Putnam’s Ice Pond Preserve Gets its First Bouldering Book

By Michael Gold

Gary Goldfinger has met a number of characters with names that sound like they’re part of a comic book gang – The Claw, Dabzilla and the Cyborg Cockroach.

Disappointingly, they’re not. They’re the names of climbing routes showing how to ascend each of the vast collection of rocks at the Putnam Land Trust’s Ice Pond property in Patterson.

Goldfinger, a Westchester native now living in Lake Tahoe, has published a book, called “Ice Pond Bouldering,” a comprehensive overview of the Ice Pond’s many boulder fields, including Sloper City, Ernie’s Wall and the Train Track Boulders.

Bouldering is “the sport of rock climbing on large boulders or low cliffs,” according to Merriam Webster’s online dictionary. Boulderers use their own hands, not ropes, to scale the rocks. They place a pad underneath them in case of a fall.

Goldfinger’s book provides an encyclopedic guide to the boulders in the 500-acre preserve. It also provides a brief human history of the place, going back to the Wappinger tribe and their sub-nations that first inhabited the area. In the 19^th century, Knickerbocker Ice Company employees cut ice blocks from the frozen pond, then shipped them to New York City by train, giving the place its name.

A page is devoted to area plants, trees and animals, with a brief description of its geology.

Most of the rest of the book is devoted to the history of climbing in the Ice Pond, a guide to the boulder fields, how to climb the rocks and climbing ethics.

The book contains essays written by boulderers, including John Kuphal, who figured out that the boulders would be excellent for climbing, and Mike Wolfert, who built The Cliffs climbing gym in Valhalla, now called Movement.

Goldfinger discovered for himself the Ice Pond boulders in 2005, when he was in high school. (Other climbers had been there before him.)

“It’s just you and the rock,” he said. “It’s a way to challenge your body, mentally and physically. It gets you strong, gets you fit and active.”

Goldfinger has route descriptions for the boulders. The route is described by the climber who made the first ascent on the rock. Think of the route as a map to get to the top. Just as a GPS system will give you directions to the ball park, the book gives you directions on how to climb the boulder.

“The first ascent climber would provide other climbers with the path they took on the rock with the start and finish clearly described,” Goldfinger wrote in an e-mail.  The book shows the photo of the route, with an arrow to help guide climbers as they ascend.

The routes can take you up in a curving pattern, or across the rock, then up. The climbers tell you where to find the holds and rock features you can grab.

“The routes are given a number grade for difficulty,” Goldfinger wrote. “My book has the number grade, but also a color associated with a grade range – V0 to V2 is green, V3 to V5 is blue, V6 to V8 is yellow, and V9 or harder is red,” he stated.

“The climb is called the boulder problem,” Goldfinger said. “Your climb (the route) is the solution to the problem.”

The climbers who’ve made the first ascent name the routes. They label the routes by the look of the rocks or if “something funny happened that day,” he said.

The “Deep Woods Off” route might have been named for a buggy day. The “Moby” route was named by a climber who thought the rock looked like a giant whale. The “Wayward Wind” rock was named for a country music song. I wonder how “Bed of Nails” got its name.

Ethics are an important part of bouldering, Goldfinger said.

“Our goal is to reduce our impact – like we weren’t there. We try to push people to car pool. Don’t leave trash. Pick up other people’s trash,” he explained.

Dogs who are excitable should be put on a leash. Don’t play music. Know your limits. Don’t push your limits unless you’re with other people. Bring pads with you.

I wondered how all these boulders got in the Ice Pond. Judy Kelley-Moberg, a Patterson resident and former earth science teacher at Croton-Harmon High School, said an ice sheet, one mile high, covering Canada, much of the Midwest and New England, moved through the area about 12,000 to 25,000 years ago. It reached all the way to Long Island.

As the ice advanced and retreated, it broke off rocks from the mountains it was grinding over, then carried them and dropped them in the Ice Pond area, she said. They were left behind as the ice sheet melted.

So, boulderers and hikers have a massive glacier to thank for the visual and physical enjoyment of these beasts.

Michael Gold has had articles published in the New York Daily News, the Albany Times Union, and other newspapers, and The Hardy Society Journal, a British literary publication.