30-Plus Years After Climbers Were Banned, a Historic Bouldering Area Reopens

Sitting by his wood-burning stove in Boone, North Carolina on a chilly November day with a cup of coffee, Joey Henson rewinds his memories of a place long lost to climbers. Some recollections are rusty. But his enthusiasm is not, even after a three-decade fight to save a climbing area he loves so dearly.

Hueco Tanks of the East

Howard Knob is a small mountain rising some 1,000 feet just north of Boone in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There, hundreds of bouldering problems on perfect black gneiss have sat unsent for some 32 years. But this is no backyard, middling bouldering patch—the area drew the likes of legends, including Royal Robbins, John Sherman, and John Gill. To this day, Howard is heralded as the Hueco Tanks of the East and the second best bouldering area in America.

Trouble dawned in 1993, when a Florida developer acquired much of the bouldering field stretching across the Knob. The Floridian built a large house and banned climbers. While the 5.7-acre Howard Knob County Park atop the hill is open to the public, most of the boulders lie across some 75 acres of surrounding private lands.

The fight for the Knob

When access fell, climbers swiftly assembled to save the area from development—and Joey Henson led the charge. To stop a bulldozing crew who had their property lines mixed up from cutting down a shagbark hickory tree and bulldozing a beloved boulder, Henson orchestrated a tree sit. Fresh off the Appalachian Trail, a 24-year-old conservation-minded local named Jeffrey Scott climbed the tree and remained there for what he estimates was 10 hours.

Building on the momentum of the tree sit, Henson and Scott rallied the community, drawing 1,000 people into the streets of Boone. In 1995, the pair established the Watauga Land Trust. Later, the trust evolved and merged with another organization to become what is today the Blue Ridge Conservancy. Scott, who calls Henson a mentor, even built a tiny shack on Henson’s land so they could spend day in, day out focused on the fight for Howard Knob. The efforts to save Howard Knob also spawned the legendary Triple Crown Bouldering Series as a fundraiser for that and more access work in the South.

A historic win

After finally raising enough funds to acquire 73 acres of these private bouldering lands, the Blue Ridge Conservancy officially bought Howard Knob on December 16. With the long-time support of Access Fund and the Carolina Climbers’ Coalition—another organization that rose from the fight for the Knob—the land is finally back in the hands of climbers and conservationists.

“Saving Howard Knob has been a top priority of Blue Ridge Conservancy since day one,” Eric Hiegl, the organization’s Senior Director of Land Protection and Conservation Planning. “It was the reason for our creation!”

Fresh off the Pacific Crest Trail, Scott received a voicemail from Hiegl that said, “Jeffrey, I think I see pigs flying in the sky.” Scott recalls thinking, “Oh shit, that can only mean one thing!” Scott, who remains friends with Henson to this day, reflects, “We were dreamers, but we put our values to work and did what we could.”

Stacking wins in the South

Howard Knob represents one of two major climber-led wins this fall in North Carolina, which “keeps secrets pretty well,” according to Daniel Dunn, Access Fund’s Eastern Regional Access Director. That’s not by choice, but by necessity. Ample private lands mean that access is often tenuous. Guidebooks are scarce, routes are strategically sandbagged, and the word is mum. But behind the scenes, climbing advocates in the state work tirelessly to protect these areas and secure public access.

The other win lies a little more than two hours southwest of Howard Knob. With the support of Access Fund, the Carolina Climbers’ Coalition acquired part of the crack-filled granite climbing area known as Ghost Town in early November. In another long-game deal 25 years in the making, climbers purchased the area known as Lower Ghost Town, consisting of over 16 acres in the Chimney Rock area just 30 minutes from Asheville.

Dunn chalks these Southeastern successes up to “consistent input” from climbers. “Continuing to chip away can lead to big wins,” Dunn says. He adds that the state of North Carolina has been investing significantly in the future of outdoor recreation—and climbers have positioned themselves as a legitimate recreation base. “A lot has changed in the past five years,” Dunn reflects. “We keep stacking wins.”

Slices of Howard Knob history with Joey Henson

In the immediate aftermath of the hard-won access victory in historic Howard Knob, we asked Henson to share some memories from the golden days of bouldering there, his fight to save the area, and the problem he plans to send first.

Henson’s early days at Howard Knob

I would go up there with my family to see the windmill that NASA put up there in the 70s. It messed up TV reception, so they took it down! The thing was too massive; it dwarfed the mountain. It was the size of a 747. I went up there as a kid and saw that. 

In college, we’d sit on the rocks and do what college kids do. Eventually, I started climbing them. Then I took a rock climbing class with rappelling and spelunking. Great instructor; he took us bouldering. That’s when I first realized bouldering was a sport. This was five years before the controversy started in 1993. The previous owner had given us permission [to be there]. 

The infamous tree sit: A climber in a tree

By the time they took out the chainsaw to cut the tree down, 20 or 30 people were on the rock beside it. I had run back to the office, called the phone network, and people went up to support Jeffrey [Scott] in the tree. 

Jeffrey had been a frat boy at the business school. He hiked the AT [Appalachian Trail] and became an environmentalist. He saw the Howard Knob thing, jumped in, and helped take it to the next level. I showed him how to double-back his harness and do a girth hitch as he went up the tree.

We were up there with a Camcorder filming it all. They [the people operating the bulldozer] pulled their guns out. People started saying, “They’re gonna shoot him out of the tree!” Jeffrey said, “Go ahead and shoot! I’m going to hide behind this hickory bark.” He called their bluff. 

Jeffrey sat in the tree until the bulldozer said they would stop. It was Friday at 5 p.m. anyway. The tree ended up getting bulldozed, but what it did do is get 1,000 people in the streets and a 22-person community board under our board of directors that consisted of a local congresswoman’s husband and many big outdoor industry store owners. Lots of millionaires all jumped on board once they saw the support of the 1,000 people in the street as the direct result of the tree sit. That led to $20,000 being raised by the community board to help the Knob.

What would I do differently? I would have gotten everybody to sit in every tree and never come down. 

“No stone ever breaks”

Boone is a rare area globally with four seasons and four rock types. Howard Knob contains the best example of amphibolite/horneblend gneiss—a very fine-graineed, steep, extremely solid, dark brown/black rock. 

Howard Knob has big holds on overhanging rock. But arêtes and dynos are the standout problems. It has the most dynos of any place in the country outside Hueco Tanks. Steep overhanging arêtes, pristine rock quality on every hold. No stone ever breaks. 

In 1993, we sent a stone to the Access Fund and they still have that piece of rock. It sat on Rick Thompson’s [a founding member of Access Fund] desk for years and helped save the Knob. It’s unique—fine grain black rock that’s hard to find. It’s perfect for bouldering, but especially perfect for beginner and intermediate. It’s more like an outdoor climbing gym. 

The unexpected namesake of Howard Knob

Benjamin Howard was a Revolutionary War guy. I think he was on the side of the British Crown. When the war started and they were rounding up soldiers, he hid in a cave that was just saved by the Blue Ridge Conservancy, 100 yards north of the park where the 75 acres is. 

Why Howard Knob is “a bit nebulous”

I’m curious to see how the new school gym climbers are gonna do at this area of giant dynamic moves. There are huge leaps up overhanging rock. Basically, Howard Knob was a bit nebulous. 

We were all basketball players and took weightlifting class. We did dumbbell jump squats just to get our vertical leap up. A lot of the problems are unrepeated up there. A lot of it was tall guy stuff. 

It will be real interesting to see what the new generation can do with this specific style with big moves on big holds. There are probably 20 to 30 unrepeated dynamic moves. I want to see them repeated. 

Why “everything is sandbagged”

There are hundreds of problems, a lot of V2 to V3. Everything was sandbagged. We used the earliest standards of the grades compared to the original V scale. 

We sandbagged Boone for access reasons. We didn’t want people coming here and getting their sponsorship based on a big photo. We sandbagged things so people wouldn’t come from out of town and take pictures and post them. 

Iconic (and buried) problems

On the best problem in Howard Knob: The Chain (V2) is the best boulder problem. It’s named after Chain Reaction (5.12c) in Oregon in Smith Rock. It was all over Climbing Magazine at the time in the `90s. John Sherman even wrote about that in Stone Crusade and Climbing Magazine.

On Henson’s favorite (and first) problem in the Knob: They buried the landing of the boulder and there’s a driveway there now. I plan on unburying the landing—three feet down and three feet out—and doing all the boulder problems again. It’s called The Opium Traverse—just a silly name. It’s the first boulder problem I ever put up. I have a personal connection to that boulder in particular. The sunny side in the winter—that was the place to be. 

Howard Knob Rock Ranch for sale

He [the developer Monte Green] built that house there. It’s for sale for $3 million. It would be the ultimate reversal to get that house and have it as like a rock ranch. Like a hostel. Or tear the thing down and give it to Habitat for Humanity or something. Get the front side back, too, right over the main overlook. I’m going to send it to the American Alpine Club. 

How it feels to win back Howard Knob over 30 years later

Incredibly crazy. Just ridiculous. Fantastic. Any word you can think of. It came full circle finally. Talk about the power of optimism. If we weren’t truly positive thinkers, the naysayers would have gotten the best of us. We had to plow through that dark force that tries to stop anything real good. No one ever saw me upset or disappointed. I was happy to wait. 

I’ll be 60 in a couple months. I’m feeling good. I’m training now. I just put up a new problem … it might be a V6! It’s unrepeated so far, for 24 hours now. 

The future of Howard Knob

With the acquisitions of Howard Knob and Lower Ghost Town, climbers in North Carolina and beyond may be wondering when they can get their hands on this long-untouched rock. The answer, in short, is not yet.

Access Fund and Carolina Climbers Coalition anticipates that Ghost Town will open to the public in late spring or summer of 2026, depending on how the winter goes. CCC is currently working on trail development. Howard Knob will open for climbing sometime next year, according to Access Fund. Currently, the Blue Ridge Conservancy and CCC are focused on building hiking and access trails in the area. Climbers can help support the Blue Ridge Conservancy’s purchase of Howard Knob here.

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