Zachary Lesch-Huie eyes a rock corridor at Hell’s Kitchen. The Access Fund and SCC partnered to purchase the property to open additional bouldering areas in the region. Cody Roney remembers the Southeastern Climbers Coalition’s acquisition of Hospital Boulders as a particularly difficult one.
The farmer who owned the 39-acre property in Gadsden, Alabama, was not especially “climber-friendly,” she recalls, and he did not take kindly to those who had, for years, been sneaking onto the premises to steal a moment on its high-quality sandstone.
“You were pretty afraid to run into him,” admits Roney, SCC’s executive director. “He didn’t like people being out there, and that property went up for sale.”
True to its mission of preserving climbing areas for future generations, SCC began to fundraise in order to purchase the boulder-strewn property at auction. After being outbid on its first attempt – but succeeding when the land miraculously returned to the market five years later – the organization finally seized ownership in 2012.
Despite the lasting tension, SCC members invited the farmer and his family out to Hospital Boulders’ grand opening celebration soon after, and were astonished to see how quickly his attitude toward them changed throughout the event.