[piscator]

John, my best friend growing up, taught me how to climb. He loved the mountains, spent a few years as a smoke jumper and eventually became a ranger in Utah.

Anyway, we spent a lot of time at the climbing area just outside New Paltz, NY that was once the Harriman estate. It was the late ‘70s, everyone was ‘getting back to nature,’ listening to John Denver, and streaking.

Pitons were long out of fashion and you no longer made an “assault” on a mountain. Instead you carried a bag of gymnast chalk for your hands and tried to become ‘one with the rock.’

One day, John starts telling me some climbers were becoming ‘one with the rock’ by free-climbing NUDE. He said he’d seen some guys doing it. I was sure he was putting me on.

Toward the end of the day we picked an easy climb out of the guide book; a bit west of our usual haunts. The carriage trail on the Harriman estate makes it easy to access the different climbs. So we’re hiking the trail and John starts in again with the nude free-climbing -- telling me we’re headed to where he saw them. I told him he was full of ****!

Just before we get to our climb, I look up and see a guy about 50’ above me, surmount a 3’ overhang and start climbing toward his buddy; who’s belaying him from above. He’s got good foot-holds and hand-holds at about shoulder height – so the guy is in a squatting position, pondering his next move.

That’s the moment I came up even with him. I looked toward John and told him again that he was full of ****! This guy was ‘on-belay’ so they are NOT free-climbing!

However, aside from their harnesses, they were completely, NUDE! And because we’re standing under the overhang this guy just climbed up over, we’re looking straight up at what he generally, sits down on!

The ‘70s!!

Robert