The Bow Hunter

Once upon a time in 2012, I was visiting Sandstone for my second or third time with two buddies. One of them had never been there, the other had been a few times with climbers who regularly went there. The latter gentleman was driving. He parked in front of the locked gate at the end of the dirt road that now, in 2014, is open to the climbing community. At the time, this was still private land.

We hiked down to the boulders, spent the day climbing, and returned to his car to find a massive truck parked inches from his bumper. We were blocked in. We called out for a while and several minutes later, a man in camouflage and blaze orange approached us from the woods. He carried in his hand, a bow.

The hunter was not happy that we were there and proceeded to tell us that he had permission from the land owners to hunt there and that we were not allowed. We explained that it was our understanding that climbers had verbal permission from the owner to be there, but if we were wrong about that, we would not return. In this conversation, the hunter said the land was for sale and that he would buy it and not allow climbers to return.

He drove off and we made our way back down the road worried about what had just happened. I reached out to the MCA about the situation and a series of events was set into motion. In 2013, the climbing community banded together, worked with the non-profit Parks & Trails Council of MN, and helped PTCM purchase the land preserving climbers access.

If we had not run into that hunter that day, if he had not been so angry and threatened us with the idea of purchasing the land for himself, what a different story it might have been.

In the fall of 2013, I began exploring Eldon on my own looking for things that seemed unclimbed. This problem was my first attempt at developing something in this area.

In honor of that man, it is named The Bow Hunter.

Sit start on crimps below the roof, work up to the base of the left side of the roof, use crimps to work out to the nose, then mount that sucker. Good luck and watch your landing.

Climbers right of warm up wall, up the hill

Pads, spotter