LOCAL LEGEND // RYAN STEFIUK
RYAN ON THE FA OF KYBHT (M6R) // CATSKILLS, NEW YORK
RYAN STEFIUK is a guide, hard ice climber, first ascentionist, rock climber and all around great guy. Growing up in Westfield, New Jersey, Ryan learned at a young age he was an outdoorsmen. Racing bikes in high school slowly segued him into rock climbing at the Gunks with a fellow bike racer. His passion for the outdoors and studying Geology at St. Lawrence naturally led him to his career in guiding, where he travels all over the country and Canada. You can catch up with Ryan, his travels and guiding information as he blogs regularly on his website: bigfoot-
mountainguides.com, which get’s its namesake from his rather large size 16 feet.
6 climber MAGAZINEism |
DAVID: How was your winter season this year?
RYAN: It was good, but I am glad it’s over. I think there is something about winter climbing, for me at least, that is rewarding but a little more stressful at the same time. It could be the climbing but I think it’s just scarier.
DAVID: You put up a lot of new climbs in the Catskills this year right?
RYAN: We put up a lot of new climbs this year. It was exciting, I think we put, at one crag alone, three M8’s, two M7’s and one M6 with really bad gear. But we also put up some routes with no known recorded ascents that were more moderate mixed trad routes at another areas as well, probably half a dozen routes or so. We also found a whole new cliff in the Catskills that probably has fifteen to twenty moder-
ate to hard ice and mixed lines, it was a pretty nice find. We found it at the end of the season so we’ll have to see about next winter.
DAVID: Very cool, so do you think there are still a lot of climbing and cliffs to be found down there?
RYAN: Oh yea, I think a lot of the cliffs are in plain sight but are a little harder to get to and I think your average weekend warrior isn’t looking for that stuff. They’re b-lining for the closest and most accessible climbing they can get to.
DAVID: How did you get into climbing?
RYAN: I was pretty passionate about the outdoors at a young age. I started racing
JULY AUGUST 2011 |
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