In October of 2021, choss wranglers Drew Herder and Ben Wilbur completed the first continuous ascent of the Great Wall of China, a 9,000-foot route that traverses the entire Trapps cliff band at the Shawangunks, and they’ve just released a hysterical documentary about their adventure. The team touched two or three holds on every single route on the Trapps wall, with thousands of feet of questing through untouched terrain in between. In a single 36-hour push, the team climbed for nearly two miles, completing what is likely the longest continuous rock route ever climbed. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t all splitter.

The Great Wall of China has only been climbed one other time by Gunks’ locals Ken Nichols and Dave Rosenstein in May 1987. During their traverse, Nichols and Rosenstein would climb until dark, lower to the ground, sleep at home, and return to their sideways high point at a later date and continue climbing. They completed the traverse over the course of several weekends, and left a surprisingly detailed pitch-by-pitch description for the 67 pitches they climbed. Nichols and Rosenstein originally graded the route 5.9R, but considering it includes 5.10+ R-rated downclimbing, the grade remains open to interpretation. The Great Wall of China really just follows two main rules: you cannot use the ground or GT ledge for forward progress. In 2011, Doug Ferguson got the second ascent, returning to the ground each night like the FA party.

The Great Wall of China has become something of a local legend in the Gunks, with a continuous push waiting for nearly 35 years for someone to complete it. One would assume that the party to attempt such a feat would be Gunks locals, seasoned veterans with a lifetime worth of Gunks’ knowledge, who’s climbing style is defined by the Gunks. Right?

Enter Colorado climbers Drew Herder and Ben Wilbur.

“Neither of us had ever been to the Gunks before,” Wilbur said. “The first route we ever climbed in the Gunks was the Great Wall of China. We traversed across every pitch, looking at all of these four and five star mega classic routes, wishing that we could touch more than just two holds as we traversed across. We blew our onsight for every single route in the Gunks.”

“I think we went in with so much ignorance that it benefitted us,” Herder said.

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Herder and Wilbur met in college at the University of Colorado Boulder, and have a six-year storied partnership of climbing choss heaps, sharing an affinity for obscure, esoteric adventures. When Herder decided he was going to attempt the traverse, he initially had another partner lined up, but was nearly sure the other guy was going to bail. “The whole time I was thinking, ‘Ben would be the perfect person for this,’” Herder said. When his partner did eventually bail, Wilbur got the call.

The team went light on gear, bringing a rack-and-a-half of cams and “some novelty pieces, just for fun,” as Herder put it. These novelty pieces included two monkey fists (a knot of cord on a sling) and a UFO (a seat belt knot). They simul-climbed the entire route, spacing the gear way out, and actually utilizing those novelty pieces more than one would think. “Those monkey fists were bomber as slings,” Herder said. “We’d climb such long pitches with so much rope drag and run out of slings, and those things were sweet to just girth hitch a tree and keep going.”

“Multiple times I used the UFO as an anchor,” Wilbur said. “I’d be totally out of gear and rig a hanging belay off a single seatbelt knot.”

“At one point I climbed under this lady’s rope who was wondering what the hell we were doing.” Herder recounted. “I placed a cam, then placed a monkey fist, climbed another ten feet and the cam popped out as she’s watching. I was like, ‘Well, at least I have the monkey fist.’”

Over those 36 hours, Herder and Wilbur crossed over a lot of other parties enjoying the vertical routes in the Gunks, many of whom were a bit befuddled by the haggard team moving horizontally across the wall.

“We were simuling with 50 feet of rope and no gear between us on totally garbage lichen, and an onlooking climber asked Drew if we were doing a guide course,” Wilbur said. “It’s like, ‘No dude, nothing we’re doing is anywhere even remotely close to AMGA approved.’”

Some local climbers knew the lore of the Great Wall of China and understood what these boys were doing, graciously letting them climb through and cheering them on. In fact, word traveled quickly on the ground and some of the parties they reached had already heard of the crazy guys doing the traverse.

Much of the route is between 15 and 50 feet off the ground, which offers both pros and cons. The positive is that the film crew that was following along with them could toss up snacks and water at basically any point. “We were calling it luxury big walling,” Herder said. “There is no other place where you could climb this amount of terrain and eat this many snacks.” They took a couple hour rest on a ledge overnight and the crew brought them up pizza; talk about deluxe.

The negative to climbing that close to the earth, however, is that you are looking at a ground fall basically the entire time.

Among the more hair raising moments on the traverse was crossing the Yellow Wall section of the Gunks. The Yellow Wall features steep and difficult climbs, most of them rated 5.11 or harder. The boys snaked their way through the Yellow Wall, picking out the easiest terrain as they went. Wilbur was leading and could hear Herder struggling behind him.

“Drew was cruxing,” Wilbur said. “It was one of the more terrifying moments. I led one of the harder sections and went around the corner and kept going. I didn’t have much gear in and I can just hear Drew power screaming from around the corner. I’m thinking, ‘Oh shit I gotta crimp for my life. If he falls off he’s taking both of us.’”

Turns out, Herder was hanging with one hand on a tiny crimp, trying to fiddle out a piece of gear. He would pump himself out, switch hands, shake out, try with the other hand, and repeat until he finally removed the piece, but his grip was giving out.

“I just had to fire to get to the arete and out of this steep, crimpy zone,” Herder said. “I was like, ‘Ok, I’m gonna fall, it’ll be ok. This was hard so I’m sure Ben put a piece in around the corner… but maybe he didn’t. I’m gonna try my hardest, it’s probably fine, I can probably fall, but I definitely shouldn’t.’”

Herder power-screamed his way through that difficult section, nearly sure that he was going to fall at each move, but luckily squeaked it out. “Finally I get to a good hold and hang on it, poke my head around the corner, and there is just one piece in 50 feet away,” Herder said. “The rope goes all the way to Ben and he’s still going. I would’ve taken a 50-foot pendulum into the talus.”

“I think we would’ve lived, but it would’ve been an unpleasant fall,” Wilbur mused.

While the majority of the climbing was pretty cruiser with the occasional hard, scary, unprotectable section, the most of it was “gross.” They estimated that 70% of the route was covered in huge, crunchy, and disgusting potato chip lichen. They’d often spend minutes digging lichen and dirt out of a crack to get down to bedrock and place a piece.

“I would recommend the traverse to any choss mongers out there,” Wilbur said. “It’s a must-do. If you like lichen, mandatory. Most lichen per pitch—ever. If you like good climbing, maybe not.”

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They anticipated the traverse taking three days. But by midway through the second day they were so sick of traversing and, with limited time in New York, really wanted to finish early so that they could climb some classic Gunks routes. Herder, who is diabetic, was getting low blood sugar and starting to bonk, but Wilbur had a fire in him.

“You’re gonna eat this bar and you’re coming with me,” Wilbur told his partner. “We’re simuling to the end.”

They made a heroic push to the finish line that second night, actually traversing further than the 67 pitches that Ken Nichols and Dave Rosenstein originally climbed. “We climbed the final pitch, and there was more mossy choss, and Ben was just super psyched that night and kept climbing for a couple more pitches,” Herder said, bringing the grand total to 69 pitches.

“We’re not going down just yet,” Wilbur said, “there’s more garbage over there.”

Watch the documentary here.