Phoenicia, Sportsman's Wall Climbing

From the NYS Thruway, take exit 19 (Kingston/Woodstock). Take Route 28 west about 27 miles to Phoenica. The town has two entrances from route 28. Take the first one (the eastern). Follow the road down a hill across some train tracks and a bridge to the main street. Drive across the main street.

Immediately after the post office on your right is a paved driveway to the town park. It looks like a residential driveway, but it's not. There is a wooden fence along the far edge of the driveway. This is the parking area. If it's full you can park in town and walk over.

From the parking area start flat across playground field NE 250 feet and cross a wooden footbridge. Look for a sign pointing you to the Tanbark Trail. Across the footbridge on the left there are three worthy but not very hard boulder problems. Follow the signed trail to the left of the boulders. Please avoid going directly up the drainage as this is leading to significant erosion. The trail winds upwards and crosses below some low chossey sandstone cliffs. You’ll follow beneath these for about 650 ft. These look like they have the potential for top-roping if cleaned a bit, but they are apparently on the property of the church across the street, I don't know if there are access issues.

Continue east on the blue trail, eventually moving let and coming to a T intersection in the trail (~3mins). There is a sign on the left that says this is a loop trail. Go right. Cross a double-log bridge over a small stream. Follow the trail uphill. Pass under a low fallen tree. Soon the trail makes a sharp turn to the left (uphill). At this point you can see evidence of an old very overgrown logging trail. Don't take this one. Continue uphill a bit further and you will see another, more obvious but still overgrown logging road on your right.

This is 0.4 miles from the trail head. (If you find yourself enjoying the view from Grandview Ledge, you have gone too far.) Turn right onto the logging road. You’ll only need to follow the road for about 325 feet. Almost immediately you will be able to see the anchors of the short, but very appealing Azucar (.10b) up on your left. Follow the remnants of the logging road up to where it peters out below the cliffs, then follow the path of least resistance to the base of the climbs. Total 15 minutes walking slowly.

The GPS location below is for the parking area. There are resident biners at most of the anchors. Bad Joo-joo if you take them.