The Chin Rock Climbing

The Chin is the most obvious and well known climbing area in Sleeping Giant. It has an old climbing history dating back to the 1920s and 1930s. This was the premier climbing area for local AMC and Yale Mountaineering groups for many years until the accident in 1953.

The Chin is the location of the first girdle traverse ever done in this country. It is also one of, if not the first place, that nuts were used for protection in the USA. Apparently, John Reppy brought back the new-fangled idea from a trip to the UK.

David Harrah published the first known guidebook which was a collection of eighty “potential” routes that he saw as he walked along the base of the Chin. I don't know the publication date but I recall seeing a mimeographed copy at the old Ski hut in New Haven in the early 1970s. Apparently, numbers were painted on the base of the cliff to aid in identifying routes.

The 1957 Yale Mountaineering Club Journal described these landmarks from  left to right:

1. Buttress Block
2. The Rotten Gully (a broad, open gully)
3. The Keyhole (a narrow,  steep  gully with a huge chockstone at the top)
4. The Wiessner Rib
5. The Pyramid (prominent rib with smooth faces on each side)
6. The Frenchman's Gully (a broad gully narrowing to a steep chimney and a large overhanging nose to the right

The Chin contains some enjoyable routes put up by the likes of Hassler and Roger Whitney, Fritz Wiessner, Jim Adair, John Reppy and Sam Streibert. The cliff faces east and gets great early morning sun.

Recommended routes include:

Wiessner’s Rib (5.6), Yvette (5.9), Frenchman’s Cap (5.9), Defender (5.11), and Rhadamanthus (5.10). There is even a 600-foot right to left traverse of the cliff, The Warehouse Run (5.7), put up in 1934.

Do not trust any fixed protection here as it is probably 70 years old! Rock is very abrasive but can be loose, and poison ivy is abundant.

Approach the Chin via the main trail from the parking lot. A 10 - 15 minute hike gets you to the talus at the base of the cliff. Descend by the blue trail which runs across the top of the crag.