There are many places across the world for climbers to test their skills, and then there are those places where you only wish you could try. For one rea­son or anoth­er, these climbs were nev­er opened or shut down, and might nev­er see anoth­er bolt again. 

Hang­ing Rock
Aus­tralia
Hang­ing Rock in Aus­tralia has been closed down for decades due to acci­dents and what some believe are insur­ance issues. It’s the set­ting for the film, “Pic­nic at Hang­ing Rock” that detailed the strange dis­ap­pear­ance of four school­girls who were nev­er found. Many of the best climbs in the area are locat­ed direct­ly over heav­i­ly traf­ficked walk­ing paths mak­ing it dan­ger­ous to open the area to rock climbers, at least accord­ing to the man­age­ment com­mit­tee that han­dles the insur­ance for the area. We’re told that you can do a lit­tle bit of boul­der­ing if you walk to the sum­mit, but don’t expect any real routes to be avail­able to the pub­lic in the near future.

Spi­der Rock
Ari­zona
The area around Spi­der Rock, known as Canyon De Chelly, is actu­al­ly owned by the Nava­jo Nation and is under pro­tec­tion of the Nava­jo Trib­al Trust Land. Basi­cal­ly, there’s no get­ting on this rock any­time soon. The Nava­jo peo­ple con­sid­er Canyon De Chelly a sacred place and even ascend­ing the canyon walls by lad­der is pro­hib­it­ed. To even get into the canyon area you’re required to have a native guide escort you on foot or by horse­back.

Viñales
Cuba
Why exact­ly is Valle De Viñales in Cuba off-lim­its to climbers? Three words: Unesco World Her­itage. The moun­tains here are unique­ly formed in that they weren’t pushed up from the ground as most moun­tain ranges are but rather they were formed when every­thing else around them fell down. This unique­ness helps to qual­i­fy the area as a Unesco World Her­itage site. For rock climbers that means there is no legal access to the 500 foot over­hangs lit­tered with sta­lac­tites and chan­de­liers that make per­fect holds. What once was a top des­ti­na­tion in the world for climb­ing won’t be see­ing any ropes any­time soon, if ever.

Three Sis­ters
Aus­tralia
The Three Sis­ters was once a pop­u­lar climb­ing spot around Katoom­ba, Aus­tralia, but climb­ing has been banned there since 2000. One of the largest rea­sons for this is due to objec­tions by Abo­rig­ines like the Gun­dun­gur­ra and Darug tribes who claim that the The Three Sis­ters is sacred and should not be touched. Con­sid­er­ing that the area used to con­tain sev­en sis­ters, rather than just three, it doesn’t look good for prospec­tive climbers. Local autho­rizes, along with the tribesman, are ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing what is left of the stone spires.

Mokuleia
North Shore of O’ahu
We couldn’t put togeth­er this list with­out giv­ing a lit­tle hope to our climb­ing friends. O’ahu’s most pop­u­lar climb­ing spot, the wall at Mokuleia, was shut down in 2012 along with about half of the climbs on the island alto­geth­er. The climbs were shut down after a young girl suf­fered injuries from a fall and the leg­is­la­ture feared that law­suits could come due to climb­ing acci­dents. It’s still closed as of the writ­ing of this arti­cle, but it looks like it could be back open soon. Thanks to ded­i­cat­ed mem­bers of Hawaii’s climb­ing com­mu­ni­ty and local busi­ness own­ers there is a bill on the table that will may reopen the area.

Helder­berg Escarp­ment
John Boyd Thacher State Park, New York
The Helder­berg Escarp­ment has been on the dream list of many New Eng­land climbers since the ear­ly 1900s, but has always been banned. The cliffs pro­vide great views of the Hud­son Riv­er and the sur­round­ing fall foliage that blan­kets Albany in vibrant col­ors. It would also pro­vide some pret­ty gnarly climbs if we could touch it. That may change soon as cer­tain orga­ni­za­tions like Access Fund, the same group work­ing to restore climb­ing to Mokuleia, are work­ing with the local gov­ern­ment to pro­vide access to climbers. Run­ners, hik­ers and moun­tain bik­ers are all allowed, so why not rock climbers?