Ableman Gorge Guidebook

A friend of mine took me hiking in Ablemans back in 2018 and told me people used to climb there a lot back in the 90s. Especially focused on the tall wall with an overhang across the top. He mentioned there used be a small guide for the area. Does anyone know/have the guide? Would be a cool piece of history to uncover

Climbed there a couple of times in the mid-60s. Never heard of a guidebook and it has been my understanding that the Gorge, or much of it, had been off-limits to climbing for a long time.

For what it's worth, my very old, so not trustworthy, memory, is that we climbed a couple of routes on the right ( if coming from the Baraboo direction) side of the road, and close to it, that had a sandstone base with quartzite above. We also did a longer route in a 'fin-like' buttress on the other side of the road. None of them were hard.

It's a State Natural Area, so climbing is prohibited. 

  dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/sta…

Roped climbing is prohibited... you can legally boulder in WI SNA's.  It's sad because there is one really great buttress of rock there up above and across the road from Van Hise Rock that is fantastic, steep, and challenging climbing.. The buttress I speak of is a natural rock formation but most of the rest of the gorge is left over walls from quarry operations.  This fact has always perplexed me because its mostly man-made and not the result of natural earthly processes, yet it has been made a SNA?

It became a State Natural Area in 1969 and was closed to roped climbing in 2000 as part of the DNR's arbitrary ban on roped climbing in SNAs.

There have been two guidebooks written for Abelman's Gorge.

The first was written by Bill Dietrich.  He and fellow CMCers (including Pete Cleveland) explored the natural rock faces from the dynamite shack north pretty thoroughly and wrote a lot of it down.  Their exploration included the cliffs to the east of the Baraboo River which are owned by the University of Wisconsin.  There is apparently a nice route put up by Magic Ed over there.  The UW prohibits climbing there - I'm not sure when that happened.

A guide to dry-tooling routes was written in the 2010s.  There are actually a few bolted dry-tooling lines in the quarried part of the property, but most of the dry-tooling is on the natural rock faces.  The rock is so solid, you can't tell they were dry-tooled.  There are also some undocumented trad routes on the quarried walls (Hoofers, sometime in the 2000s), and there was some aid climbing in the "more recently" quarried part of the property in the 80s or 90s (also Hoofers).

In the early 90s the DNR closed the quarried area to all public entry after a couple of accidents and suicide attempts.  There was a fence that stretched across the whole area.  I'm not sure precisely when they decided to reopen it and put in the trail and benches - probably at the request of geology professors (it's popular and famous for geology field trips) and the locals.

Very interesting information!!!! I'd love to see those guidebooks, particularly the earlier one. As best as I can remember, our climbs there were in the spring of 1967, so before the closure---though back then we really weren't paying attention to such things as land ownership, unless it was specifically and obviously posted as 'no trespassing'.

One of my climbs there is particularly memorable, as we traversed in above a steeper lower section and I set up a hanging belay. My partner then proceeded to fall off leading the next pitch before he got in any pro, so I caught his ( factor 2, is it??) fall with a waist belay---very exciting!!!! We 'recouped' and finished the route, though don't recall which one of us ended up leading that second pitch.

Doug Hemkenwrote:

The first was written by Bill Dietrich.  He and fellow CMCers (including Pete Cleveland) explored the natural rock faces from the dynamite shack north pretty thoroughly and wrote a lot of it down.  Their exploration included the cliffs to the east of the Baraboo River which are owned by the University of Wisconsin.  There is apparently a nice route put up by Magic Ed over there.  The UW prohibits climbing there - I'm not sure when that happened.

Awesome Doug, that was the one I was referring to. Is there copies of it anywhere, physically or online? I live on Ableman road and hike the gorge often. Having that historical information documented is important for the community and I would love to see what the old generations were up too

I will try to dig that out in the next week, and post it publicly.

Scott Stewart and the Madison crew (Jim Erickson?) climbed three aid routes on the south-facing (north side) wall about or before the early 80's.
Shorter thin crack near the right edge (A2), seam and hooking in the middle (A3), blocky big corner to the left (A? F?).
Rock was blasted and flakey and super sharp. Suitable for pins. There was also some easy ice in there too. 

Minty Alpinistwrote:

Scott Stewart and the Madison crew (Jim Erickson?) climbed three aid routes on the south-facing (north side) wall about or before the early 80's.
Shorter thin crack near the right edge (A2), seam and hooking in the middle (A3), blocky big corner to the left (A? F?).
Rock was blasted and flakey and super sharp. Suitable for pins. There was also some easy ice in there too. 

I've seen ice across the road, on the private quarry land.

I wonder if these are the same routes Kohlman told me about - he mentioned them in the early 90s, but they had been climbed earlier?

North side wall:  of the most recently quarried part?  That's what always catches my eye.

The quarry operations released water over the west facing slope just right and above the RR trestle and created a pretty long Grade 3 ice route one year (don't remember which but in the 2010's).  Had to climb i t when we saw it but SHHH.. that slope in on the private quarry land.

North side wall of the most recently quarried part?  That's what always catches my eye."

When I was young, zealous, and stuck in WI (and several other unflattering adjectives) that wall was incredible. These days I would recommend traveling instead.
You know how the 'Boo Quartzite doesn't weather hardly at all? I imagine that the blasted razor sharp edges we ran into are still there and will be for generations. 

Minty Alpinistwrote:

Scott Stewart and the Madison crew (Jim Erickson?) climbed three aid routes on the south-facing (north side) wall about or before the early 80's.
Shorter thin crack near the right edge (A2), seam and hooking in the middle (A3), blocky big corner to the left (A? F?).
Rock was blasted and flakey and super sharp. Suitable for pins. There was also some easy ice in there too. 

If those routes were climbed by Scott Stewart and, possibly the Ericksons,that would almost definitely have occurred in the late '60s, as I am pretty sure that they had all moved away from the area by the '70s.

@Alan - It could have been that far back.
Maybe Kurt Krueger instead of one of the Erikson's?
I knew those old guys did some impressive stuff but, at the time, I didn't pay much attention to exactly when they did it. 

Scott drew me a "topo" and loaned me a bunch of pins and a hammer out of a old green army duffle bag in the basement of his home on the west side of Madison.
That was not any earlier than 1983. 

Doug Hemken, any chance you were able to track down your guidebook to share?