The Gunks Guide

I recently had the pleasure of having Nick guide my wife, nephew and myself. We were all first timers, all a bit nervous and in need of someone to spend a little bit more time with us to make us feel comfortable and confident in scrambling up the rocks. Nick was the perfect person for the job.
A short recap of his skills (found on his website) is truly impressive but doesn’t do justice to his extremely personable nature. He made all of us feel like we could accomplish greater feats than we could imagine and was great at keeping the mood light so we never got down on ourselves or felt intimidated. It’s extremely difficult to pick someone just based on a website (we don’t live in the immediate area, so we had no point of reference) but Nick is one of those rare examples when what you get far exceeds what you’ve read.
In a place like the Gunks, with so many climbs, I imagine it’s very easy to pick a climb that would either be too easy or too difficult. Nick led us on three climbs, but ones that were perfectly suited for our respective level of skill. We never felt overwhelmed and were challenged nicely the entire time.
Our half day session lasted almost a full hour longer than we thought but Nick didn’t charge us one cent more for his time. And if it had ended sooner I still would have felt that we got a tremendous deal for the price we paid.
I would recommend him without hestitation to other first time climbers in the area and I fully plan on relying on his expertise again in the future.

Nick Farley is the man. He is the Gunks Guide.
I told myself after my last trip to NYC a couple of years ago that I would climb in the Gunks on my next trip. The Mohonk Preserve is home to world class trad climbing and it’s only a hour of two away from the port authority terminal in NYC. Since it wasn’t a climbing trip, and I’m rusty as hell anyway, I wasn’t too stoked to schlep my rack and rope, find a sitter, rope up the wife and try to find and then stay on route in a new (to me) climbing area. After trying to find a potential partner on Unilocal NYC talk and a couple of meetup groups, I saw the wisdom of hedging my bet and hiring a guide for the day.
In addition to leading three single pitch routes (one a whopping 190 feet) and a couple TRs, Nick took the time to demonstrate the rigging of the Munter and Munter Mule anchor escape techniques– fundamental rescue skills that few climbers know. This was the one thing that I really wanted to get out of my special day with a guide.
It was a brutally hot day that we went out, and neither of us were too keen to knock out a record number of climbs, so we went swimming at Split Rock swimmin hole near by. Nick met me at the bus station and took me back there after the swim (by way of a few pints at some local tavern).
I can heartily endorse the Gunks Guide for an instructional day on the rock for anyone, Nick is safe and I think that he would be a great teacher for anyone who wants to learn the ropes…
$ 285 bring your own lunch is a pretty big bite to swallow for this one time dirt bag climber. –1*