If you’ve never rock climbed on paint before, then Quincy Quarries takes some getting used to. Graffiti is everywhere, the routes are techy, the ratings are sandbagged, and the friction is…different. More than a few visiting climbers have left humbled.
Located minutes from Boston, climbers have been ascending the Quincy Quarries’ smooth granite walls since the 1920s. Back then, two of the nation’s leading climbers—Robert Underhill and Kenneth Henderson—were leading the charge, using the Quarries as a training ground for much bigger objectives in the Northeast and further afield. Underhill’s unpublished 1926 guidebook Rock Climbs Around Boston describes two routes: “One course of 150 feet, worth roping up for. One face climb, 120 feet, difficult and exposed.”