See route photo for Super Skink: start just left of where Super Skink starts. A couple of hard moves get you off the pedestal and up to the overlap. Move left from there to the arête. Beautiful climbing up the arête to the top.

Chris' Cringe or Hatti's Horror

Fickle Fingers

Completely Francois

Slot Machine

Stinky Americans

Skink Slab

Jam On!

The Golden Dream

Barndance, a.k.a. Crankmaster T's Arete

Time for Therapy

Sinister Urge (formerly SLAM Dance)

Super Skink

The middle third of this climb packs in all the difficulty and spans a variety of styles. Some very balance-y moves lower down, need to use underclings, compression with the roof, and also make a few big moves.

 The top section is a relative stroll.

Face/finger-crack climb followed by double roof.  Two cruxes - mid-height, and very long reach through roofs.

Start six feet to the right of Stinky Americans, follow face to top.

Grovel, grovel, and grovel some more in this full-body offwidth. Crux, for many, is just moving up - not everyone can climb offwidth.

 If you hate offwidths, this line can also be climbed without just hands in the main crack, finding small fee throughout the pebbly rocks on either side.

Start a couple of feet left of Slot Machine (the huge off-width in the middle of the wall).  A bouldery start leads to to a stance; follow a finger crack to the top (crux).  It's 5.5 horizontals after the crux.

It's hard to rate this climb since it would be easy to bail right to the arête for some easier climbing, or left to the chock stones. If you're moving through a thin 5.7 slab crux with a glorious left hand side pull, you're on the right line. After the crux, a couple easy slab moves and some huge ledges, it's all over.

Fun, slightly overhanging fist jam in corner.

A fully-sustained fingercrack in a dihedral, that starts off just barely slab and ends up just barely overhanging. Look for small but reliable footholds scattered around the right face.

 Widely regarded as one of the best 5.9s you'll ever climb as well as one of the finest climbs at Peterskill or indeed all of the Gunks. Also, the climb on the cover of the Peterskill guide.

Recommended as a toprope only, as there is no gear to keep your body out of the boulder jumble if you blow the cruxy slab moves under the roof.  But it has been led.  Start at the base of the arete on a pointed block.  Immediately start angling right onto the slab.  When you get to the roof, traverse left to the obvious jam crack that cleaves the bulge.

Tucked back in the canyon left of the Golden Dreams wall is a broad arete with a vertical seam down low that leads to a very inviting jam crack through a bulge.  Scamper up onto the Skink block for a great look at this (see photo).  The initial seam is a fun enough aid line (C2, tiny gear of all kinds and a hook move), but this was freed recently at 5.13a.  Whichever way you do it, you're bound to enjoy the crack above (9+ or maybe 10a).

A high-angle slab, face climb from hell.  This route wanders for 10-15 feet back and forth as you struggle to connect the crystals that form your only holds.  If you're short (i.e., not 5'9"), you might not even be able to start this climb; at 5'6", I couldn't even get off the ground.  Named Super Skink because, as the FA said, "It's totally sandbagged at 5.10; more like 5.10d or harder".

Home to one of the most popular routes in PK, the Golden Wall area is tricky to reach, but worth every effort.  Four of the several routes have double-bolted anchors.  The amphitheater gathers the sun's heat on cold days, and with so many routes in close proximity is the closest thing to a "gym-like" atmosphere with a group.  Routes from 5.6 to 5.12.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in s. The Golden Wall