Michael Schneider

High Exposure, the hard way.

 

 

 

My earliest climbing experiences were at the Boston bouldering area Hammond Pond, and family trips around the north east.  I was taken to the boulders beyond the parking lot where I climbed up and then down anything I could not jump off of. My family trips to NH. CT. and Main were summer vacations and holiday outings. Being of Austrian heritage, climbing is in my blood. 

 

 My family moved from Lexington Mass to Summit NJ where I met the Groves; Jimmy, Michael and his cool, young, parents. Linda and Peter. . . Which led my conservative, older parents to rush me into private school as soon as The Pingry School would have me; the fourth grade.

 

The next year I was in the school musical, Oliver, with other students including Andrew McCarthy. Everyone tried out for the same role; The Artful Dodger. I met Tor Raubenheimer, Andrew McCarthy, who got the part, his first staring role. Tor and I went climbing with Fritz Wiessner and Hans Kraus.

 

During my early school days, before I went to Pingry, I had spent summers, weekends & holidays at a lakeside house on Green Pond a short boat trip across the lake from the cliffs.  My hosts the Grove brothers and I split our adventures between climbing, fishing and dodging rock salt aimed at us by the patrols at the Picatinney Arsenal.  My weekend climbing routine soon resumed, replacing Hammond Pond for the rock at Sealey’s pond in the Watchung Reservation. The rest of my free time was consumed by climbing at Skytop, the Mohonk Mountain House and along the Shawangunk ridge with the Raubenheimer's and their good friends including Paul Trappani, Kevin Bein, Fritz and Hans, as well as a host of others. 

 

Starting in the early 1970's I spent my youth searching for rock to climb.  My adventures took me on a rollercoaster ride that spanned a great period of rock climbing’s' growth.  From just after those early days at Green Pond with the Groves, I climbed with a still memorable group of climbers who met at the rock at  Sealeys Pond Park in the Watchung Reservation.  A gym like wall we called this dirty band of cliffs  "Watchung".  The name, taken from the exit sign on Route 22, back before there was a Route 78.  The eternal mutton chops of Doug Alcock and the fastidious Van Dike  beard of  Vic Benes  exemplified, the distance between these two vastly different influences who were responsible for bringing a constant cast of "adults" to the cliff to combat the sudden influx of us young kids. I was joined through out the 70's & 80's by such luminaries as Randy Wall, Jeff Gruenberg , Dana Hauser, Jack Meleski, the Kondraci and Schlauch brothers ... and others.  A Who's who of early "check this out “Victim/volunteer” first time belay slaves. Many of them would go on to become very strong climbers.