Southern Illinois

[Jake_Gano]

This may be a long shot but...

I'm in Southern Illinois for the next month. I want to go out and hit up the awesome cragging down there, but haven't had much luck finding partners. Tried RC.com already. Does anyone live down there or know anyone that does? I'd like to sneak out after work a few days a week once the days get longer.

Jake

[Jake_Gano]

Oh yeah and I brought a rope and rack. I think I even brought a spare harness. I don't really care how experienced you are, I just want to have some fun.

[JosephH]

Try mountainproject.com, just go to Jackson Falls or Drapers Bluff, or ping Eric Ulner at Vertical Heartland.

 

Giant City S.P. just south of town isn't popular anymore and so you can't count on anyone else being out there climbing, but it's good bouldering along the base.

[JosephH]

Oh, and there's also a bit of buildering around campus like this spicy problem called "Student Center South By the Column" on the south exit of the student center...

 

[Jake_Gano]

I managed to hook up with some good folks today just by hanging around the crag and making conversation.

Joseph, I think your name is mentioned in the giant city SP part of the older Ulner guidebook. Been around the block, eh?

[JosephH]

Jake, glad to hear it - that generally works out down that way. Yeah, before JF and Drapers, Giant City was the locus of SI climbing and is where it got taken to the next level setting the stage for the major expansion that followed. All the original JF / Draper's crew earned their chops there and then went on to JF and Drapers adding high-level face climbing to the local repetiore after we had left town.