Shortoff approach / camping / falcon beta

Planning a trip to climb Maginot Line and a few other routes on Shortoff in June, and I wanted some beta for the gorge since it'll be my first time there. 

Does it make sense to camp near the base and get an alpine start in the morning, or is it more trouble than it's worth? Planning on coming in on Friday night and climbing Saturday morning. Also, how difficult is it to get a permit if you need one for either camping at the cliff, or camping at the parking lot? 

Is the approach straight forward? It looks like you hike up the wolf pit trail till you hit the spring and then rap down a gully. Is that the best beta or is there a better way? 

Is ML gonna be open? I saw that routes on the south and north side of short off are closed for Peregrine nesting during June, but from the map it looks like this route will be open. I wanted to make sure before we go through the work of rapping in. 

Thanks for any and all beta I can get! 

I personally dont think it’s worth carrying camping gear up there. I typically camp at the parking area  and make the walk in daily. If you camp up there, camp up top, it’s really nice, and there is a spring right on the trail. It’s a relatively quick trip down and bringing camping gear down there would suck, and there are much better flat spots on top to camp.

if you’re just climbing one day, just hike up early in the morning. Unless things have really changed, no permit needed. But know that the parking area fills sometimes, camping spots are not abundant compared to the # of actual parking. Camping in your car is easiest.

The hike from the car to the top of the cliff is pretty quick.  Camping by the cars would be ugly and weird.  I'd suggest getting there a couple hours before sunset, so you can hike up and camp at the top.  It's amazing up there.  Then have a fun casual morning getting down to the base, exploring around, finding your route, and then topping out in time for lunch back at your campsite.   Then you can do another route in the afternoon. 

shortoff in June would suck if you catch a particularly hot day, your biggest worry will be dying of heat exhaustion on the hike out. if it’s your first time in the gorge and you’ll be there in June, hang out on table rock and middle hawksbill, much more tolerable and much better camping around there

Casey Fentonwrote:

shortoff in June would suck if you catch a particularly hot day, your biggest worry will be dying of heat exhaustion on the hike out. if it’s your first time in the gorge and you’ll be there in June, hang out on table rock and middle hawksbill, much more tolerable and much better camping around there

Ha yes, I didn’t catch that. Shortoff in June would suck unless it was a particularly cool weekend. It’s a pretty warm crag. I think Memorial day is as late as I have gone there. Much better alternatives once it starts warming up.

I wouldn’t want to lug food, camping, and climbing gear up there for one day. I’d say the hike up is about 2 miles on moderate incline. I’ve always just slept in the car and hiked up in the dark. Camping near the base would be even worse if you went with all your stuff then had to climb it out, not sure if the MTS trail goes to the base.

It’s pretty straight forward to get to the base from the top, just go down the same spot as the spring is going. Be aware the gully can be a little heads up but nothing too crazy. Have fun out there!

Always camped near the parking lot.

I climbed Maginot June 26 last year. It was pretty hot but we only planned on doing that route so we hiked in at sunrise and were back down to the cars before it was unbearable. And Maginot is shady early in the day. I also climbed on the upper tier in July. Again it was hot but we started early, did Going for Baroque, top roped P2 of Golden Rule (I think that was the one) and hiked back out.

And the falcon closure does not impact the areas of  Shortoff that you would climb.

Thanks all! Like Rob said, the plan is to go in very early June and climb and get an alpine start - that's why I was considering setting up camp at the base. If the hike in isn't too bad, I think we may just camp near the trail and drive / hike in early in the morning rather than hike all the gear in and out. If it looks like it's gonna be a real scorcher, we'll likely climb somewhere a little cooler. 

And thanks for the closure beta! I figured it shouldn't be a problem, but I wanted to make sure. 

I appreciate all the help! 

Honestly, if you are going to camp, I would carry your tent/hammock up on the mountain, waking up to an aesthetic view of the gorge. The gully isn't as straightforward as one may think. Looking at the gully, there is a trail that skirts the left side, take this trail down the gully until you have to make a little jump down into the gully itself. After around 100 feet you will have two options, take the 5th class descent over wet rock, or go right to the rappel tree(single rope rap). Go to the rappel tree.

Honestly, when I climbed little corner at shortoff in the 90’s.  I felt the crux was the descent down to the climb.  I would suggest camping above on the trail. 

One thing to note that I haven’t seen mentioned here is that if you’re camping in the gorge on the weekend in June you are required to get a permit.  If you’re going in June you need to reserve a permit now as it’s limited and first-come, first-served and reservations for June opened up yesterday.  They do hold 15 permits for “last minute” reservations that are released the Wednesday before the weekend at 10am.  Technically the parking lot is in the gorge, so you can be ticketed for car camping in the parking lot without a permit.

As far as the hike in, it’s 1’100’ of elevation gain over 1.5 miles to the descent gully, it’s not insignificant, but it’s not the worst approach.