A beta guide for ice climbing in Smuggler's Notch, Vt.

Bob Timmer sends the "Blue Room" on the south wall in Smuggler's Notch.

Getting There -

Ice climbs of Smugglers Notch

• East Side.

  Click for East Side Photo Guide.

  Workout Walls. south of main area. Ranges from severe to easy grades. Excellent top-roping area and bouldering.

  1. Practice Slabs. - Short. NEI 2+-3, harder pillars.

  2. Origin of Intelligence in Children. - NEI 4-5,1 or 2 pitch, single rap w/double ropes. An easier gully lies to the left of this fine route.

  3. Unnamed - An awesome steep free-standing vertical pillar rarely forms on the prow of the buttress and has seen few ascents as a result. NEI 4+-5. Protection is poor to none on lower half.

  4. Watership Down. - Large flows, several possible lines, NEI 3+-4, 1 and a half pitches. Follow a sidewalk ledge right to trees. Rap wild drop to base of Elephant's Head gully.

  5. Elephant's Head Gully. NEI 2- 3, 2 pitch. Piton anchors on wall, excellent descent route for Ragnarock area climbs.

  6. Elephants Head, South Face. - M4+. Descend via E.H gully

  7. Ragnarock. - NEI 4+, 2-3 pitch. Descend via E.H gully. It is possible to finish up the right-hand, easier pillar. Many lines are possible on this face. **Author's note**It has been determined that John Bouchard and Steve Zajchowski had climbed several lines on this face including the line described and previously known as Creighton-Korman. The ommision of that route name reflects this finding.

  8. Tall Tail's. - NEI 4/5, M5. Thin line on right-hand end of the wall before the next gully heading south 100 yards from Ragnarock. Typically thin ice. Rock gear. Usually poorly protected mixed start.

  At this point several moderate gullies lie between this climb and the next obvious pillar approximately150 yards south which is Blue Room.

  9. Blue Room. NEI 3+, 1 pitch. Short, steep crux pillar.

  10. Dave's Snotsicle. NEI 3 or 4 depending on start. 2 pitches. Biggest flow on the sunny south wall. features a huge roof then up left on a ramp.

  11. Doug's Route. NEI 4, 2 pitches.

  12. Prenuptial Agreement. - NEI 5++++/6, free hanging pillar. 1 pitch

  A number of excellent unnamed N.E.I. 3-4 routes lie a hundred yards right of the last climb. A snow gully at the far right also leads to another half dozen good climbs higher up and left. Of those, the most obvious on the wall are the 80 foot sustained 75 degree flow at the higher left end, called; "Sink em and Weep." and the NEI 4; "Royal Pane in the Ice."

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  West Side.

  Click for West Side Photo Guide.

  13. Driving Force. - NEI 3+,1 pitch. Low, near the road, just off the first bend after a straightaway, downhill from the high point in the road. Several lines here. Easiest goes straight up at NEI 2 -2+. Rap from trees. A very nice short route. Good when snowfall makes other approaches nasty.

  14. Terror-tory. - NEI 3+, Lots of snow with a short pitch of ice. Head uphill a considerable distance from same bend in the road as Driving Force.

  15. Blue Ice Bulge. - NEI 3-4, 2 pitch (watch for rare avalanche conditions)

  16. Pick & Choss. - M4, thin ice above. Up blocky rock to a very short pillar, up thin ice on slabs to trees. On buttress between Blue Ice and Blind Fate amphitheaters. Best reached from right side of Blue Ice Bulge Gully. Poor protection.

  17. California Dreaming. - NEI 4, 1 or 2 pitch, This threatens but rarely forms.

  18. Norton-Gibney. - NEI 4, 2 pitch. Very nice route. a red tri-cam is good for the roof in thin conditions. descend from right side of amphitheater.

  19. Blind Fate. - NEI 4, 2 pitch. Up moderate ground to the obvious blue pillar. Descend from right side of amphitheater.

  20. Blind Faith. - NEI 3, 2-3 pitch

  21. Cass's Gully. - NEI 1-2 sometimes mixed. Steep finish.1 or 2 pitch.

  22. Hidden Gully. - NEI 3, 3 pitch. Several possible finishes above. Left, center, or early right to Easy Gully. Long confusing descent from center, often the cause of many a late night descent epic. Heading north, the approach gully starts at a 30 foot pullout on left within a hundred feet of the top of the hill.

  23. Easy Gully. - NEI 1-2, 1 roped pitch for the technical exit.This is the biggest slide gully at the top of the Notch. Dog-legs left. (watch for rare avalanche conditions)

  24. The Grand Illusion. - NEI 4-4+, 1 pitch or 1 1/2 with low start. Pitons in left hand wall. This climb ascends the dark slot directly in front of where Easy Gully turns left. Double rope rap from block sling if you dare or involved long walk way right or left.

  25. Three Sheets- NEI 4, 2-3 pitches. Thin start up steep left-facing slab right of Grand Illusion. Leads to several wide lines above.

  26. Poster Child. - NEI 4-4+ can be done with mixed start. Half rope length climb in right-facing corner fifty yards low and right of Grand Illusion from Easy Gully. It is at the far right end of the face. Often started as mixed climb at finger crack past a piton then out right to ice. Rock gear needed for mixed start. M4

  27. Grand Confusion. - NEI 3-3+, 1 or 2 pitch. Approach this climb from behind the Stone hut. Head in just left of large boulders for a hundred yards then trending left to a long snow gully. (this is a great ski slope too.) Follow this up until the climb is reached. See photo for Quartz Face approaches.

  28. A's Anguish (golden ice chimney)- NEI 4-4+, or Sun of Sam var.(Right-facing corner) NEI 4, often thin or mixed, 2 pitch, Rock gear is nice to have. Long moderate snow and ice pitch to reach the crux pitch.

  29. Rubble Gully. - NEI 3, 2 pitch, often mixed. rock gear.

  30. Quartz Face Gully. - NEI 3-4, 1 pitch. Piton anchors at top.

  31. Quartz Face Right. - NEI 4+-5, 1 pitch, difficult & scary. It has seen only about half a dozen ascents.

  32. ENT Gully. - NEI 2, 2 pitches but most people just do the first. Fantastic early season mixed climb, mostly snow later. Fixed pins in roof of upper slot. Approach low from North end of Parking lot

  33. Jefferson Slide. - NEI 2+-4, 2 pitches. Huge slide gully, best seen while hiking VT 108 from Jeffersonville side. Approach from first bend in road north of the parking lot. Descend left in trees after two pitches.

  34. Notch North. - A handful of moderate to difficult ice and mixed routes up and above the Jeff. Slide.

  35. North Gullies. - Right of Jeff. slide lie three flows. NEI 3-4, Each less than a rope length.

  The Notch has been climbed heavily since the 70's with many unrecorded routes having been done. Among those contributing to the awesome collection of climbs listed here are John Bouchard and Steve Zajchowski in the 70's, a group of local and Adirondack climbers in the 80's and current mixed enthusiasts of the 90's. It is also good to note that Fritz Weissner resided in Stowe during the later years of his life. Many unrecorded aid lines exist. Climbers exploring "new" ground should not find it surprising to come across an old soft ring piton or moss-filled pin scars. Despite the hardmen that have explored the area, however, Smuggler's Notch remains an untapped resource for futuristic climbing that will yield numerous first ascents over the next few years as tools and styles evolve further. This guide is by no means complete since it is impractical in the scope of this guide to record every little runnel that has formed up in the Notch.