in the wild cliffs of central New Hampshire, laying the foundation for what would eventually become the climbing culture seen today.